Overview
Your helicopter crashes in an ancient desert. Work together to excavate the parts of a legendary flying machine and escape before the storm overtakes you or the heat drains your water supply.
See also: Forbidden Island Review · Pandemic Review
Kaitlyn’s Review
Likes
- Moving eye of the storm — a fantastic, unique mechanic
- Hidden flying machine parts add real tension
- More challenging than Forbidden Island
- Easy to learn
Dislikes
- Wish there was an additional difficulty level above the current maximum
First Impressions
Forbidden Desert is a cooperative adventure game that requires your team to work together under increasing pressure. It’s more accessible than Pandemic but more engaging than Forbidden Island — sitting squarely in the middle of the cooperative game spectrum.
Designed by Matt Leacock (same designer as Pandemic and Forbidden Island), it has that same “one more card and we lose” tension that makes cooperative games so addictive.
Thoughts
The moving eye of the storm is the game’s signature. When storm cards are drawn, tiles shift around the board, moving the eye’s location and burying tiles under sand. The way the storm dynamically reshapes the board creates tension that’s unlike anything I’ve experienced in other games. Areas that were safe become dangerous without warning. You can never fully relax.
The hidden flying machine parts are brilliant. Unlike Forbidden Island where treasure locations are known, in Forbidden Desert you have to excavate tiles to find where the parts are. Tiles have directional arrows pointing toward a hidden component — but since the storm moves tiles, the parts move too. This makes locating the machine a real challenge and a source of genuine drama near the end of the game.
Random adventurer roles change every game. Six role cards are shuffled and randomly dealt. Each has a special ability — and the abilities you get (or don’t get) significantly change your team’s strategy. This randomisation is one of the strongest replayability drivers.
Difficulty is adjustable. You can scale the storm intensity up or down based on player count and experience. Lower difficulty means you’ll complete the game; higher difficulty means genuine risk of catastrophic failure. The ability to tune this means the game stays appropriately challenging as you improve.
Dual loss conditions keep you alert. You’re racing against both the storm (run out of sand tiles and you lose) and the sun (run out of water and you lose). Managing both simultaneously is where the real challenge lives.
Conclusion
Forbidden Desert is an excellent cooperative game at a very accessible price. The moving storm mechanic alone justifies the buy. If you’re a Pandemic fan it may feel a bit easy at the highest difficulty, but for most groups and for introducing new players to cooperative games, it’s a fantastic choice. Highly recommended.
