Session Report: Forbidden Island

game name: Forbidden Island people who played: Jamieson Mockel (me), Ailea Merriam-Pigg, Dean Johnson link to boardgame geek: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/65244/forbidden-island

list of mechanics:  Action Point Allowance System| Co-operative Play Grid Movement Hand Management Modular Board Pick-up and Deliver Set Collection Variable Player Powers

link to session report by someone else (if available): https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/179/forbidden-island-session-report-june-2010

Our experience was pretty similar to the report. The game is tense and often down to the wire - we lost one game, and then had a very close call on the second, but ended up victorious in the end. The session report is descriptive but a bit short. I think it is helpful for people new to games but might not give enough detail for someone trying to learn more about playing Forbidden Island.

Introduction

Forbidden Island is a fun, quick game where players take on the role of explorers trying to recover four artifacts from a rapidly sinking island and then escaping via helicopter. The game is fully cooperative, with players working as a team to grab the loot and survive. The only way to win is to collect the four treasures (done by collecting four matching icons and then traveling to one of two locations where the treasure can be found) but there are a few ways to lose - mostly through locations sinking into the ocean or a player’s character being lost. Turns are broken up into three phases - one player can take up to three actions, then draws two player cards, then draws a number of flood cards based on the current difficult. After all this, the next player starts the process. Play continues this way until you win or lose as a team. Cards are drawn every turn which either allow players to collect artifacts or provide special abilities, but collecting an artifact requires four matching cards and you can only hold five cards at a given time, which sometimes requires the team to make tough decisions about what to hold onto and what to discard. The game also scales well for more players, since more players means more tiles flood between each player’s turn.

The game is fairly compact, quick to setup, and comes  in a sweet tin box!

This report recounts the second game of Forbidden Island we played in our session - in the first, our team lost pretty quickly and unceremoniously, as Fool’s Landing - the only escape from the Forbidden Island, sunk into the sea and left us without an escape. Setting up the game is a breeze - shuffle the two main decks, build the island by laying out the simple pattern by randomly placing the 24 locations, flood six locations, distribute character rolls and starting cards, and place your figures. Ailea got the Navigator roll, with the ability to use an action to move another player up to two tiles; Dean was the Engineer and could ‘shore up’ (flip a flooded tile) twice with one action; and I was the Pilot, able to move anywhere on the map with one action. The first player is supposed to be determined by who was last on an island (Ailea), but since this was our second game, we passed the honor on to the next person clockwise (Dean). We made an initial assessment of our resources and where we should go, and began our quest for loot!

Brave explorers, alive on cardstock.

Gameplay

We used our first few turns to trade resources and move around to locations where we could begin gathering treasure - before too long Ailea had collected the red crystals and we were well on the way to me being able to grab the chalice. Thanks to Dean’s ability to flip flooded tiles, we were able to avoid losing some vital locations, though we let a few periphery tiles sink and be removed when we realized they were not terribly useful. Every turn requires the players to flood some locations, and if the card is pulled again after that location floods, it is removed. This is made more perilous by the “Waters Rise” cards that come up from the player deck - these make the player shuffle the most recently flipped cards back onto the top of the location deck, meaning they will come up again very quickly. We tried to keep pace with the sinking island, and had to use a lot of actions to prevent an instant lose by removing necessary tiles.

Gather resources, stay alive.

We moved all over the island, counting on good planning and luck to get us the cards we needed. We all did a fair bit of trading to make sure one player had the four cards necessary to collect treasure - my Pilot ability to fly anywhere was very helpful. The player deck also has a couple of useful cards - Sandbags and the Helicopter - which can be used at any time. Sandbags shore up any tile from anywhere on the board, and the Helicopter allows you to send any pawn to any location. Teamwork was integral, and every turn we three would carefully consider how to proceed, which was tremendously helpful and lead to our eventual victory. Ailea held on to a Helicopter card since it is required to escape the island, but thankfully pulled a second and helped move Dean to a distant location to help trade cards and grab the third artifact.

The Thrilling Conclusion

The last moments were tense and tremendously satisfying. The Water Level raised to the point that we were drawing four flood cards every turn, putting us at risk of losing a vital location and being trapped. Thankfully with some strategic uses of Sandbag cards and the shore up action we kept ourselves afloat. Ailea’s masterful use of the Navigator ability helped Dean and I meet up to trade cards and grab the last treasure. Then, I flew to the last location, grabbing the golden griffon while the island sank around me, and we all gathered at Fool’s Landing, using Ailea’s remaining Helicopter card to escape, all the treasure in our grasps!

The nerds ponder their choices . . .

Discussion

Forbidden Island is a tremendously well-designed game for quick play or as an introduction to cooperative board games. It’s simple to learn but the randomization of the modular board, the frantic pace of the action economy, and the difficult choices necessary to maintain hand size early at which the island sinks keeps the game interesting. The different character abilities add a nice bit of specialization without overwhelming new players - it should be easy to remember one unique action while most other possibilities are available to all players. Our group liked the game, and following our initial defeat we were still primed to try again, which I think is a good goal to achieve for any game. Personally I enjoy co-op games with a good degree of difficulty, and Forbidden Island delivers on this front. Victory feels like an accomplishment, and the joy of winning as a team meant in the end we all felt like we had achieved something through clever play.