“Stop!! … Engineer, are we clear? … good. Firing torpedo at B9.

……

“That’s a direct hit.”

Sounds a bit like Battleship™, doesn’t it? Captain Sonar is like that game grew up. Pilot your submarine around a map and see if you can figure out where the enemy sub is and blow it out of the water.

The catch? Eight of you are doing this on two teams in real time.

Here are the specs:

Name: Captain Sonar

Players: 2-8, but it works at its absolute best at exactly 8.

Time: 45 minutes per game and 15-20 minutes of rule explanation.

Ease of Play: 3

Ease of explanation: 4

Cost: $44-$55 ($44.99 as of 11/16/18 on Amazon)

Theological parallels: Two very strong examples, many more tangential ones.

This is easily the most complicated game out of all the ones I’ve written about so far. But I think it’s worth it because of both the level of cooperation and competitiveness that it brings to the table.

Captain Sonar is played best with eight players. That’s because the real-time element only works when you have exactly eight people. Players are divided into teams of four and given the opportunity to name their submarine. A special screen is placed in between the two teams to avoid cheating, and then comes the explanation.

It can be daunting when the rule explanation needs its own explanation… but, hear me out. You should adopt the language below to your own words so that the students and adults have a clear idea of what’s going on.

Lay out the four player mats (radio operator, captain, first mate, and engineer, in that order and so that each role is directly across from the same one; one left to right, one right to left). Note that the maps have columns, rows, and sectors. The column is vertical, the row is horizontal, and the sectors are the 9 boxes that make up the map.

The players win by doing four damage to the opponent’s submarine, causing it to blow up and sink into the murky depths. Each player will take on a role in the submarine. In order to win, they have to listen to and communicate clearly with each other.

The first role to explain is the Captain. Each team’s captain pilots the submarine around the map and decides when to fire torpedos, lay mines, search for the opponent’s sub, or sneak away silently. The captain will call out in a loud voice: “Head (direction)!” Either north, south, east, or west. Each time the captain moves, she waits for verbal confirmation in the form of an “OK” that the first mate and engineer have done their duties, then can call out another direction. The captain also calls “Stop” during the game when they want to take one of the actions listed above and below under the “first mate” section. In some cases, the captain may call for a “surface” to avoid damaging the submarine… we’ll get to that later.

The second role to explain is the radio operator, who’s entire job is to track the opposing submarine. The radio operator sits next to their team captain and draws lines connecting dots in the direction the opposing captain shouts. So if the opposing captain shouts “head east!” Then the radio operator draws a line connecting two dots from right to left. The thing is, no one knows where the opposing submarine started… which is why they have a movable screen to try and identify to where a captain is moving. Captains cannot go back over their line (a la “snake”) nor can they pass through islands. So, after a few moves, it gets easier to track the enemy sub. They also track mines and sonar, but of course, that becomes complicated by the following role…

The first mate! The FM’s job is to track the systems usable by the captain. There are 3 systems that have 2 actions each: Torpedo and mine in the weapon system, drone and sonar in the radar system, and silence in the unique system. For your first game, you won’t need the “scenario” system, so ignore it for now. These systems allow you to locate and annihalate the opposing sub… and can even help you slip away undetected. The first mate “charges” the actions by placing a dash on the white boxes that surround it each time the captain shouts out a direction. If the captain says “Head West!” Then the first mate chooses one action, places a dash in the white box, and says “OK”. That “OK” is extremely important, as it is the only way a captain can continue giving directions.

Torpedoes can ONLY be shot up to 4 dots away from the sub’s location, so you’ll need to get in close to take a shot. In order to torpedo, the captain calls “STOP!” and then declares to what coordinate torpedo is launched. If it hits the opposing sub directly, then 2 damage is done to the opposing sub. If it hits any dot one away from the sub, it’s an indirect hit that deals 1 damage. If it hits 2 dots away or further, it is a miss. The sub only has four damage before it explodes, so this can be devastating.

The mines are similar, but can only be laid within one dot of your own submarine, and cannot be placed from where you just moved. After they are laid, they can be detonated at any time by the captain who calls “stop” and declares that a mine detonates at a coordinate.

A “drone” is a probe to see what sector a submarine is in. A sector is the faded number behind a particular square of dots. The captain calls “stop” and announces a sector, and if the opposing submarine is in that sector they tell them so truthfully. They cannot lie.

If the captain calls a “stop” and declares “Sonar”, then the opposing captain tells them something true and sometime false about their location. So if the submarine is in A3, sector one, they can say they are in sector 3 row 12. Since the opposing radio operator may not be positive where they are, they try to determine which one is the truth!

If a captain calls a stop and issues a “silence” order, then the submarine may move up to four dots in any direction, other than the one they just came from, and they do not have to inform the opposing team… just their own! But the engineer still has to break a system… which leads me to:

The Engineer! Now, this last role is extremely important. Because of the dangerous materials the submarine uses as power, the submarine has the tendency to break. The engineer’s job is to mark an “X” over a system every time the captain calls out a direction. So when the captain says “head north!” The engineer must break a system in the box labeled north and then say “OK”.

You will notice some of the boxes are connected by lines. The yellow, orange, and grey lines are circuits. If you manage to break all four systems in a circuit, the submarine “auto-repairs” and you can erase all those “X”’s you placed on them. If you “X” off all the radioactive symbols, your sub takes a damage and you erase all the “X”’s. If you break all the symbols in one cardinal direction, the sub takes a damage and you erase all the “X”’s. If a system has an “X” over it, that system cannot be used by the captain (with the exception of detonating a mine). There is a way to avoid damage, but it alerts the opposing team where you may be… surfacing.

To surface, the captain calls out “surface!” And the submarine crests to repair while the captain tells the opposing team what sector they are in. During this time, a little mini-game starts. The engineer starts by drawing a line around one of the four areas of the submarine on his player mat. No one may touch the inner working of the sub or go outside the line with their pen, or they’ll have to start over. Once they trace a line around one section, they write their initials in the machinery inside and pass it to the first mate. The first mate traces around a different section, then initials and passes to the captain, then to the radio operator, both following the same rules. All the while, THE OPPOSING TEAM NEVER STOPS! Since the game is played in real time, the opposing team is still calling out directions and closing in. Once all four crew members have traced and initialed, the engineer gets the mat back and shows it to the opposing engineer, who approves that they have not drawn inside the sub or outside the lines, and play continues as normal, with the surfacing sub now erasing all of its damage AND ALL OF ITS PREVIOUS TRAIL! The captain can erase the path they followed to get where they are now surfaced and is free to travel anywhere on the map. This is important for the opposing radio operator to know as well.

Finally, THERE ARE NO TURNS. This is all happening simultaneously, so captains must be aware that their voices need to be heard by the radio operator amidst the chaos.

And those are all the rules.

The game starts by having the captains choose a starting location, and once picked, looking at each other and saying “Dive!” together. Play continues until one sub takes 4 damage, who then loses the game.

Captain Sonar has a ton of replay value. I’ve played it probably 20 times and every time has been as fun as the first. Students have a hard time getting through the rules at first, but once you play it with them they love it! You can potentially teach the rules by playing a few turns without the real time element, which makes it easier and more fun for students to learn anyway (it’s how I teach it).

It also has amazing theological parallels. This is a perfect way to talk about spiritual gifts. Not everyone can be a great captain, just like not everyone has amazing leadership skills. But, as the Spirit has gifted us in different areas, we embrace that others can do what we can’t and we can do what others can’t, and that is a good thing! I debrief this game with the students and ask them to talk about their experience and then relate it to spiritual gifts, or even styles of work and leadership. It also goes well with a discussion about the body of Christ, how we are many members with many purposes.

We also used this game at a staff retreat that was met with positive feedback and went perfectly along with our Birkman personality inventories!

I highly recommend this game, especially for a small youth group, because they will want to play it again and again. You can keep score and even have tournaments with different teams! It’s a little pricey and complicated, but well worth the money spent on it! Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Buy Captain Sonar on Amazon!