Forbidden Island (game)

Forbidden Island is a cooperative board game for two to four players, designed by Matt Leacock and released in 2010 by Gamewright Games. Each player chooses an adventurer with a unique ability, and together they explore a sinking island to recover four hidden treasures: the Earth Stone, the Crystal of Fire, the Statue of the Wind, and the Ocean Chalice. The group wins only if they collect all four treasures and everyone reaches the helicopter landing pad, Fools Landing, to escape. If they fail, everyone loses.

The game board is built from 24 tiles arranged in a specific irregular shape, not a simple square. A flood deck of cards, each matching a tile on the board, drives the action. At the start, the top six cards are flipped, flooding those locations. After each player’s turn, a number of flood cards equal to the current water level are drawn: if the tile is dry, it becomes flooded; if already flooded, it sinks and is removed from the board, shrinking the island. Some flood cards say “Waters Rise,” which advances a flood meter.

On a turn, a player can take up to three actions. These include moving to an adjacent tile, shoring up a flooded tile next to them, giving a treasure card to another player, collecting a treasure, or using their role’s special action. After their actions, they draw two cards from the treasure deck. These cards are used to collect treasures—players must be on a temple space and discard four matching cards to claim that treasure—or for other effects. Each player can hold no more than five treasure cards.

The players lose if the flood meter reaches its maximum, if Fools Landing sinks, if a treasure becomes impossible to collect, or if a player is left on a sunken tile with no way to reach a safe one.

Several sequels have been released, all cooperative. *Forbidden Desert* (2013) moves the action to a desert, keeping many core mechanics but adding difficulty, new roles, and new rules. *Forbidden Sky* (2018) has players repair a rocket on a floating platform during a thunderstorm; it introduces a build-as-you-explore map and a real electrical circuit that lights up a model rocket. *Forbidden Jungle* (2023) strands players at an abandoned jungle spaceport, where they must fix a transportation portal while avoiding spider-like aliens.