Board Gaming - Forbidden Island
Forbidden Island
In this cooperative game you and your companions find yourself on an island that is sinking, and you have to collect 4 artefacts before getting to the landing pad and safety.
The starting setup of our game. We were pretty lucky with people getting dealt pairs, as well as the starting sinking tiles
We decided to play on one of the easiest difficulties, which determines how many cards you turn over each turn. Turning over cards is the mechanic that leads to the island sinking. The deck consists of 1 card for each location. There is also a draw deck that contains cards of the 4 artefacts, some special action cards, and some 'waters rise' cards, which sometimes lead to drawing more cards on subsequent turns. It also shuffles the discard pile of the location deck and puts it back on top of the remaining deck, so all those locations that are sinking are going to come up again before any others.
The problem with that is that if they come up while they're already sinking, they sink and the location is no longer available. (You discard the tile and it's card to the box). As more locations sink, the deck thins out, but the island gets more unstable and difficult to navigate around.
This all sounds really depressing and difficult, so to help you and your companions out, each of you have a special ability related to the character role. I was the pilot in our game, which allowed me once a turn to fly to any location, rather than only being able to move to an adjacent (orthogonal) location. One of our other characters wasn't restricted by orthogonal directions. Asides from moving, you can also sandbag a location that's sinking, returning it to being dry until it comes up again.
The last couple of actions you have are related to the cards that you draw each turn. One allows you to pass a card to another character at your location. The other lets you pick up an artefact. To do that you need a set of 4 of the same artefact and be on one of the 2 locations related to that artefact.
The game runs until either the island sinks, the waters rising chart reaches the top, or you all get to "Fool's Landing" and escape. On your turn you do 4 actions, draw 2 cards, and then turn over the required amount of locations.
Even with the excellent start we had, and the low difficulty setting, we only just won
The game doesn't take too long, and can be exceptionally short if you get a bad start. The longest games will be where your wins happen though. If it's short, chances are it's because you lost access to an artefact really early, or fool's landing was sunk or isolated.
If you like cooperative games, and losing a lot, then this is probably a game worth trying.
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That sounds as hard or possibly harder than Shadows Over Camelot, which when we do play we either lose or only barely beat XD
Quite possibly, especially on any of the harder difficulties. On the plus side, it's listed as "30 minutes", so even a tough loss isn't your entire evening
Ahh SOC is like 1hr or more x_x
yeah. It's a good game, but it's in a completely different time category to this.
I loved how you sold it to us in the end:
If you like cooperative games, and losing a lot, then this is probably a game worth trying.
:D
At one of the evenings before the gaming group I attend lost access to it's library, a group of us played about 5 games of the sequel to this (Forbidden Desert) in a row. All on the maximum difficulty. They were all losses, with the longest game being about 10 minutes. One of them we lost in a single round.
These games are maybe 60-65% win on the easiest difficulty, and if as you increase the difficulty, the ability to not lose through better cooperation becomes much smaller. On the toughest difficulty you need perfect cooperation and a lot of luck, so I think it's an accurate way of selling it.
I've won this more than I've lost, but I've also only played on the lowest 2 difficulties. Forbidden Desert however, I've lost a lot more and this feels just as likely to be losses
Ratticus, I did not understand your response other than there’s a lot of losing, but it must be fun, because you’re still playing!
On a more serious note, a game that forces cooperation to succeed can’t be a bad thing. It’s through games (of all forms) and seeing the tantrums of grown adults that reminds me some need to learn to lose or cooperate more...