Forbidden Island – lead on, brave souls

Are you ready to venture to Forbidden Island, snag the treasure and get off the island before it sinks?

Don’t worry – you won’t have to venture out alone. Grab your family and gather around for another great cooperative game designed by Matt Leacock (designer of Pandemic) and published by Gamewright.

Can the whole family enjoy Forbidden Island?

That’s what Forbidden Island is all about. This is a perfect family game for a number of reasons:

• First – it’s a cooperative game. We love cooperative games in our family because we aren’t competing against each other, but rather working together as a team to beat the game. And we love that more designers and publishers are creating more cooperative games to play.
• Second – it’s easy to learn and simple to play. Take it from Caleb’s video review. You simply set out the island tiles, draw your character card and follow the steps on the back of the card as to what to do on your turn. Pretty soon you won’t need to look at the cards during the game, but it’s great that the help is there if you need it.
• Third – the replayability. Since the game isn’t played on a set board, but rather by area tiles, every time you set up the island it gets set up differently. And with 6 characters that each have their unique special abilities, you only get to play with a team of 4. So each time you play, you’ll also have to deal with the characters you get (and you’ll long for the special abilities of one you’re missing). And on top of all that, you’re dealing with the luck of the draw in the card deck, so you don’t know which tiles will start flooding, then sinking away.
• Fourth – it doesn’t take a long time. The turns play really quickly and everyone is engaged the whole time and the island is always changing with tiles flooding, so there’s a lot of discussion going on the whole game – which also makes it seem like it goes by fast.
• Lastly – it’s fun! The first time we played it, we played over and over. Granted we kept losing so we had to keep trying again. But that’s what made it so fun. We would get so close and then just miss the win. So we’d quickly set it all up again for more.

Oh – and did I mention that Forbidden Island has fantastic artwork and great game components?

We love the artwork and everything in the tin is high quality. The tiles are nice, thick and sturdy – which is a must because they will get flipped over a lot.

And the treasure pieces are definitely treasures that you want to search out and get. The game components all help make it a fun game experience.

The only thing that has gotten a few dings in it is the slider where you mark how many cards you draw when the waters rise.

If you typically just read these board game reviews rather than watch the video, we’d suggest you take a look at the video to see the quality you’re going to get with Forbidden Island.

How does Forbidden Island score on the “Let’s Play Again” meter?

As we mentioned above, the first time we played Forbidden Island, we had to dive right into it again and again. Well, that wasn’t just a phenomenon for the first time. Every time we’ve played it we can’t stop with just one game play.

Even when we win we want to go at it again with different characters or by starting on a higher difficulty level (starting the water level higher).

Forbidden Island is a great game, with fantastic artwork, and super high quality components – and it’s a great deal at around $15. You get a great game at a great price. We’d say it’s a must for your family game shelf.

Thanks Gamewright for a fantastic game!

Interested in what others think of Forbidden Island?
Check out these other opinions:
* Board Game Reviews by Josh review of Forbidden Island

The Board Game Family Game Ratings
	Caleb
	Brooke
	Jaden
	Trevor
	Mom
	Dad
	Average

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