Forbidden Dessert would be better, but today I wanted to talk about Forbidden Desert and Forbidden Island.
Forbidden IslandForbidden Island came out first. You and your team search for 4 pieces of treasure and try to make it back to the helicopter pad before the island sinks into the ocean. Treasure can be earned by collecting sets of cards. After every turn, tiles become flooded. You can spend your time shoring up flooded tiles, moving, collecting treasure, or using your character's unique ability. I'm not sure how exactly you shore up the tiles, I guess everyone carries around an enormous pump and lots of sand bags. Anyway, if anyone dies or you miss out on treasure everyone loses. You also lose if the helicopter pad sinks.
Forbidden DesertForbidden Desert is a game about survival. Your team crash lands in a desert and you have to find the pieces of a flying ship to escape. During your turn you can unearth tiles, dig up sand, move, or use your character's unique ability. When unearthing tiles, you can find clues (that create a grid) as to where the parts of the ship are hidden. While this is happening a storm is moving around dumping sand on everything. Also, the sun comes out and makes your character drink water. If anyone dies of thirst, the game ends and everyone loses.
My ComparisonForbidden Desert's method of finding the ship parts is much cooler than Forbidden Island's card collection mechanic. I enjoy the tile art a bit more for Forbidden Island. Forbidden Desert is a lot more difficult to win than Forbidden Island. You would have to really play poorly to lose Forbidden Island on Novice, but you can definitely lose on Novice while playing Forbidden Desert. Luck is a factor on both games, but I feel it is a bigger factor on Forbidden Desert. The storm moves based on card flips. Sometimes your team will luck out and the storm will get stuck in a corner several times. When the storm acts favorably, it is easy to win. We have played a few games where the storm never got stuck and we didn't come close to winning any of those. I enjoy the roles more in Forbidden Island as they give you some really cool options (like the diver being able to swim through missing tiles). The roles in Forbidden Desert can sometimes be limiting. It is no fun being the water carrier for instance, but it helps everyone else out immensely. The Desert must be in a 5x5 grid, but there isn't anything stopping you from setting the Island up differently.
Almost all of my gaming friends have migrated from Forbidden Island to Forbidden Desert. They feel the game is more challenging, they prefer the part finding mechanic, they like that the parts can be placed on the ship, etc. I can agree with a lot of that, but I prefer Forbidden Island for 2 big reasons.
1. The luck factor. It really stinks when you have 3 water left when you end your turn only to die during other people's turns when the "sun beats down". As I said earlier the storm can be all up in your business or it can leave you alone most of the game.
2. The theme doesn't make sense in Forbidden Desert.
In Forbidden Island, your team is there to collect treasure. When you miss out on a treasure or one of your team members die, losing makes sense. This treasure is really nice, but it wasn't worth Samantha's life...
In Forbidden Desert, your team is just trying to survive. Why does everyone lose just because Larry ran out of water? On several games we had all of the parts and 2 of us were waiting on the launch pad only to have the 3rd one die. Here we are with a way to escape, but nope game over. BOOO!
So am I the only one who really likes Forbidden Island, but doesn't care for Forbidden Desert? My friends think I am nuts.
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and a promise of claims cards for the mini-expansions if it makes it to $100,000.
- 6 mini expansions (gift from wife)