When comparing Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island vs Forbidden Island, the Slant community recommends Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island for most people. In the question“What are the best co-op board games?” Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island is ranked 4th while Forbidden Island is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island is:
Whether trying to outrun a volcano, defeat tribes of cannibals, or removing a curse from the island; each scenario requires you to play the game subtly different in a way that makes the theme come alive. For example, while fleeing from the volcano players are highly encouraged to use the exploration icon to uncover more and more tiles to stay ahead of the encroaching lava, while in a different scenario gathering wood becomes the priority and players shift to using the resource gathering option more often. This leads to each scenario feeling unique and really drawing players into each one of them.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Gameplay mechanics combine with theme for a deeply immersive experience
Whether trying to outrun a volcano, defeat tribes of cannibals, or removing a curse from the island; each scenario requires you to play the game subtly different in a way that makes the theme come alive. For example, while fleeing from the volcano players are highly encouraged to use the exploration icon to uncover more and more tiles to stay ahead of the encroaching lava, while in a different scenario gathering wood becomes the priority and players shift to using the resource gathering option more often. This leads to each scenario feeling unique and really drawing players into each one of them.
Pro Multiple scenarios and variable set-up lead to great replayability
With 6 scenarios included in the base game (more in expansions), and each scenario having a variable setup that can lead to very different gameplay experiences, Robinson Crusoe is a game that you will keep coming back to time and time again. Every game will be completely different, not only because you can pick a different class and different strategy, but also because of the many variables and randomness of the game.
Pro Fully cooperative gameplay
With the game being hard enough on its own, working together with other players feels like a welcome relief from the normally competitive nature of board games.
Pro Stacks well with player count
The game has a specific set of rules depending on the number of players, so it doesn’t feel better or worse when played solo or in a 4-player group.
Pro Good aesthetics
The visual look of Robinson Crusoe is very appealing and adds a lot to the thematic immersion. It follows a 17th century shipwreck theme like the popular novel and includes tribal marks, old maps, the look of aged parchment, etc.
Pro Quality components
All the components featured in Robinson Crusoe should easily hold up to a lot of plays. From the smaller wooden bits and pieces to the heavy dice and durable cardstock cards, all the components are top-notch and don’t feel cheap.
Pro Very accessible
Forbidden Island can be taught within a few minutes to absolutely anyone. It starts off slow and progressively leads into more complicated situations, so there’s time to get into the feel of the game. You only need to know how to do four actions, and the result of them is instantly visible, there’s pretty much nothing to micromanage.
Pro Cheap
The game retails for around $15, which is very cheap for the replay value and quality of the components that this game packs.
Pro Great physical components
The components of Forbidden Island are not only visually beautiful, but also durable, so they should hold up to wear and tear just fine. The game comes in a high-quality tin box and is full of thick and sturdy island tiles, durable cardstock cards, and eight treasure figures made of soft plastic.
Pro Beautiful artwork
The game looks amazing, it’s full of colorful high-quality artwork that really enhances the theme of treasure hunting on a mysterious island. The game’s box already gives a great first impression, featuring a big copy of the “Lighthouse” location tile. These locations that form the island have a huge variety of detailed and great-looking art on them.
On a design note, it is also very well done in the sense that it’s easy to distinguish which tiles are sinking, even in the blue-ish looking locations.
Pro Uncomplicated
The rules of Forbidden Island are straightforward. After setting up the map and choosing the difficulty, you are randomly assigned one of the six different classes. During your turn you can take up to three actions in total. All actions cost 1 point, you can move, shore up a drowning tile, give a treasure card to another player on the same tile, or collect a treasure. After that you draw two cards from the treasure card deck and take a number of flood cards equivalent to the water level.
The game is won when you play a “Helicopter lift” card on the “Fool’s Landing” tile while you have all players on it and you’ve uncovered all the treasures. There are many lose conditions – you can lose if the water level reaches the highest mark, if both the tiles housing the same treasure drown before you manage to get it, if the “Fool’s Landing” tile drowns, or if a player drowns.
Pro Varying difficulty
Forbidden Island lets you adjust the difficulty, which is great because you can adjust to the group you’re playing, be it a group of experienced gamers or your family. This is done by moving the slider on the water level meter to one of the four sections. Basically, you start with a higher initial water level.
Pro Good replayability
There are many variables to Forbidden Island that keeps it replayable. The cards you draw and the map you create will always vary and the fact that you get a random class makes the game feel different every time.
The six classes have highly different abilities, for example, the pilot can use an action point to fly to any tile on the island, the messenger can give treasure cards to another player anywhere on the map, and the engineer can shore up two tiles on the same turn for one action point.
Cons
Con Complex
While the rules aren’t necessarily difficult, there are a lot of things you must remember and keep track of when playing Robinson Crusoe. You must essentially memorize what areas provide what type of resources, what are the conditions of getting resources or creating stuff, how to resolve specific plays, how dice and event cards work, etc. While you’re struggling to survive you must constantly remind yourself of the main objective that you must achieve to win. There’s a lot of thinking about what the least worst move out of the bunch is.
Con Quarterbacking issue
Robinson Crusoe is a prime example of a game that suffers from the alpha-gamer issue. Each round begins with players talking to each other and deciding what they’re going to do, and it’s easy for the experienced gamer to dictate what everyone must do because this is a game that has a pretty steep learning curve.
Con Many small components
There are a lot of tiny wooden cubes and tokens in Robinson Crusoe, and this can lead to multiple problems. Firstly, if you accidentally happen to drop something, then it might be difficult to find if it rolls in a corner or a less visible place. Secondly, the gameboard is very vulnerable to movement, so you might displace some valuable information, for example, the cube tracking your current health points. Lastly, the number of components lead to a long setup / takedown time.
Con Quarterbacking / alpha-gamer issue
Forbidden Island suffers from the same issue as many cooperative games – a dominant player might make decisions for everyone. Table talk is absolutely necessary in this game to win, and the fact that everyone’s cards are visible, and the discard pile can be looked through doesn’t help the problem.
Con Many luck elements
Pretty much everything that happens in this game revolves around the cards that are drawn. The map itself is set up by drawing tiles, so you can get very unlucky with the placement of the “Fool’s Landing” tile and the distance to the treasure locations you need to reach in order to win. You can also get unlucky with the treasure card deck that has some “Water Rising” cards shuffled in between – if you draw a few of these in quick succession, you might make important locations sink and lose straightaway.
Con Possibly too light for experienced gamers
The game is very similar to Pandemic, but much easier in the sense that it sacrifices many concepts in favor of accessibility. Due to this Forbidden Island might feel repetitive, simplistic, and not very complex to a more experienced gamer because there are not as many strategic possibilities.