Gamewright | Forbidden Island | Board Game | Ages 10+ | 2-4 Players | 30 Minutes Playing Time

This has become a favorite game in our family. We started our little board game nights with Forbidden Island, which is a fantastic gateway game. Now we have progressed onto Forbidden Jungle with has kept all of our favorite aspects of co-operative play and introduced some new elements into the mix. Matt Leacock really knows how to create a good co-operative game which keeps you engaged with a dramatic countdown mechanism.Buy it, you won't regret it.

Compared to the majority of the games in our collection, this is a nice simple game; easy to setup, simple rules and quick to play. Neatly presented in quite a small tin, it is good for holidays & doesn’t require much table space.Having said it is a simple game, it is not always easy to win. Thanks to the random tile order, the critical ‘Fools Landing’ tile can turn up in a most inconvenient place and, as we select our player adventurers randomly, some have more useful talents than others. The randomness of the island and artefact cards also ensure that, despite the simple mechanics, no two games are the same. However, with the standard diamond island configuration it is usually a bit too easy to win once one has worked out a winning strategy.It plays at a good pace & the co-op element is strong and despite it being a simple game, we play it quite often for a bit of light relief. I found some alternative island configurations on the internet and all of them are far more challenging than the diamond so the game never gets stale.Rulebook: 10/10 Complexity: 2/10 Component quality: 10/10 Replayability: 8/10 Gameplay pace: 10/10

This was a Christmas present for my nine year old son. I had played it before and though he would like it, but I was surprised to see how easily his younger brother, my seven year old son, picked it up.The game play is actually very simple with players competing against the storm that moves around the board burying locations deeper under the sand. All players win or lose as a team, with the team losing if the storm becomes too ferocious, the board gets buried in sand or any of the team dies of thirst.Each player has different abilities to help them discover pieces of the flying machine you need to escape. Combining this with the desert constantly shifting and items in random locations, each game feels different to keep it fresh each time.What has impressed me most is how well balanced the game is. The difficulty level of the game can be varied nicely, by simply changing the strength that the storm starts at. All the different characters feel nicely balanced too, with distinct strengths, none of which are too insignificant or too powerful. Most importantly, they are sufficiently different to encourage the players to adopt unique roles within the team.The game is driven by collaboration, with the storm taking a go for every player's. If players don't work together, the team will fail quickly due to dying of thirst. If they don't utilise their unique individual strengths for the benefit of everyone, the storm will usually overwhelm them before they escape.If you've not tried a collaborative game before, this is a great one to start with.I can thoroughly recommend it for younger players too. The fundamentals of the rules are easy to grasp. The instructions are well-written and most eventualities are covered. But there will never be an argument as everyone is on the same side. And when someone loses a game, there is no-one who has won to wind them up.Perfect for competitive siblings!

I'm just getting into board gaming and wanted a simple to learn game that would be easy to show people how to play and also play solo. This is a co-op game not player v player.The rules are easy to pick up and the game can be played in about 30-40 minutes. I have enjoyed the first few games, got well and truly beaten first couple of goes then won the third. For me there is some replay value in that the difficulty can be ramped up and there are different characters with differeing abilities to play with. Seems a good game to get out every now and then and as stated non gamers could play this quite easily.One issue I had was that some of the tiles had marks on the edge ( possibly where they were cut) one being quite pronounced and on the dried up oasis tile, meaning that it could be identified before being turned over. As the game relies on you not knowing what is under the tiles and especially not knowing which of the 3 oasis tiles is the dry one,this is not good! Once you know the mark is there you can't "not see it" One other tile had a pronounced spot on it. I returned the first set to Amazon ( great service) and ordered a replacement. This was better although there were smaller marks on 2 tiles but not the important ones so this is fine. seems like there may be a quality issue when the cards get punched out. I have seen reviews saying similar on the web but also that the makers always seem to send out replacement tiles quickly ( although this may be mainly in the USA as I believe they are based there). you can always return to the retailer in the uk.Overall a fun game and seems a good introduction to board games and for those looking to branch out from the family favourites such as monopoly and the like.