Let's Play: Forbidden Island

With the birth of my son, getting in games of anything has been difficult. Doubly more so for games with my wife as usually one of us needs to be watching the child (who thinks sleep is just a word and not an actual thing he needs to survive). The last real game my wife and I were able to get in was a quick game of Forbidden Island. Previously, I went through the basics of how to play to this game. Now, let's take a look at how the game went for my wife and I.

We started the game on normal difficulty meaning that we would only be pulling two water tile cards per turn until we started to get some Water's Rise cards. I was playing the Messneger during the game which meant that I was allowed to give cards away as an action without having to be on the same spot as the other player (very helpful in a two-player game). My wife was the Diver which allowed her to move through sunken zones and reach areas that would otherwise be unreachable. Here is how the board looked at the start of the game.

Its a pretty decent start to the game except that the Helicopter Pad is already under water. If that would happen to sink we would lose the game automatically and so we had to make sure that the Helicopter Pad was shored up. I took my turn shoring up the pad, and the few other spaces around me. Then I drew, and immediately pulled a Water's Rise card which pushed us to three tiles a turn, and cost us three spots and the beginning of the game.

What luck, right?

After my draw, the board looked like this.

This left us in a very precarious situation moving into the early game as any more bad draws were likely to cost us a place to pick up an item or put larger holes in the board that only the Diver would be able to reach. In fact, at this point we basically gave up on me doing anything other than protecting the areas around the Helicopter Pad and let my wife move around the board grabbing treasures. Unfortunately for us just a few turns late, we drew ANOTHER Waters Rise! card. Yikes, things were not looking good.

This time, it cost us a treasure spot so we really needed to get moving fast. The board was beginning to look a lot smaller.

After a few turns of trading away treasure tiles the board was mostly underwater and we had still yet to grab any single treasure. Starting with some Waters Rise! cards really hampers the game.

One day our treasurers will come.

Finally, we started to draw similar treasure cards from the card pile and my wife was quickly able to grab two treasures in quick succession while I kept the Helicopter Pad shored up. I couldn't move to far as that would cause it to fall under water and I was spending several of my actions to give cards to my wife to make sure that she had the right ones.

Look at those pretty, pretty treasures.

Then, while we thought things were looking decent for us, a bad draw of island tiles saw three separate spaces that were already underwater sink completely. This left me almost completely isolated on the Helicopter Pad and would have cost us the game already if my wife wasn't the Diver as she would not have been able to make it to the other treasure tiles.

This island is sinking too quickly for my liking.

We spent the next turns trying to grab more treasure cards, but in doing so, we drew poor island tiles and sunk five more spots in only two turns! But it was a worthy sacrifice as we were able to grab one more treasure, leaving us only needing one more treasure before we could flee the island. After these two turns of island sinking, the board was left looking a little bit smaller.

I'm pretty sure there was more land around here somewhere.

Now the game became a rush to see if we could get the necessary red treasure cards from the huge pile of cards that had gotten reshuffled before the island would sink.

Getting closer, but still no treasure.

Another round of turns and things were still not looking up. I had managed to keep the Helicopter Pad afloart, but everyting else was sinking around us. My wife was spending her turns keeping the last treasure chamber afloat as well.

Somewhere there is a red card in our future.

Eventually, red cards were received and exchanged for the treasure. And because my wife was the Diver she was able to swim over to the Helicopter Pad where the helicopter wisked us away (I had been holding onto the helicopter card for several turns as you have to be able to play the card to leave the island). We had won! But it was a close fought win and was probably the closest game of Forbidden Island we had played yet. Usually, we have either an easier time getting treasures and have never come this close to sinking on normal difficult. Next time, we will probably start on a higher setting and see how that goes. This is what the board looked like at the end of the game.

Freedom and riches are ours!