Cooperative Series - Forbidden Island

(image by keebie @ BGG)
I love games with depth. Give me lots of interesting strategic and tactical decisions, multiple paths to victory and interesting rules that hold up to repeat plays. Many of the cooperative games I've covered so far have many of these features but also take an hour or more to play. As much as I love epic gaming sessions, though, sometimes you just want a quick filler or something with an easier rule set if your audience isn't your normal gaming group.

Enter Forbidden Island, Matt Leacock's simplified version of Pandemic. It has many of the same core features as Pandemic but streamlined to play in less than a half hour. Instead of curing diseases, players are treasure hunters trying to seek out ancient artifacts and return them to the helicopter before the island sinks. It's an impressive simplification of a great cooperative game, although some may find it a little too watered down:

(image by @ mikehulsebus BGG)

+ Components and Price: Forbidden island is a beautiful game. It comes in a neat tin container, has some really nice artwork and awesome (but unnecessary) plastic figures of the treasures you are trying to collect. For $15 retail you'll be hard-pressed to find better components and quality!

+ Easy and Fast: As I mentioned, the game is very simple to learn and plays quickly. While the mechanics don't allow for as much interesting decision-making or teamwork as Pandemic, the fast play time makes up for the simplicity. It also makes it a fantastic introductory game for new or younger gamers.

+ Modular Board: The game board is made up of tiles representing the various island locations. Every time you play you'll end up with a different island layout and combined with the randomness of the flood deck you will have different priorities every game. There are also variant board layouts online which add more challenge and replay value.

(image by TunaSled @ BGG)
- A Little Lacking: I think some will find the game a little too simplistic, lacking real decision making. At the end of your turn you draw flood cards to see which parts of the island start to sink. At first they are flooded - which can be remedied by players shoring up those locations - but will sink into the ocean if they are hit again. Used flood cards are reshuffled and placed back on top of the deck when you hit a water rising event. Like Pandemic, this means you know which locations will hit again after the water rises, allowing you to set your priorities. Unfortunately the player actions are more limited and the map smaller so these decisions seem less interesting and more luck-dependent than in Pandemic.

Forbidden Island probably won't hit the table much with serious game groups - Pandemic and Defenders of the Realm offer up much more interesting game play but Forbidden Island wasn't meant to deliver that type of experience. What you get is a beautiful game that offers up quite a bit of fun in a small package. I was a little taken aback by Forbidden Island's simplicity after my first play and wasn't entirely sold on the game. Coming back to it with proper expectations, though, I found myself enjoying the game a lot for what it offers.

For the simplicity, components and especially the price I think Forbidden Island is a fine game.