Family                 

Alter                    10

Spezial                

SALVAGE FOUR ARTIFACTS

FORBIDDEN ISLAND

One Team One Adventure One Goal

(Kursivpassagen beibehalten)

(Die verbotene Insel)

Are you in the mood for an adventure? Then come with me! We will inrtroduce you to the game of Forbidden Islands.

The Forbidden Island holds four artifacts. Each player takes his part in trying to find them, salvage them and then flee the island in a helicopter together with all the other players. This does not sound like enough of an adventure? Then you should kjnow that the island is slowly sinking. Again and again a part of the island slides under water and if we do not drain this part on time it sinks completely. It is rumoured that the artifacts of the four elements, Water, Wind, Earth and Fire, are on the island. Each of us enters the island at a different location and each of us must give his best not to fail.

The game can be played by two to four adventurers. Each time the island is assembled differently, sometimes the artifacts are nicely located next to each other, sometimes they are widely dispersed. Sometimes the heliport is in the middle of the island, the next time can be found at the beach.

At the start of the game island tiles are laid out in a pre-set shape, chance determined where what part of the island will be situated.

Monika Dillingerová: The game never gets boring. If this might be so it is enough to change the shape of the island. The rules offer several suggestions for this, which have their own inbuilt hitches and offer more challenging games.

Players then turn over 6 flood cards and the respective island tiles are turned over accordingly to indicate that they have been flooded. You can stand on such tiles, move across them or even use them. But beware, should they be flooded again. Then they will sink completely and are out of the game. But before this can happen, players do have a turn. Each of them takes on the role of an adventurer with a special ability: There is a diver, an engineer, a female navigator, a female pilot, an explorer and a messenger. The roles are assigned randomly. You should tell your fellow players your role and your special ability, this facilitates cooperation.

Finally, each player receives two artifact cards and the game can begin.

In turn each player has 3 actions, then he draws two more artifact cards and the flood tiles according to the water level. For actions you can choose from several possibilities:

One step from tile to tile is one action, this movement is modified for the explorer, the pilot and the diver. The navigator can use an action to move other players. Another possible action is to drain flooded tiles. TO do so you must be present on the tile or an adjacent tile. Only the engineer can drain two neighboring tiles in one action. The next possibility would be to hand an artifact card to another player. Only the messenger can send this card, all others must hand it over directly and to be on the same tile as the receiving player. An artifact can only be salvaged when a player holds 4 cards with the picture of the artifact and stands on the correct tile. For each artifact there are exactly two tiles at the start of the game where it can be salvaged. All players must pay attention to leave a path clear to the artifact until it is salvaged and to keep at least one of the artifact tiles afloat. Salvaging the artifact is an independent action.

Monika Dillingerová: This game is so closely connected to the topic that I nearly did smell the salt water. Despite this you can adapt the degree of difficulty to the experience of the players, thus in my opinion it is absolutely eligible for a family game.

The planning of your actions can very well be done in coordination with the other players. But then the drawing of artifact cards happens. If the player only draws artifact cards or special cards, flood cards are drawn afterwards. When the players draw a “water level rises” card the level marker for the water is moved up one level - which has the consequence that even more flood cards must be drawn. But before doing so, you must shuffle the discard pile and place it on top of the draw pile. And this means that the cards drawn earlier come back into play and the island tiles that have not been drained now sink completely.

When players have salvaged all four artifacts, they must reach the heliport and depart. If they cannot salvage one or more of the artifacts, or if the heliport has gone under, all players have lost together. The position of the water level marker can be set to four different positions at the start of the game. In consequence, you play as a beginner, as an advanced player, as an expert or as a legend. The game all in all only lasts for about half an hour and nearly always another game is started immediately.

Monika Dillingerova

Spieler         : 2-4

Alter            : ages 10 and up

Dauer           : ca. 30 min

Autor           : Matt Leacock

Grafik          : C.B.Canga

Titel             : Die verbotene Insel

Preis            : ca. 20,00 Euro

Verlag          : Schmidt Spiele 2010

                     www.schmidtspiele.de

Genre                    : Cooperative adventure game

Zielgruppe             : For families

Mechanismen         : use special abilities, play actions

Kommentar:

Simple family game

Topic very well implemented

Degree of difficulty varies with island shape

Vergleichbar:

Pandemic and other cooperative games

Meine Bewertung: 5

Monika Dillingerová:

A beautifuil cooperative game for the whole family with a short time to play, in which some island shapes con provide a challenge for experienced players, too.

Zufall                            1

Taktik                  3

Strategie__                  1

Kreativität          

Wissen_

Gedächtnis         

Kommunikation   2

Interaktion                   3

Geschicklichkeit 

Action