Spice Winds is a card game, where the cards, and the whole table become the board. Players play ship captains and traders in a wild and hardly explored archipelago, exploring and trading between the islands, trying to make their fortunes.
The game is made up from a custom card deck:
Some cards are scattered on the playing surface and become the islands to trade between.
Some form an event deck - controlling random events that may beset players journeying between islands
Others form a marketplace that is used to control the price of goods throughout the game
The remainder are used to record player wealth, ships' cargo or provide player information and determine other events through the game.
Players seek to generate wealth through trade, and convert this into stockpiles of spices ready to ship back to the Old World. The first to amass a stockpile of 5 chests of spice is the winner.