Nige had arrived by this time so I dug out Oltremare, which was one of the highlights of Essen for some people, who described it as a big-box game in tiny packaging. It was designed by Emanuele Ornella and published by an Italian company, Mind The Move.

Oltremare is a card game which comes with a small four-piece board showing the Mediterranean region and a number of ports. There are a number of elements to the game and scoring but it is essentially a set-collecting game. The cards serve multiple purposes and determine: the number of cards you must play each turn; your hand limit; certain actions you carry out on playing the card (such as gold received, number of cards to be drawn at the end of your turn, pirates encountered and movement points around the map); as well as a type of good for set collection. Trading also is permitted and rewards the person involved in the trade with influence points which can bring in additional cash part way through and at the end of the game. Whoever accumulates the most points from card sets, cash in hand, harbour markers collected and run into the fewest pirates wins the game.

We enjoyed the game quite a lot, although it took a while to get into what we were doing. Nige amassed lots of card sets but in doing so attracted a fair number of pirates. This proved to be vital as I avoided the pirates and also picked up a bonus for most harbour markers, meaning I beat him by just two points. This is one we must play again now everyone knows what they are doing. There is quite a lot going on in the game but it fits together quite nicely.