Forbidden Island - Tips & Strategies

Sure, you win a lot. But, if you move the Waters Rise meter too high, there just isn’t enough time. So, start with the Meter at Legendary or higher, but with one simple change: allow for TRADING cards instead of simply giving them. I.E. you give one, and receive one card to another player on the same tile. We played with the Messenger still only being able to GIVE on their turn.

Trading hasn’t been used enough to make a huge difference, but it lets you start out at a higher difficulty, but I think skew it back just enough.

Helicopter lift is a key card to your strategy in winning the game. You can’t win the game without it of course! However, in the early stages of the game, it is not as critical to hold onto it for very long. One reason is that you need to maximize your hand for matching treasure cards. Of course, don’t just use it right away. In the early stages of the game, use it to move someone with the right set of treasure cards onto the temple they need to collect the treasure.

As the game draws to an end, be more careful how you use it. There are only 3 of them in the deck. If you need to use it for something other than lifting your team off the island, make sure someone else has one too.

Don’t waste time saving the edges of the map unless you absolutely need them to travel to a needed treasure or the helipad. Pick and choose which pieces to rescue and let the rest sink off into the ocean.

This can also be applied to treasure pieces you have already acquired.

Coop games are my favorite games, but among my group of friends, we often have one or two particularly loud, strategy-oriented people who want to play. This often leads the less Chess-like minds or less loud people sitting there taking orders on their turns.

“Go here, do this, I’ll do that later, you give me this card, I’ll give her that card, and we will win!”

We have a few house rule options/ideas we play around with to get around this problem
1. We forbid those people from talking about the game at all. This often turns surprisingly fun, even if it’s just because the quieter people get to tell the loud people what to do (role reversal!)

2. No game chat. One of my favorite parts of cooperative games is discussing what we want to do. But, oddly enough, it’s surprisingly fun (and incredibly difficult) to let everyone analyze the board on their own, and make their own decisions. You play cards face up on the table, so people can decide to run and give you a card if they think you need it, but no discussion of the state of the game, or strategy, at least not until after. (Minor option: If two people are on the same square, let them discuss.)

Give priority to unflooding tiles on the inside of the map, while letting tiles on the outside flood if you can’t shore them up or are short on sandbags. ALWAYS ensure that the path to Fool’s Landing is clear, or that you’ve abilities that will allow everyone to get home safely.