Want to know everything you need about Forbidden Island and how to start playing? Don’t worry, Kaioss Games have got you covered with our handy guide:

Introducing Forbidden Island
What’s inside the tin?
Setting up the game
Rules and how to play
Cooperative gaming
Final thoughts

Introducing Forbidden Island

Picture this: you are an intrepid explorer seeking treasures on a mysterious island. Suddenly, you trigger a trap. The waters start rising as you desperately try to secure both the ancient artefacts and an escape route off the island before everything is lost to the depths.

How thrilling! Especially, for those of us who dreamt of becoming whip-wielding and ruin-rambling adventurers like Indiana Jones and Lara Croft.

Published by Gamewright, Forbidden Island is the creation of cooperative game master, Matt Leacock. With over 30 games under his gaming table, Leacock first made his name with Pandemic in 2008, and has seen since designed Pandemic’s expansions, Forbidden Desert and Forbidden Sky, Era: Medieval Age and Daybreak, which sees players work together to stop climate change.

When it came to making Forbidden Island, Leacock was approached by Gamewright to come up with a kids cooperative game. In an interview with kulturgutspiel, he said: “[Gamewright] had seen how great Pandemic had done and they wanted to capture some of the magic of those cooperative games in a lightweight kids’ game.”

Winning multiple awards after its publication in 2010, including the Mensa Select, Forbidden Island has gained both industry recognition and a top spot in the family’s board games nook. 

Let’s open up the box tin to discover why!

What's inside the tin?

Coming in under £20, the great quality of the game’s components for its price is undeniable. Inside the metal tin are 58 playing cards, 24 island tiles, six pawns, four treasure figurines and one water meter and marker.

Each of the cards and tiles are beautifully illustrated by Chris Canga (see work-in-progress sketches on Canga’s blog). Screen-printed with art on both sides, the sturdy cardboard tiles have rounded corners and feel good to pick up and play with. As do the four sacred treasures – Earth Stone, Statue of the Wind, Crystal of Fire and Ocean’s Chalice – made of plastic but with enough heft to make them fun to fiddle with. The treasures, tiles and wooden pawns all fit nicely into the organised tin. 

 

Setting up your Forbidden Island game

Accommodating 2-4 players aged 10 and up, and with a game time of around 30 minutes, Forbidden Island is easy to set up and play. 

You create the titular island by shuffling the tiles and arranging them in a landmass, colourful sides up. The cards are separated into their three types – Flood, Treasure and Adventurer. Give each pile a good shuffle. From the Adventure Cards, everyone is dealt a role – Explorer, Diver, Pilot, Navigator, Engineer or Messenger – with the rest set aside. These give players unique abilities that they can use once per turn.

Everyone is also handed two treasure cards face up while the artefacts are placed around the outside of the island. The Treasure Deck and the Flood Deck are set next to the ‘board’; leave some space next to each for discarded cards.

Depending on your difficulty level, you set the water meter with its plastic marker to the number you need (I know you’re keen, but keep the Legendary difficulty for at least your second playthrough… I’ve left it to my last). Your pawn, which matches the colour on your role card, is put on its dedicated tile (there’ll be an icon in the bottom right) to start the game.

Delve into Forbidden Island rules 

On your turn, you can choose three of the following actions: moving, shoring up, giving or capturing a treasure. 

You move by placing your pawn on an adjacent tile but never diagonally (think WASD, not joystick). 

To give a treasure card to another player, your pawns must be on the same tile. 

Capturing a treasure requires your pawn to be on a tile with that artefact’s icon in the bottom left and having four treasure cards with that same artefact. 

At the end of your turn, you pick up two cards from the Treasure Deck and add them to your hand face up. However, you may draw the dreaded Waters Rise! card. In that case, do the action on that card and put it on the Treasure discard. 

When the waters rise, you will move the water meter marker up one notch. This will impact the last step to end your turn: drawing cards face up from the Flood Deck. With the same illustrations as the tiles, the Flood cards determine which places on the island get submerged (flip tiles blue-tinted side up). Although soggy, submerged areas only become flooded and removed from the game when another Flood card is drawn for them. This is where shoring up comes so in handy as you can un-submergify the tile you’re on or an adjacent one. 

In the Treasure Deck are also Sanbag cards that help with shoring up along with the Helicopter Lifts that can move pawns to any tile. Be careful, as without a Pilot in play, you’ll need one Helicopter Lift between you to escape the island from Fools’ Landing.

The longer you play, the more likely that you will lose because: both treasure tiles for one treasure sink before you can collect it, the Fools’ Landing tile sinks, the water level reaches the skull and crossbones, and any player is on a sunk title and can’t swim to an adjacent one.

Speaking of keeping afloat, according to Leacock in an interview with Creaking Shelves, his young daughter playtested the game: “One game, the tile underneath her disappeared and I told her she drowned, and that we’d lost… and she just burst into tears!”

Once all the treasures are gathered, all the players must rush to Fools’ Landing where a helicopter awaits their daring escape. 

Cooperative game vs competitive? 

Now, I’m not the most cooperative player, I prefer a bit of chaos (pun very much intended) when gaming. But, even with my ‘cat pushing porcelain off a ledge’ personality, I still enjoyed Forbidden Island. As the tension ramps up with the rising waters, you feel the urgency to get those shiny treasures.

One issue with cooperative games is that the more strategic players will take over, directing the others who will start turning out. Leacock is no fool with a landing however, and to balance this behaviour, he said in an interview with Heather Ariyeh: “The biggest technique that I use is trying to give everybody a little something special so that they can feel…autonomous.” Which is where those role cards are so important to making people feel like a unique part of an adventuring team.

Final Thoughts

For a cooperative board game that’s suitable for pretty much all ages, Forbidden Island is a sure winner. With a fun theme, well-designed components, beautiful art, easy set up and high replayability value with a ‘board’ that changes each time, this is definitely a good game to bring out for a half hour of fun. 

For just £17.99 and £3.50 for shipping to arrive in 2-3 working days, get your copy now.

You can also grab the sequels, Forbidden Desert and Forbidden Sky. The fourth instalment called Forbidden Jungle – where players crash-land on a remote moon infested with a colony of spider-like aliens – is being released soon so keep an eye out on our website for when this lands! In the meantime, read Leacock's development diary for this new game on his blog.