THE RECOMMENDED AGE ON THE BOX FOR FORBIDDEN ISLAND (Gamewright, 2010) is 10+. That is not an age range that I usually associate with children’s games, yet it is the category that Forbidden Island won in the 2010 Golden Geek Awards. As part of my 2019 Golden Geek Boardgame Challenge we recently played the game and took a new measure of the title.
These days Forbidden Island sits on our shelf of shame, unplayed and surpassed another cooperative game title, Pandemic (Z-Man Games, 2008). In some ways that is very sad as both games are by Matt Leacock, the godfather of cooperative games, and both are good at what they do. Interestingly, I see that Pandemic is rated for ages 8+, yet I don’t think anybody calls Pandemic a children’s game. So why does Forbidden Island not get more love at our gaming table?
Forbidden Island was the first cooperative game that reached the RockyMountainNavy house. It is not a bad game, but in this house a cooperative game needs to build a strong narrative for it to reach our gaming table more often. Alas, this is a weakness of Forbidden Island. Of the several cooperative games in the RMN collection, Pandemic and Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game (Fantasy Flight Games, 2008) are well regarded, and played more often, because of the highly dramatic story that plays out in the game. Other cooperative games, like Forbidden Island or Ghostbusters: Protect the Barrier Game (Mattel, 2016) are more like puzzles with a thin story behind the game mechanics. They aren’t bad games, just not dramatic enough. For us, it is the thought (expectation?) of a great narrative that brings certain cooperative games to the table.
RockyMountainNavy Jr. recently expressed an interest in Forbidden Sky (Gamewright, 2018). The game is the third in the Forbidden Island/Desert/Sky trilogy and claims to carry the narrative of the first two games forward. Not owning or playing Forbidden Desert I cannot comment on the carried-narrative portion. Maybe, just maybe, there is something to this. The question will be is the lure of carried-narrative enought to get a new game, much less two older ones, to the gaming table?
Feature image courtesy Gamewright
Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 
We play and enjoy Forbidden Island. Forbidden Desert is similar enough to be familiar, but different enough to be worth buying, and the artwork on both is fun and quirky. I haven’t considered Forbidden Sky yet.
Kind Regards, Chris.
Forbidden Skies has all but replaced Desert in play rotation. Well worth the try!
I play cooperative games from time to time and prefer the ones with a little twist, i.e. ones where one person cannot dominate the game. Thus my huge love for Battlestar Galactica, where Cyclon traitors are so thematic and interesting!