Official Forbidden Island Rules

Last Updated on April 19, 2025 by The Official Game Rules Team

Forbidden Island is a cooperative board game where players work together as a team of adventurers to recover four sacred treasures before the island sinks. With strategic planning and teamwork, you must navigate the island, shore up flooded areas, and collect the artifacts before time runs out.

Enjoy Forbidden Island? Make sure to check out Forbidden Jungle and Forbidden Desert, explore new worlds with new and exciting challenges!

Download rules
Forbidden island cooperative board game box
buy now!

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see our disclosures here.

How to Play Forbidden Island

Objective

Forbidden Island is a cooperative adventure game where players must work together to collect four ancient treasures and escape the island before it sinks beneath the waves. The game requires strategic teamwork, resource management, and risk assessment to survive and succeed.

Number of Players: 2-4

Setup

1. Create the Island
  • Shuffle the 24 island tiles and arrange them in a random 5×5 grid with one empty space in the middle.
  • The island layout changes every game, making each session unique.
2. Place the Treasures
  • Set the four treasure figurines (Earth Stone, Statue of the Wind, Crystal of Fire, and Ocean’s Chalice) near the board.
  • These represent the artifacts players must collect to win.
3. Assign Roles & Give Character Cards

Each player selects a role card that grants them a special ability:

  • Pilot – Can fly to any tile once per turn.
  • Engineer – Can shore up two tiles per action.
  • Diver – Can swim across missing (sunk) tiles.
  • Messenger – Can give Treasure Cards from anywhere.
  • Navigator – Can move another player up to two tiles per action.
  • Explorer – Can move and shore up diagonally.

Each player places their pawn on the island tile that matches their role’s starting position.

4. Set the Water Level
  • Place the Water Level Marker on the water meter based on the difficulty chosen:
    • Novice (easy)
    • Normal
    • Elite (hard)
    • Legendary (very hard)

The higher the water level, the faster the island floods.

5. Draw Initial Flood Cards
  • Draw six Flood Cards and flip the corresponding island tiles to their blue (flooded) side.
6. Give Players Treasure Cards
  • Each player draws two Treasure Cards from the Treasure Deck.
  • If they draw a Waters Rise! card, shuffle it back into the deck and draw another card.

Game Turn

Each player’s turn consists of three phases:

  1. Take Up to Three Actions
  2. Draw Two Treasure Cards
  3. Draw Flood Cards

Phase 1: Take Up to Three Actions

Players can take up to three actions per turn from the following:

1. Move (1 action per tile)
  • Move horizontally or vertically to an adjacent tile.
  • Explorer can also move diagonally.
  • Diver can move through missing (sunk) tiles to the next available tile.
2. Shore Up (1 action per tile)
  • Flip a flooded tile back to its normal side.
  • The Engineer can shore up two tiles per action instead of one.
3. Give a Treasure Card (1 action per card)
  • Players can pass a Treasure Card to a teammate, but only if they are on the same tile.
  • The Messenger can give cards from anywhere.
4. Capture a Treasure (1 action)
  • If a player has four matching Treasure Cards, they can claim that treasure by being on one of its two matching tiles.

Phase 2: Draw Two Treasure Cards

  • Players draw two Treasure Cards from the deck. These include:
    • Treasure Cards – Collect sets of four to claim a treasure.
    • Special Action Cards –
      • Helicopter Lift – Allows all players on one tile to move to another tile. Used to escape at the end of the game.
      • Sandbag – Allows any player to shore up any tile at any time.
    • Waters Rise! – Increases the water level and reshuffles all previous flood cards back into the Flood Deck.

Phase 3: Draw Flood Cards

  • Draw a number of Flood Cards equal to the current water level.
  • For each Flood Card drawn:
    • If the tile is normal, flip it to its flooded side.
    • If the tile is already flooded, it sinks permanently and is removed from the game.
    • If a sunk tile had a treasure retrieval spot and both tiles are gone, the treasure is lost forever, making it impossible to win.

Winning the Game

Players win if they:

  1. Collect all four treasures.
  2. Reach Fool’s Landing (the helicopter tile).
  3. Use a Helicopter Lift card to escape.

Losing the Game

The game is lost if any of the following happens:

  • Water Level reaches the skull icon on the water meter.
  • Fool’s Landing sinks before players escape.
  • A player is on a tile that sinks, and they cannot move to an adjacent tile.
  • Both tiles for a required treasure sink before it is collected.

Strategy Tips

  1. Prioritize Shoring Up Key Tiles
    • Keep Fool’s Landing and Treasure Retrieval Tiles from sinking.
    • Protect critical movement paths so players don’t get stranded.
  2. Use Special Abilities Wisely
    • The Pilot can fly to rescue teammates or get treasures faster.
    • The Engineer can shore up multiple tiles quickly.
  3. Manage Treasure Cards Efficiently
    • Players can only hold five cards, so pass extras to teammates when possible.
    • Use Messenger’s ability to trade cards without being on the same tile.
  4. Save Special Action Cards for Emergencies
    • Use Helicopter Lift for escaping sinking zones.
    • Sandbags can shore up crucial tiles at any time.
  5. Adapt to the Island’s Changing Layout
    • Plan escape routes in case key tiles sink.
    • Move as a team and don’t isolate players.

Conclusion

Forbidden Island is a cooperative survival game that challenges players to work together to recover artifacts and escape before the island sinks. With a mix of strategy, teamwork, and quick decision-making, every game plays out differently, making it a fun and engaging experience.

Browse Related Games

Classic mancala board game box product photoOfficial Mancala Rules A high-angle view of the box art for the board game Gaia Project: A Terra Mystica Game, showing a figure in a high-tech control room steering a spaceship toward a glowing green and purple planet. The title is prominent in silver lettering.Official Gaia Project Rules Magnetic Chess Game with StonesOfficial Magnetic Chess Game with Stones Rules The Lord of The Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth game boxOfficial The Lord of The Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth Rules Creature Caravan strategy board game boxOfficial Creature Caravan Rules Root board game boxOfficial Root Rules The image displays the box art for the board game Pilgrim, designed by Nick Case and published by Spielworxx and A-Muse-Ment, as indicated by the logos on the box. This is a medium-heavy Eurogame for 1 to 4 players, set in a provincial 14th-century abbey, where players take on the roles of abbots and abbesses. The gameplay is noted for its high-strategy, zero-randomness design over 26 rounds, featuring a unique Mancala-movement mechanism for distributing acolytes across duties to determine actions, and an 18xx-style tile development on the map board used to build trade routes for revenue and pilgrim trails for endgame points. The beautiful box art features an old pilgrim with a staff walking down a path beneath trees with vibrant pink and red leaves.Official Pilgrim Rules Guess Who? board game boxOfficial Guess Who? Rules TOSY Flying Ring toy box product photoOfficial TOSY Flying Ring Rules Battleship reloaded strategy board game setup and boxOfficial Battleship Reloaded Rules Mycelia puzzle board game boxOfficial Mycelia Rules This is an image of the retail box for the board game Zombicide: Undead or Alive, which features a large, dynamic illustration of a group of survivors fighting off a horde of zombies in a Wild West setting, with a saloon visible in the background. The box art highlights the game's theme of cooperative zombie-slaying action.Official Zombicide Rules

Leave a Reply

Scroll to Top