Forbidden Island: Flooded with Cooperation and Connection
You lost the game.
I repeat, you lost the game.
The group sits quietly, absorbing the loss as you all stare at the table because the tile you needed to escape the island just sank.
Then the oldest child speaks. “I wonder if we hadn’t used the card to move players across the board if we would have had it when we needed it to win.”
And as you stack tiles, collect cards, and put the rest of the pieces in their bags everyone discusses. Maybe you could’ve done this. You could have possibly tried that.
You may have lost the game, but the quiet conversation that follows bonds everyone as you discuss options and ideas for the next game. Each player comes away heard, which is its own kind of win.
How to Play Simplified (Because Sometimes Rules Are Complicated)
In Forbidden Island, players must claim four treasures and escape the island to win the game. Players work together to gather enough treasure cards and move to the proper tiles on the board to claim each treasure, then to escape. It sounds simple, except during that time each tile that makes up the board has the chance to flood or sink into the water and disappear entirely.
During a turn a player can take up to three actions to move around the board, shore up flooded tiles, give a card to another player, claim a treasure, or use a special action assigned by role cards given at the beginning of the game.
The player must then draw 2 cards from the treasure deck. Most of them are treasures, with a few special actions, but there are also cards that make more tiles flood and or sink.
As the final part of a player’s turn, they must draw as many cards from the deck of tile names as the tracker indicates, either flooding or sinking the tiles on the board.
If you don’t get the treasures before the tiles associated with them sink, you lose. If you don’t escape before the correct tile sinks, you lose. If a player sinks with the island, you lose. Claim the four treasures, reach the tile, and hold the necessary card to escape the island and you’ll win.
Barriers to Play and How to Remove Them
The mechanics of the game probably appear simple to experienced players or those used to complex strategy games, but they could easily trip up beginners or less experienced players. Players need to keep track of 2 decks of cards, the double-side board tiles, removing tiles and cards from the game as they sink, and remember special roles and hand limits. It can feel like a lot of moving parts to players who prefer simpler mechanics.
Make sure you’ve got one experienced player who feels comfortable running the mechanics to keep the experience as smooth as possible for the rest of the players.
Younger players might struggle with choosing efficient actions or taking the actions that best benefit the group over allowing them to accomplish the actions they choose. Sometimes kids prefer to make big moves in a game, instead of using their actions to best support the team.
The only ways to help in this case are practice and time. As these players grow and practice this skill, they’ll improve.
How to Connect While Playing
We Play to Spend Time Together
Sometimes board games are more everyone’s playing but nobody’s talking, but not with Forbidden Island. It’s cooperative so it naturally encourages players to discuss strategy, but it steps that up by adding individual roles and requiring players to pass cards to each other.
As players face a disappearing board, hand limits, and coordinating movements to hand off the necessary cards, discussion will abound. There are no right answers, only the constant juggle of which problem is currently the most urgent and what steps will address those problems.
You’ll get to know how each player thinks and prioritizes as players discuss and explain their thinking, which might not be something you’d learn about someone in everyday situations. Then, if you can all settle on what actions you prioritize as a group, you might even win the game.
We Play to Grow, Not Only to Win
One of the barriers to playing mentioned briefly above is that those younger players might struggle with choosing the best moves for the team during their turn. Since practice is so necessary to improve in that area, playing with players that need that practice offers them opportunities to learn how to make choices for the team, instead of based on what they want to accomplish.
It’s also worth taking the time to understand why those players make those choices. You’ll learn about that player and what’s important to them as you help them develop a team-focused mindset. It also gives that player a chance to feel heard and understood, something everyone likes to feel. You may play several losing games, but the discussion and small reminders can lead to major improvement as well as a greater bond between players.
We Help Each Other Learn and Improve
If you’re already discussing how to improve teamwork, a discussion at the end of the game about where different moves might have helped your team be more successful. It’s a pretty natural wrap-up to the game as you put the pieces away, and Forbidden Island games can be full of what ifs. Taking those few minutes to discuss the game can lead to better strategies in the future and create better players over time.
It offers every player another chance to join the discussion or offer insight into where the group might have gone wrong. The little extra steps like this one shift the activity from simply playing a game to an experience that brings players together and helps them improve as players and people.
Who This Game is For
- Families with older elementary aged or middle school aged kids will enjoy leveling up their game experience with this cooperative experience.
- Budding strategists who aren’t quite up for the more complex games will love the challenge Forbidden Island presents or minimalists who enjoy strategy challenges without so much complexity.
- Forbidden Island is a great option for groups of older kids or teens playing together on their own.
Top Learning Skills
Every time you play a game, you have an opportunity to build relationships with other players, but it takes intention to take advantage of that opportunity.
What you’re doing without trying? Building skills that have direct applications to life. Here are the top three skills you build while playing Forbidden Island.
Teamwork (Socio-Emotional)
This is the obvious one. It’s a cooperative game and you’re working as a group to accomplish a series of goals. If one player chooses their way over what’s best for everyone else, losing becomes much more likely. If the group doesn’t address the concerns of an individual, they can’t work cohesively as a whole.
Communication (Socio-Emotional)
When you have several goals to accomplish, but no clear answer on what’s the next best step and the game board is literally disappearing, along with your ability to win, you need to be able to make your case for the next step clearly. You’re not just saying what needs to be done, you’re explaining why THIS step is the next best. You need everyone in the group to understand why you are choosing the way you are. If you explain yourself and a few members of the group disagree, you’ll need to understand why they disagree and how to help get them on board or understand the points they make against your argument.
Listening, understanding, explaining yourself clearly. Communication is key.
Problem Solving (Executive)
You need to get each treasure one by one, but which is the biggest priority? When do you choose to deal with the disappearing board over the cards you need to claim each treasure? Which player should go to what tile on the board? Who’s the least at risk of getting trapped?
Forbidden Island is, at its core, a series of problems to solve. Each individual problem sounds manageable, but when they all combine you have to make some tough choices. Sometimes you’ll manage well and win the game, but other times mismanagement leads to a loss.
Strategy Meets Connection in Forbidden Island
While simpler than the average strategy game, Forbidden Island blends strategy with opportunities for connection with other players through cooperative play. Families, kids, or less experienced players alike can pit their skills against the game and see which prevails. If you love a challenge and high opportunities for discussion without too much complexity, Forbidden Island strikes the right balance.
If You Liked This Game
Dive into saving the world instead of just yourselves with Pandemic. It offers a similar experience of cooperative gameplay, individual roles, and balancing problems to solve on a worldwide level instead of a tile board.
If You Struggled With This Game
Try Castle Panic for similar stakes but even simpler mechanics. It’s just monster tiles and the cards you use to take out the monsters. Plus it has variants in the back of the rulebook to let you adjust difficulty or even turn it competitive, making it the ultimate offering of a flexible game.
Helpful Resources
- If you’re looking for more games to play with 3-4 players, check out Best Board Games for 3-4 Players.
- Tired of waiting for everyone to read the rules before you start? Try How to Explain the Rules Faster than the Rulebook to get into the game faster.