Four sacred treasures are scattered across a sinking island. Your team explores tile by tile, collects the right cards, and races back to Fool’s Landing before the water swallows everything — including you. Here’s the whole game in about 5 minutes, nothing important left out.
Our full review: Forbidden Island Review · Ready for more tension? Forbidden Desert Review
Note: This is a condensed version of the rules to get you playing fast — nothing important is left out, but read the full rulebook for every edge case.
What’s In The Box
- 24 Island tiles (each with a flooded reverse side)
- 4 treasure figures (Earth Stone, Statue of the Wind, Crystal of Fire, Ocean’s Chalice)
- Treasure deck (including Helicopter Lift and Sandbag cards)
- Flood deck
- 6 Adventurer role cards, each with a matching pawn
- Water Level meter and marker
Setup
The Roles
Pilot
Fly Anywhere
Once per turn, fly your pawn to any tile on the board — even one that's not adjacent.
Navigator
Move Others
Move another player's pawn up to 2 adjacent tiles, for one action.
Explorer
Diagonal Movement
Move and shore up tiles diagonally, not just up-down-left-right.
Diver
Swim Through Flooded Tiles
Move through any number of adjacent flooded or missing tiles in a single action.
Engineer
Two Shores, One Action
Shore up two adjacent tiles for the cost of a single action.
Messenger
Give Cards Remotely
Hand a Treasure card to any other player regardless of where either of you is standing.
How a Turn Works
Capturing a treasure costs one action, requires 4 matching Treasure cards, and can only happen on one of that treasure’s two designated tiles.
Sandbags and the Helicopter Lift
Two card types don’t wait for your turn:
Sandbag cards can be played any time, by anyone, to shore up a flooded tile before it’s removed for good. No action required.
Helicopter Lift cards move any number of pawns from one tile to any other tile on the board, at any time. Once your team holds all 4 treasures, everyone gathers on Fool’s Landing and discards a Helicopter Lift card to fly off the island — that’s the win.
How to Win
Collect all 4 treasures, get every pawn to Fool’s Landing, and discard a Helicopter Lift card. That’s it.
How to Lose
You lose immediately if any of these happen:
- Both tiles for a treasure sink before you’ve captured it
- Fool’s Landing sinks
- A player’s tile sinks and there’s no adjacent tile to move to (Diver, Explorer, and Pilot have workarounds)
- The Water Level marker reaches the skull and crossbones
What happens if Fool's Landing floods?
You can still win as long as someone shores it up before it's drawn again from the flood deck. If a second Fool's Landing flood card comes up before it's repaired, the game ends immediately.
Can I shore up a tile that's already sunk?
No. Once a tile is removed from the board, it's gone for the rest of the game. Only flooded (but not yet sunk) tiles can be shored up.
Do I have to use all 3 of my actions?
No. You can take fewer than 3, though there's rarely a reason not to use them all when the island is actively sinking under you.
Can two players have the same role?
No. Each of the 6 role cards is dealt once, so with fewer than 6 players some roles simply won't be in play that game.
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Thumbnail image artificially generated for illustrative purposes.
