Forbidden Desert Board Game First Impressions

Forbidden Desert is an updated version of Forbidden Island that apparently ‘fixes’ issues that the game has.

I hadn’t played Forbidden Island and opted to not test Forbidden Desert at the UK games Expo so I was looking forward to giving this a go.

Gear up for a thrilling adventure to recover a legendary flying machine buried deep in the ruins of an ancient desert city. You’ll need to coordinate with your team-mates and use every available resource if you hope to survive the scorching heat and relentless sandstorm. Find the flying machine and escape before you all become permanent artifacts of the forbidden desert!

In Forbidden Desert, a thematic sequel to Forbidden Island, players take on the roles of brave adventurers who must throw caution to the wind and survive both blistering heat and blustering sand in order to recover a legendary flying machine buried under an ancient desert city. While featuring cooperative game-play similar to Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert is a fresh new game based around an innovative set of mechanisms, such as an ever-shifting board, individual resource management, and a unique method for locating the flying machine parts.

The ever-shifting board, too much sun. not enough water and the tense desperation come out in this game. You feel pushed for time and feel pulled together.

In fact, I was enjoying playing it so much that I forgot to take pictures.

Here are the Tabletop guys playing Forbidden Island.

How does it differ?

Instead of finding artefacts, you’re finding parts of your crashed flying machine. Looks like a boat with wings and a giant sundial for some reason.

Well, instead of sinking, as the tiles for the desert ‘drift’ so sand builds up on the tiles. You need to use action points to remove sand.

There is only so much sand that can be used and if the pile of available sand fully depletes, you lose.

If any one player dehydrates, you lose.

It’s tense, and fun and I’ve played it since and actually won. Will play again.

Forbidden Desert Update 21/05/2018

I’ve played this a few times now and it’s still pretty good.

The issue is, that it’s an open information co-op game so alpha gaming becomes a problem. Games like Flatline that are real-time or traitor games work better for this reason.

There is nothing worse than wanting to play a game but you’re just moving pieces at another player’s instruction. Obviously, they may see the best move and they may be right, but in the real world, I’d be too far away to take instruction.

If we all die because of my actions, I want it to be my fault!

Jesta ThaRogue