The island is sinking! Will the brave adventurers save the treasures in time?
Forbidden Island is a cooperative Adventure Board Game set on an island filled with ancient ruins that hold various treasures. The players assume the role of brave adventurers who must recover all four treasures before leaving the island. The island is slowly sinking and the players must race to complete the mission before they all drown. The game was published by Gamewright.
Compare Forbidden Desert, Forbidden Sky, Forbidden Jungle and Pandemic, similar co-op games by the same designer.
Tropes found in the game include:
- Anti-Frustration Features: The game has a hand limit of 5 — if you get more than 5 cards, you must discard the excess. However, if you find yourself discarding a Special Action card, you are allowed to use its action before discarding so that it doesn't go to waste.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Character cards are color coded, with matching character tokens of the same colors.
- Co-Op Multiplayer: You lose pretty fast if you don't coordinate your actions with others.
- Diagonal Speed Boost: The Explorer can move diagonally, which allows for faster movement. They can also shore up tiles diagonally.
- Difficulty Levels: Depending on the player experience, you can play different difficulty levels ranging from Novice to Legendary.
- Everyone Has a Special Move: The 6 characters come with different abilities.
- Island of Mystery: The game is set on an island filled with ancient ruins that hold various treasures.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: A common approach as players try to recover multiple treasures simultaneously.
- Patchwork Map: The tiles that form the island are arranged randomly, and several of them indicate the terrain of that location. Thus, terrain types that shouldn't be adjacent can be, and terrain that should be on the coast can be in the middle of the island.
- Race Against the Clock: The water level (flooding rate) keeps increasing. When it reaches the top of the scale, you lose.
- Randomly Generated Levels: The tiles that form the island are arranged randomly at the beginning of the game.
- Sliding Scale of Cooperation vs. Competition: The game is an example of "Enforced Cooperation", as there are no competitive elements and the players are required to coordinate their moves closely, especially on higher difficulties.
- Turn-Based Combat: Players takes turns spending their action points.
