Forbidden Island Board Game Review

Board games have always been a big part of family life for me. They bring families together and are a lot of fun. A friend of ours hosts the most amazing games nights, so when she recommended we get Forbidden Island, we knew it was going to be a great game!

The Archeans, an ancient an mystical peoples possessed four sacred treasures that gave them the ability to control the Earth’s core elements – fire, wind, water and earth. Fearful of what would happen should they fall into the wrong hands, the Archeans hid the four treasures on Forbidden Island. The island that, until now has remained hidden, was designed to sink if intruders attempted to claim the Earths’ core treasures. You have one chance to claim the four treasures and escape the island alive, before it sinks forever.

Forbidden Island is different from your typical board game in a couple of ways. My favourite is that you play the game as a team, you against the island. This is great for team building and makes the game perfect for those who get overly competitive. The other difference is that board is created using Island tiles, which then disappear during the game. 

The aim of the game, is to work as a team to capture the four treasure pieces and escape Forbidden Island before it sinks. 

Forbidden Island is a complex game. I’ve tried to explain the basics without they post getting too long. It sounds complicated, but it isn’t when you take it step by step. And don’t worry, you’re working as a team to escape the island, so if you start playing and get confused, your team mates will help you. After all, it’s in their best interests too!

Forbidden Island is a game for four players. We’ve played it with six people before, split into three teams. Before the game begins, each player (or team) randomly chooses an Adventurer Card. There are six adventurer cards in total. Each one gives the player (or team) a different special power. For example, once per turn, the Pilot is able to “fly to any tile on the island for one action.” Some of the Adventurer Cards are more helpful than others. I really like that no game has all Adventurer Cards in play and that you never know which combination of Adventurers you’ll be playing with.

The board is set up using the Island tiles. There are a number of different layouts that you can play with, which can be found on Board Game Geek. Sounds simple? There’s a twist! Before you start playing, you have to flood six tiles on the board. How do you know which tiles to flood? The blue cards are your Flood Cards. These tell you which tiles need to be turned over so that they show as ‘blue’ and are flooded. If a Flood Card is drawn when its respective Island Tile is blue, the tile is lot forever. This can make getting round the board to collect the treasure harder.

Before you start playing Forbidden Island, each player receives two treasure cards. These are the cards that you need to collect in order to capture the treasure and escape the island. The aim is to collect four of the same treasure cards and then move to a treasure square to claim the treasure. This can be done by collecting treasure cards, or delivering and receiving cards from other players. The catch? You can only hold five treasure cards at a time.

Before your start playing Forbidden Island, you decide on the water level. The higher you start, the more flooded the island and the harder it is to escape.

So now you know what you’re trying to do, but how do you do it?

On the back of each Adventurer Card, is an ‘Order Of Play’ and an ‘Actions’ section.

The ‘Order Of Play’ reads as follows:

1. Take up to 3 Actions

2. Draw two treasure cards

3. Draw Flood cards equal to the water level

Great! But what are the Actions? You can move to an adjacent tile. You can shore up an adjacent tile (turn a flooded tile over). If you’re on the same tile as another player, you can give them a treasure card. Yo can also capture a treasure if you’re on one of the matching treasure card tiles. I really like that the Adventurer Cards have this information on them so that you can refer back at any time during the game.

So, you take your three actions and then draw two treasure cards. The treasure card pile contains treasure cards, Special Action cards (Helicopter Lift and Sandbag cards), as well as Water Rise! cards. If you get a Water Rise! cards, the water level on the chart rises. Get all the way to the skull and cross bones and the game is over!

After your treasure cards, you take the number of water rise cards shown on the water level chart. For each card that you take, you turn over (or loose if already flooded) the corresponding tile. These are the cards that will slowly sink the island. Think that you go through the whole deck of Flood Cards before you see the same card again? Nope! When you get a Water Rises! card, the Flood cards that have already gone get shuffled and put back on top of the Flood Deck.

Slowly the water is rising and you’re loosing Island tiles. But what can you do about it? Remember the Actions? One option is to use one of your Actions to ‘shore up’ (turn over) a flooded tile. Unless you’re the Explorer (remember the Adventurer Cards?) you can only ‘shore up’ adjacent tiles, not diagonal ones. Another option, is to use a Sandbag Card, if you’ve picked one up from the Treasure Deck pile. Sandbag Cards can be used to shore up ANY tile on the board.

If you’re team collects all four treasure pieces, gets to Fool’s Landing and flies off  the island then you’ve won the game. If you have the Pilot in your team then you don’t have to worry about keeping hold of Helicopter Cards, but if you don’t then it’s important for a member of the team to keep at least one, so that you can escape the island.

There’s one way to win, but several ways to loose Forbidden Island. Fail to collect one of the treasure pieces before you loose the two cards you can claim it from? The game is over and your Adventurers are dead. If you loose a tile with an Adventurer on it, the Adventurer immediately swims to an adjacent tile. No adjacent tile? The Adventurer is lost and so is the game. Loose Fool’s Landing? You have no way to get off the island and the game is over. And, as I’ve said above, if the water level reaches the skull and cross bones, then the whole of Forbidden Island is flooded and the game is over.

Forbidden Island is a tactical game, that’s aimed at those 10 years old and over. Despite this age suggestion, we played Forbidden Island with my 7 year old niece at Christmas. Granted she’s a high ability 7 year old and we were playing in three teams of two, but she was making some fantastic tactical suggestions for the team and really enjoyed playing. The game is designed for four players, which can be difficult if you have a bigger family. However, you could play with a maximum of eight people, if you split into four teams of two.

I would highly recommend Forbidden Island. Dan and I have played it with both set of parents, as well as my sister and her family. Everyone has enjoyed themselves. Forbidden Island is an addictive game. We played three times in one day over Christmas, and no one got bored! The only thing I would say is that Forbidden Island isn’t the ideal game to play with argumentative or bossy people. As you work as a team, it can be easy for one person to take over all of the decisions which isn’t fun for anyone else.

If you’re a fan of board games, I would highly recommend picking up Forbidden Island. Dan and I already have our eyes on Forbidden Desert, another game from the same creators.

You can find Forbidden Island on amazon.co.uk from £17.95.

Have you played Forbidden Island? What did you think? What’s your favourite game at the moment?

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