Forbidden Island is a cooperative board game developed by Matt Leacock and published by Gamewright Games in 2010. Two to four players take the roles of different adventurers, moving around a mysterious island, looking for hidden treasures as the island sinks around them. All players win if they find all the hidden treasures and they all make it back to the helicopter and fly away, and they all lose if they cannot.
Contents
Setup
Each player receives one role card, which explains what actions they can take, as well as their role's special ability. The island tiles are shuffled, then placed in the following method with their normal side upwards: a 2 x 2 tile square, followed by a 4 x 4 surrounding it, and then 2 tiles placed on each side of the square. Each player's role token is then placed on the board on its respective tile. The level of difficulty(Novice, Normal, Extreme, Legendary) is selected, and the meter marker is placed in that position on the Flood Meter. Both the Treasure and Flood Decks are shuffled. Each player is given two Treasure Cards, which they place in front of them. Lastly, six cards are drawn from the flood deck, and placed in a discard pile. The tiles corresponding to the cards drawn are then flipped to the Flooded Side.
Gameplay
The player who last visited an island goes first, and turns move clockwise. The current player can take up to 3 normal actions. The same type of action can be done more than once during that turn. Actions include:
A player also has two free actions, which can be done anytime, even outside of their turn. They may do so by discarding the corresponding Treasure card.
After the player has completed his turn, the player then receives two cards from the Treasure Deck. If there are no more cards in the Treasure Deck, shuffle the discard pile of Treasure Cards to use as the Treasure Deck. If the player receives a "Waters Rise" card, the player places it in the Treasure Discard Pile. All cards in the Flood Discard Pile are then shuffled, and then placed face down on top of the Flood Deck. Then, the Flood Meter Marker moves up one tick mark on the Flood Meter. If the player has more than 5 Treasure cards, he must discard down to 5 Treasure cards. If one or more of the cards they choose to discard are Helicopter Lift and Sandbag Cards, they may use them as they discard them.
Once the player has received their Treasure Cards, the player looks at the water meter, and draws the corresponding amount of cards from the Flood Deck. The tiles corresponding to the Flood cards drawn are then flipped to their Flooded side. If there are not enough cards in the Flood Deck, the Flood Discard Pile is shuffled, then becomes the new Flood Deck. If a tile is already flooded, and its corresponding card is drawn, that tile is considered to have sunk. The tile and its corresponding card are then removed from the game. The location where the tile was located is now open water. If a player is on a tile that is now sunk, the player must move to an adjacent tile(not diagonal). If a player cannot move to an adjacent tile, either normally, special action, or special ability, the player drowns.
The turn then goes to the next player. Gameplay continues until one of the following happens:
Player Roles
"Forbidden Island" is for two-to-four players. There are 6 different roles. Each Role corresponds to a different color, and each role has a different ability.