Forbidden Island

Forbidden Island drops you and up to three other players onto a seemingly paradise isle in the search for treasures that supposedly can controls the elements. But beware! The island does not want such relics to fall into your hands – it’s constantly sinking in attempt to thwart you. In this co-operative game, you and your team must work together to grab all four treasures before sprinting to Fool’s Landing, where you’ll fly off into the sunset.

The Forbidden Island itself is made up of 24 square location cards, which you’ll shuffle and arrange into a diamond, of sorts (meaning you’re getting a modular board set-up every time, which is great for replay-ability). There’s a Flood Deck of cards and a set number are revealed each turn, determining which part of the island has now become (partially or totally) flooded. There are also Treasure Cards belonging to each of the four sacred objects, and players have to acquire four of a kind (in a kind of hand-management, set-collection fashion) in order to claim the matching treasure.

Players will each get a pawn that starts on the island, and on their turn it becomes an action point allowance system, where they can take up to three actions of the following options: move to an adjacent tile, flip partially flooded tiles back to their ‘land’ side, give a Treasure Card to a fellow player, or capture a treasure at a specific location, itself. At the end of their turn, the active player will gain two Treasure Cards and then wince as they reveal cards from the Flood Deck to see what’s flooded…

If a Waters Rise! card is revealed from the Flood Deck, a corresponding Water Level marker rises (which means more cards per turn will have to be revealed), and the current discard pile of Flood Cards is shuffled and then placed on top of the remaining Flood Deck.

This is all sounding a bit Pandemic, isn’t it? And you’d be right to think so – Forbidden Island is also designed by Matt Leacock, and he’s mirrored many of the fantastic mechanics from his other hugely popular co-operative game and translated them into a simpler format.

The characters have asymmetrical player powers – just like in Pandemic – and there are various ways in which you can lose the game: if one team member is on a totally flooded tile and cannot swim to safety, if the Treasure tiles sink before you’ve claimed them, if Fool’s Landing totally sinks, or if the Water Level reaches the top.