Forbidden Island game

Jeff gave me Forbidden Desert and it was popular with the family and we thought it would be fun to try Forbidden Island, it’s a similar game, and cooperative games are popular in our family. If you’re curious about the game, then see how we don’t just use the Forbidden Island game for gameschooling, but also for a fun writing prompt.

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The basic concept of Forbidden Island

You and all your friends are a bunch of adventurers looking for treasure, and you’ve heard of the legendary magical treasures of the Archeans. You head off to obtain the treasure, but the island has been booby-trapped and once you get there it starts sinking. Can you all work together to find the treasures and get off the island before it sinks?

That’s it. That’s the Forbidden Island game in a nutshell, now let’s talk about details.

What makes Forbidden Island a fun game for families

It’s a straightforward game, you have a role and only a few actions you can do each turn. Working together you find the pieces and get back to the ship to fly off.

I love how it’s essential to work together and plan your moves together or you won’t succeed.

You have to balance when is the most important time to use the special tools you get to keep each other alive or unbury locations.

The downside of the game is you have to play your role, and if you find your role boring, then you’ll hate the game. This is why Jeff isn’t as happy about the game. He hates being defined by a role, by contrast, my sons love that aspect.

Since this plays pretty much the same as Forbidden Desert, I’ll point you over to that post to get the nitty-gritty details, and instead, let’s look at fun ways to expand the learning.

Creative ways to use Forbidden Desert

As I started writing this post I realized what I really needed to talk about are the gorgeous pictures in this series. This includes Forbidden Desert, Forbidden Island, and Forbidden Sky (see the trend, there are a lot of forbidden things, though the illustrations aren’t as great on Forbidden Sky).

Pick a card

The first idea is to just pick a card. What does it say to you?

• Do you want to describe it and start working on using texture words and color words?
• Does it spark a story idea, maybe that door is the gateway into another world or an opening to a new place to see?
• Can this be a location for a scene in the story you’re writing?

Pick a few cards

Pick a few cards and expand on the idea. Work those three cards into your story. Maybe your adventurer is climbing past the Cliffs of Abandon after crossing the Breakers’ Bridge on their way to the Silver Gate.

Or you might be stuck and looking for a great new way to describe a location, grab the names, the names are awesome and ones that stick in your mind.

I love how they named all the cards, and it’s fun to think about what might happen at a place like that.

Okay, this isn’t really super complicated, so I’m not going to drag it out.

More games to have fun with

• Codenames
• Mysterium
• Axis of Villains
• Travel Games
• History Games