Greater Than Games Spirit Island Core Board Game

Greater Than Games

Greater Than Games Spirit Island Core Board Game

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Description

Suitable for 1 to 4 players
Playing time ranges from 90 to 120 minutes
Complex and thematic cooperative game

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Customer Reviews

Fully cooperative, challenging and complex, with no traitor or hidden objectives.Spirit Island has several things in common with other cooperative games with role-specializations. What sets it above and apart for me is the way in which you manage your own player board to increase the power and presence of your spirit. As the game progresses, managing the island becomes more challenging, but your spirits become more effective at handling whatever the settlers throw at you.Each spirit has its own special ability and innate power, in addition to a hand of cards that provide other powers. This will feel familiar if you've played Sentinels of the Multiverse. A key difference is that the heroes of Sentinels draw powers from a personal deck containing multiple copies of several cards. In Spirit Island, every card is unique, and new ones come from decks shared among all players. Cards also provide elements that might activate innate powers in addition to the effect of the card itself. Spirit Island uses a rondel mechanic similar to Concordia or Century: Spice Road, in which played cards are discarded from your hand, but all cards can be retrieved anytime the player chooses (in lieu of other options). Some spirits play best by putting out many cards at once with low energy costs that consistently activate their innate powers. Other spirits take advantage of their boundless energy by quickly cycling through a smaller hand of devastating power cards.Even though the game is fully cooperative, I never get the feeling that the spirits are supposed to like each other. They exist only to protect the island, and will work together toward that end, but managing your own player board and building a unique personal hand of cards creates a sort of thematic aloofness befitting a game about ancient spirits. There's no social deduction or secret individual objectives. Just destroy the cities and help the native inhabitants preserve the status quo of their island. It's complex, challenging, lengthy, and brilliant. 5An incredible puzzle of a game where YOU are the spirits fighting the invaders!Spirit Island1-4 players, CooperativeOverview-You play as a spirit working to rid your island of colonists! They are invading your land and you are not having it so you must work to either scare them off or destroy them. Very deep, very strategic and VERY fun!Win Condition /Length-So for you to win you have to achieve your victory condition listed on the current Fear tab on the board. Starting out you must fully clear the board of all explorers, towns and cities. Lol good luck on that. Luckily as you spread more and more fear throughout the island these victory conditions become easier as the game progresses. The next fear condition is just clearing out the towns and cities and the 3rd is just clearing out the cities. If you get ALL the fear cards removed it s an instant win! I love the fact that the win conditions become a tad bit easier as the game progresses. It really makes it seem like you are making progress within the game with all your efforts.That s not to say the game is easy though. There are three ways you can lose which are by either completely having your presence removed from the board, all the blight tokens are added to the board or if you need to draw an Explore card and cannot. So as you are working against the invaders, they are working against you and time is not your friend.The game plays in about an hour and a half which for me is perfect. Luckily since all players take their actions at the same time, adding more players doesn t really increase the game length which is also awesome. That said, the more players, the more discussion so you will still see a slight increase in time played.Components Excellent, excellent components. The board pieces are made of a sturdy thicker cardboard and the energy and fear tokens are also made of the same stuff and almost feel like wooden tokens but they re not. There are some wooden presence and Dahan (the natives) tokens which are pretty cool. The wooden Dahan pieces are little huts. The rest of the pieces are plastic invader pieces which are comprised of little explorers and towns and cities. Those are all pretty detailed and look great on the board. There are some super tiny plastic pieces for the Blight that you add as well but these are kinda meh for me. I feel like they could have been bigger and maybe like green? The gray color doesn t really fit in my eyes as a blight.The player boards are also a nice sturdy thick cardboard and look and feel great. There are also a ton of cards that all have a nice linen finish so they feel premium. Not to mention the abundance of extra game stuff such as scenarios and events that you can optionally use to play. Top notch stuff.Setup/Takedown Setup is pretty fast honestly and can vary based on number of players and if you want to do any scenarios. If you are setting up for a 2 player game its SUPER fast. The insert the game comes with allows you to easily remove 2 trays that hold all the components and sit them next to the game board. Most of the time during setup is just shuffling the power cards and discussing which spirit each player wants to use since they are all completely different. Takedown is just as fast.Box/Storage The box is average sized and comes with a really nice insert that holds all the cards, player boards and pieces nice and secure. Once you have all the pieces in the trays, just slap the oversized instruction booklet on top of them and then the game board pieces on top of that. It should create enough of a seal that you can store the game on its side and nothing should spill out of their respective places.Visual Appeal /Theme --I go wild for the look and theme of this game. Actually that is the main thing that drew me to buy it. I freaking love the idea that I am playing as a spirit trying to scare colonists off my island because it seems like it s usually the other way around. The artwork is very well done for the most part and actually doesn t look as cartoony as you would think based on the outside box cover.Rulebook Great Rulebook! It has oversized glossy pages that match the size of the box. It s super easy to read and understand and the way it s written and the order of the instructions are perfect. Lots of colors and pictures to make it easy to understand the points that are being conveyed. Of course I don t think any rulebook is 100% perfect so there will of course be SOMETHING that isn t quite clear. The different phases in the game rotation can be kinda confusing at first but luckily there are rules reference cards included which are always a great thing in games. Also the turn order is printed directly on the fear board so any player can easily see what needs to be done.Table Presence/Game Board The game boards consist of 1 up to 4 island tiles all connected depending on number of players. You can play a solo game and it uses 1 island tile and so on. These island tiles all have different colored sections based around what kind of land like mountains or desert. Also you can flip them to create more difficult thematic land tiles. The art on this side looks more realistic and terrain zones are combined instead of separated. I love the variety this game provides in pretty much all aspects. There is also a small board that holds the fear cards, blight and explore cards. This board is the one that has the turn order listed on it.Table presence grows the more players you have as the island becomes bigger with every added player. On a solo game it has a rather small footprint so you can whip it out on a coffee table if you want, although you still need to place your token holders somewhere. A 4 player game can take up a decent amount of space but honestly not any bigger than ohhh like Monopoly.Table Talk/Fun Factor This game is made for table talk, actually it s basically a requirement if you hope to win! Since the game is fully co-op and each spirit plays completely different you will want to discuss your plans with your teammates and vice versa. That said, this become more and more difficult at higher player counts due to all the different possible strategies. I can say I had more fun playing this game 2 player and less just because of that fact. But I had a TON of fun! I spent one entire day just playing this solo trying out all the different spirits to see how they played and the strategies they could use. The game is almost like a puzzle and you are seeing all the different ways of solving it. There is a small amount of chance involved with the draw of the explore card as you don t know where new invaders will explore but that s it! From then on you have to plan out the best way of dealing with the invaders based on your powers and any new power cards you draw.Optimal Player Count For sure 2 players with solo being a close second. As I mentioned above 3 player or even 4 player games get bogged down significantly with strategy for new players or players that suffer from analysis paralysis. You could spend so much time looking over the board, discussing options, looking at your cards, looking over the board, discussing options rinse repeat. This becomes more a problem at 3 and 4 players because the amount of options increases. However at 2 players it s simple to discuss options with 1 other person and come to an agreement quickly. The solo games are incredibly fun and since there are no pesky victory points in this game, you are just trying to win! The game also comes with scenarios and different blight cards and other kinds of invader options and the thematic side of the boards to create more difficult games if you manage to dominate the regular style. Also there are other rule options in the direction booklet to edit the difficulty of the game.The one thing I can say for 3 and 4 player games is that you can really create a nice rounded out spirit selection. Since each one plays differently you can choose spirits that work well together and really create a killer combo.Final Thoughts This game is excellent and I cannot recommend it enough. The theme is just so rich and the gameplay is so unique. Not only that but the game comes packaged with so many variant options that the replay value is just off the charts here. I mean 8 COMPLETELY DIFFERENT spirits to play as not to mention the varying island boards and all the options with cards. The powers decks are extremely varied and there are a ton of fear cards and you don t use all of them in a single game so each game will be different. In fact the game can be pretty deep in terms of strategy so I wouldn t recommend it for a younger audience. But clever teens should be able to get into this, especially if they like to solve puzzles. 5Amazing game for people who like its styleI have three games of this under my belt now, and a fair amount of exploring and thinking. This game has been a hit with everyone I have shared it with, but it's not for everyone. That said, I am a pretty discerning boardgame player - I tend to be ambivalent to the great majority of them - and Spirit Island is far and away my favorite.You will probably deeply enjoy Spirit Island if:* You like boardgames of high-moderate complexity (somewhere in the ballpark of Terra Mystica or War of the Ring) - there is a lot going on in Spirit Island, and part of what makes it good is this depth.* You dislike high levels of randomness in your game. Spirit Island keeps the randomness to pretty much the minimum for still allowing surprise - the base game only has randomness in which terrain the invaders act in next, which powers you get to choose from when you gain a new power (Draw 4, pick 1) and the effects of Fear cards. The expansion actually adds some additional randomness in the form of event cards to make it harder for expert players to plan too far ahead.* You like cooperative games, but don't like it when one player tells everyone else what to do. Spirit Island avoids this problem by making decision making sufficiently complex that it's difficult for any one player to track the entire suite of options for the other players, and by making players act simultaneously, so that everyone is always engaged with their own options instead of all staring at the one player whose turn it is. Cooperation tends to be more along the lines of "I can handle these guys over here, can anyone do anything about the city over there?" and "Can anyone move these guys out of here?" than "Okay Dave, you need to move here, and do this thing."* You don't like waiting for other people to take their turns. Since play is more or less simultaneous, waiting is kept to a minimum - even if you have one player who wants to ponder their options much longer than everyone else, this will usually influence your own choices and lead to collaborative discussion.* You like a lot of variety and replayability. Out of the box, the game contains eight different spirits, all of which play radically different from each other - not a simple "You get +1 X when doing Y, and +2 Q on terrain R" sort of differentiation. It also contains three Adversaries that modify how the invaders behave in different ways, and several other ways to customize the game experience once you are familiar with it, both in terms of difficulty and just in terms of changing up how things work. There's even an alternative map on the back of the main map boards.You will probably not like this game if:* You prefer lighter games. If Settlers of Catan is your sweet spot for complexity, Spirit Island may make you feel overwhelmed.* You don't like trying to suss out complicated situations or plan ahead; There's a lot going on on the board, with lots of pieces and a three step invader turn modifying that state heavily even outside of any player actions.* You want 100% group consensus on all actions in a cooperative game - trying to play Spirit Island this way will take a very long time and probably feel like "work"* You don't like co-op games at all, ever.Other notes:* This game is beautiful, all the art is really nice and evocative. It also has a pretty strong theme, especially for a "Euro-style" game.* The components are all really nice and solid. The cards are sturdy, the boards are satisfyingly heavy, and the pieces are nicely made. The "explorer" pieces, in spite of being thin, do not feel fragile.* The box inserts are super well done and actually hold all the things. (Though they won't hold the expansion, should you choose to get it.)Disclaimer: I received this by backing the Kickstarter, hence the lack of "Verifier Purchaser" 5but this is one I felt like I had to write and add to the pushI don't write a ton of reviews here, but this is one I felt like I had to write and add to the push. I bought this on a spur of the moment purchase based largely on it appearing highly in a random "top coop" game list and hearing about the theme intrigued me. I didn't think much of it at the time it was mostly an impulse purchase.However, I got it a couple weeks back and it has made it to the table a lot since then. I played it a couple times solo to get a feel for it as I like to understand a game before trying to introduce others to it to fumble through. I only intended to play a round or two solo and started by trying to play two spirits and just go through the motions for two characters at once (not a great idea as I found out especially first time), then tried it on its "solo" mode and after a couple rounds of that ended up playing a full game through because it was pretty fun as a solo game. Only other game I have actually actively played solo is Mage Knight so that was a bit of a surprise there. Probably would not buy it for that reason, but I think it is somehting I could see doing from time to time if it isn't getting on the table much at some point.I then played it with my wife, who really liked the game and immediately asked about when we could find a way on the table again, and she has brought up playing it a couple times since then. I have had a few different friends I have played with and all have made a repeat showing for the game as well. After just spending the day playing a few games of it with my wife and another friend I really got to recommend this game.What I like:1. Theme. The theme of this game is very compelling to me, lots of games are about the "Age of Exploration" in one way or another (colonizing, exploring, trading, etc), but I have never played a game that went from the perspective of the natives. In this game the Europeans colonizing all over the place are the bad guys that need to be beaten. And they are love-craftian demons that are plaguing the land and need to be dealt with. The game really conveys the theme surprisingly well for a more "euro" type game.2. This game is all about hand management. This game is about knowing what your options are and figuring out the best way to manage those resources. You don't have to get "lucky" to manage to pull the right cards at the right time, they are all available to you or at least you control when and where they are all available to you. You need to plan out not only your current turn but what your other turns are going to be based on the remaining cards or decide when you are going to "reclaim" your cards and start over. If the idea of planning out a 2-3 turn strategy of using your cards (and potentially trashing those plans based on what happens) this game isn't for you. But if you love a game like Mage Knight I would say this is pandemic meets the Mage Knight card system and you will love this game.3. It is a really quality co-op game. Personally I am a fan of co-op games, while a competitive game I can sometimes enjoy I much more like a game where we are working for a common goal together because I don't get as much enjoyment for "besting" someone else as I do figuring out a good solution together. What I really like about this one is that there is enough going on that you really do want to figure out how to best use your resources, but it doesn't lead to the "alpha" issue where one person just plays everyone's turns. For the most part you will play your cards with minimal heavy influence from neighbors and mostly just talk about I can handle these areas and these areas but have can't handle any of this and trying to figure out the best way to spread out your resources. But I have not run into too much of a problem with telling someone what cards to play.Overall, I can't recommend this game enough, hopefully this gives you enough information to know if this will scratch your personal tastes as well. 5This is my (and my friends) new favorite game. Hands down.This game is not related or connected to Settlers of Catan in any way, but follow along with me for a minute here - the following "story" will give you a good idea of the highly thematic game-play present in this game.Imagine the world/game of Settlers of Catan. A new island is discovered, and invaders from afar flock to the new lush land in search of new homes and resources. Ready to conquer and colonize the new paradise, they begin by creating a few modest towns, and then the race for territory begins. Eventually one particular group of colonists win the race for land, and are crowned the new de-facto rulers of the not-so-newly-discovered island. But something awakens from the land itself. The colonists actions have blighted the land, displaced and taken advantage of the native tribes of the land, and disturbed and upset the spirits that the natives worship. The ancient god-spirits of the island have been angered and they now exert their powers and influence upon the land. Crops wither, volcanoes erupt, the jungle grows rapidly to take back the land claimed for townships and roads. The rains, rivers, and ocean itself seems intent on destroying bridges and boats, flooding crop land, and sometimes raining destruction from above. Raging storms of thunder and lightning, savage wildlife, and the very earth beneath seem intent to drive the invaders out, or kill them. Wicked nightmares plague the settlers, and the natives themselves revolt.Welcome to Spirit Island.The game is, like I said, highly thematic, and a ton of fun to play - with a huge variety of game setups and play choices - no two games are ever the same. You take on the roles of the Spirits of the island, attempting to drive away the colonists through fear and population reduction. The Dahan (the natives) can help, but are mostly powerless until/unless aided by the players/spirits. A fully cooperative game, all players either win together, or lose together. The core game mechanics of the game are "deck-building", "resource management" , and "area control". Although the area-control is done in an interesting manner that is slightly different from most other area-control games; you're actually trying to reduce the invaders area-control, and you do so by using your cards/powers - which are limited to being 'cast' on areas near your 'influence markers'. All in all a very good modification on some popular traditional core mechanics.I really can't say enough good things about this game. There are several different spirits to choose from, and each have unique abilities, making the game quite varied from play to play, and spirits will even change from player to player based on play style of the person. There are several optional (and highly recommended) adversaries to choose from (basically you get to pick who won the island - choosing from historical kingdoms like France, Brittan, and Prussia) that keep the game challenging as you progress in player/group skill. And finally, the expansion, and a few of the promo items available out there are really awesome as well and add a lot to the game - as well as a new expansion slated to show up in 2019 sometime.tl;dr: This is my (and my friends) new favorite game. Hands down. 5Overall I would say it takes away from the main gameYes, it adds a lot of pieces and powers and mechanics. But the two new spirits aren't very fun. The tree fellow is so involved in preventing exploration that he seems to not interact with the game at all, just concentrating on empty spaces in the hopes that one day he'll annoy someone who tries to move in there. The animal spirit more encourages beasts to migrate than actively attacks, making them seem to be lacking in visceral savagery.And there are so many new steps to consider in the phases now that it easily doubles the length of a given game. Not to mention adding a LOT more luck, which seems to negatively effect the balance.It's not all bad, there are fun now powers and sometimes the surprise events can be quite fun, but overall it isn't as fun as the original. 3A complex cooperative game that offers something very differentSpirit Island is a very unique cooperative game. This is basically a "player vs environment" type of gameplay where you play as spirits who are trying to drive off invaders/colonists, in which their actions are controlled by the game itself. The main draw of this game is that each spirit are designed to play very differently from one another, and finding how to mold your strategy to their strengths and weakness provide a very replayable and rewarding gameplay experience. For example, the Earth spirit is extremely good at defending locations, but are slow to learn new powers. Another spirit may very good at board/territory control, but is lacking in actual firepower and will need support from teammates to mop up heavily colonized spots. To add even more replability to the game, there are new scenarios that change victory and loss conditions, and adversary cards that give the invaders more "flavor" and change the mechanism of how they will dominate the land dramatically. No single strategy will work against all setup, so it is quite the brain teaser there.If you can find other players who are patient enough to learn the rules and are willing to give this game multiple tries to really discover the layers of complexity it offers, you will most certainly have a great time. 5It's like this game was designed specifically for meIt's like this game was designed specifically for me. A cooperative game with deep, interesting gameplay and an incredibly rich theme.It's fun to play solo, it's fun to play 2p with my wife, and it's fun to play 4p when we have friends visiting.Cooperate with your fellow spirits to drive off the endless white hordes of invaders intent on colonizing your island, caring not that you, and other humans who have settled peacefully with you, are already here. You might flood their settlements unexpectedly so they keep having to move, or destroy their cities with lightning, or send them nightmares so terrible they pack up and leave. Eventually they'll decide it's too much trouble and give up, or the "progress" they bring will make the island uninhabitable for you.With 8 different spirits to play as in the base game (and a total of 12 available), each of whom both feels and actually plays very differently, there's a lot of variety to be had. 3 adversaries with customizable difficulty change up how the invaders act in interesting ways. 5You will play this more than you ever played Catan!I love that the game flips the common board game motif; instead of colonizing & competing, you are cooperating and repelling the colonists.The island boards are beautiful, both front and back. The plastic Invader pieces are nicely detailed (though the Explorers are appropriately fragile). The artwork for the various playable Spirits is gorgeous.With 8 Spirits, 4 Scenarios, and 3 Adversaries (each with 7 degrees of intensity), the base game has years of replayability even without the expansion.Learning the game can be steep; a game of 4 first-time players can take over two hours. (I recommend the "Guard the Isle's Heart" Scenario to help first time players focus to get started)The ability to play solo games means that this doesn't need to collect dust on the shelf, waiting for a monthly game night.Scoring your games is a great incentive to try more difficult Scenarios and Adversaries. My high score is 44. 5Fantastic game for those who it is meant forThis is a hard game. Know that going in. This is a heavy game that will require you to learn it likely over a few sessions before you really grasp the strategies needed to win. Even with the less complex spirits it will be difficult for most people.The theme is unique in that your play a spirit trying to drive off humans trying to ravage the land. You do this by using powers to push them around their lands, scare them off the island, and/or destroy them all together. Doing this is very satisfying...when you can pull it off. if you don't sequence your moves optimally you won't affect the board too much and will be quickly overrun with explorers.I would give this a 4.5/5 if I could, as the only complaint I have with the game is component quality. The little buildings, explorers, and even cards to an extent are sub par quality for such an expensive game. Just a small thing that irks me a little bit. The spirit boards and art were clearly the focus with the budget of the game and both of those are great. 5

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Greater Than Games Spirit Island Core Board Game

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Greater Than Games Spirit Island Core Board Game

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