The classic phrase “You sank my Battleship!” gets a Cubist spin in the Dazzleship Battleships game from Laurence King Publishing Ltd. Designed for players ages 6 and up, the game draws inspiration from dazzle camouflage, an innovation made popular in World War I that saw Allied ships painted in geometric patterns of contrasting colours. This bold form of camouflage was designed to confuse the tracking capabilities of an enemy and make the ship a more difficult target.
Dazzleship Battleships replaces the original guessing game’s plastic board and peg setup with two brightly coloured 64-page map-and-grid notebooks. Instead of laying out their fleet using plastic ships, players position their ships on paper-based nautical maps. Every page in the map-and-grid notebooks sports a unique design and includes islands and land masses, a design wrinkle that adds to the complexity of the game.
Dazzleship Battleships checks in at $15.99 USD. In addition to the two notebooks, the game also comes with a 16-page booklet that explains the history of dazzle ships. Everything is packaged in a woodcut box that features a dazzle-painted ship on the cover.
