STORY
Redhook's Revenge is an arcade board game that was made by ImagiSOFT in 1993. The game is a mixture of Pirates, Trivial Pursuit, and Monopoly and is very addictive. 

You must travel through the Caribbean, looking for treasure. You can get treasure by raiding towns and attacking other players, finding treasure, or answering a question correctly. Your opponent(s) are doing the same. The aim is to have the most treasure at the end. 

Depending on which space you land in, a number of things can happen. 

You frequently have to answer multiple-choice questions about the history of the Caribbean, pirates and pirate stories. If you get the question right, you get some pirate goodies. Even if you don't know the correct answer, it's fun to make a guess. 

You have to cope with disasters such as crewmen falling asleep, getting lost in a fog, termites eating your wooden leg(!), and a few others. However, you can't have disasters without being rewarded at times. Rewards are things like finding treasure, looting Galleons, finding Blackbeard's parrot and more.

You might be offered a treasure map, and it is up to you if you want to buy it or not. The map shows the location of treasure, but it might be fake. 

If you land on the same space as another player, you are asked if you want to fight for the space. The battle outcome is decided by the roll of a dice. If you loose the battle, the other player gets up to half of your treasure.

GAMEPLAY
You start with the player selection screen. Choose which pirate you want to play as, and then decide on your opponents. The game needs between 2 and 5 players, and you can choose to play against the computer or play against friends.

Options are shown down the right (Booty, Help, Load, Save, New, Quit), and you can either click on these buttons or press the relevant Function Key. Booty is your inventory, where you can see how much food, water, cannons, treasure maps, insurance cards (lets you avoid a disaster), compasses (navigating in thick fog), etc you have. Roll the dice by either pressing the Space Bar, or clicking on the button at the top. The top right shows the pirate who is currently playing.

Each pirate takes his turn. Combat and movement are controlled by rolling a dice.  When raiding a town or attacking an opponent, you get to roll a dice for each cannon you have. The more cannons you have, the better your chances of winning are.  Sometimes you are given the choice of going in 2 different directions. 

Rewards and disasters are a big part of this game. You could lose at least one turn, or you could get swept forward at least one space. You always start at the bottom left, and have to make your way to the top right. 

GRAPHICS
The graphics are nice and colourful. The pirates' heads are well animated, and they change expression (happy or angry) depending on what is happening.  Their lips also move as they talk. The ships move very smoothly over the water. The map is shown as a scroll, which I think is a nice touch.   

MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS
The sound is not that great. During every turn, you hear either some pirate music, or a fanfare. You can also hear the dice being thrown. The pirates' speech is shown as text; although Blackbeard is the only pirate you can actually hear as well.

REPLAYABILITY
The replayability in this game is excellent. Your fate is controlled by the roll of a dice, so no 2 games are exactly the same. It is fun to use different pirates - sometimes against the computer and sometimes against other friends.

COMPATIBILTY
The game works fine under DosBox or VDM Sound.
It also works under Windows XP, but with no sound.

TECHNICAL NOTES
The game comes as a self-extracting file. Double-click to open, and use the password Swords (capital S is important) when prompted.

DO NOT use the Setup file. Instead, use REDHOOK.EXE to start the game. 

SUMMARY
This is an excellent game either playing on your own or playing with friends. The questions are interesting, as well as educational. The rewards \ disasters are very amusing, and the graphics are nice and colourful. This is a lovely 'fun' game, which I highly recommend.