Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert: Cooperative Adventures Guide

First Posted November 3, 2025 | 🕒 Last Updated on March 27, 2026 by Ryan Conlon

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Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert are two standout cooperative board games that challenge players to work together against the clock and the elements. These games from designer Matt Leacock offer thrilling adventures where everyone wins or loses as a team, making them perfect for groups who want to collaborate rather than compete.

Both games share similar mechanics but offer distinct experiences – one focuses on a sinking island treasure hunt while the other presents a harsh desert survival challenge. The combination of strategic planning, resource management, and escalating tension creates memorable gaming sessions that keep players coming back for more adventures.

Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert Overview

These cooperative adventures put 2-4 players in the roles of adventurers racing against time to complete dangerous missions. In Forbidden Island, your team explores a mysterious island to collect four ancient treasures before it sinks into the ocean.

Forbidden Desert shifts the action to an archaeological dig site where players must find a legendary flying machine and escape before the desert heat and sandstorms overwhelm them. Both games use similar turn structures but each presents unique challenges that require different strategies.

Game Components and Setup

Forbidden Island comes with 24 island tiles that create a different map layout each game, 58 treasure and flood cards, and wooden treasure figurines. The random island setup means no two games feel exactly the same, keeping the experience fresh across multiple sessions.

Forbidden Desert includes a 5×5 grid of desert tiles, gear cards that provide special equipment, and a more complex water management system. The added components create deeper strategic decisions while maintaining the accessible gameplay that made the series popular with both casual and serious gamers.

Cooperative Gameplay Mechanics

Both games follow the same basic turn structure where each player takes up to 3 actions, draws treasure cards, and then faces the game’s escalating threats. Players can move, shore up flooded areas (or clear sand), trade cards, and attempt to collect treasures or gear.

The key to success lies in efficient communication and resource sharing since players must coordinate their limited actions. Cooperative board games like these require constant discussion about priorities, timing, and risk management.

Adventurer Roles and Special Abilities

Each game features 6 unique adventurer roles that provide distinct advantages:

• Pilot – Can fly to any tile once per turn, providing crucial mobility for rescues and treasure collection.
• Engineer – Shores up or clears sand for 1 action instead of 1, making area control more efficient.
• Explorer – Can move and shore up diagonally, accessing areas other adventurers cannot reach easily.
• Diver – Moves through flooded or sand-covered tiles, maintaining mobility when terrain becomes dangerous.
• Messenger – Trades cards with teammates anywhere on the board, not just adjacent players.
• Navigator – Moves other players up to 2 spaces, coordinating team positioning effectively.

Forbidden Island Strategy

Success on the island requires balancing treasure collection with flood management while keeping all players alive. Teams should focus on collecting treasure cards early since you need 4 matching cards to claim each treasure, and the deck cycles quickly through the discard pile.

Prioritize keeping Fools’ Landing (the helicopter pad) and treasure sites from sinking completely. Once these critical locations disappear, your mission becomes impossible to complete regardless of your progress elsewhere.

Water Level Management

The water level marker determines how many flood cards get drawn each turn, creating mounting pressure as the game progresses. Smart teams use their early turns to establish strong positions before the flooding accelerates in later rounds.

Focus on shoring up tiles that are already flooded rather than letting them sink completely. It costs the same action to shore up a flooded tile as it does to clear a newly flooded one, but you cannot recover sunken tiles.

Forbidden Desert Strategy

The desert presents additional challenges through water management and gear collection that require more complex planning. Every player starts with 4 water tokens, and the blazing sun removes water whenever certain cards appear or when players end turns on sand-covered tiles.

Gear cards provide powerful abilities like solar shields for water protection or jetpacks for enhanced movement. Collecting the right combination of gear often determines whether your team can reach the flying machine parts and escape successfully.

Sandstorm and Heat Management

Sandstorms move across the board and add sand to tiles, making movement more expensive and blocking access to important locations. Teams must balance clearing sand with exploring new areas and managing their limited water supplies.

The heat marker increases the intensity of sandstorms and water loss, similar to the water level in Forbidden Island. Plan your early game moves carefully since the desert becomes increasingly hostile as time passes.

Difficulty Scaling and Replayability

Forbidden Island offers 4 difficulty levels (Novice, Normal, Elite, Legendary) while Forbidden Desert provides 5 levels that adjust the starting positions of threat markers. This scaling allows groups to find their perfect challenge level and gradually increase difficulty as their teamwork improves.

Both games include variable setup elements that ensure different experiences across multiple plays. Random tile placement in Forbidden Island and the shifting desert layout in Forbidden Desert create unique puzzles that require fresh strategies each session.

Which Game Should You Play First?

Most groups benefit from starting with Forbidden Island since it introduces the cooperative mechanics without the added complexity of water management and gear cards. Once your team masters the island, Forbidden Desert provides a natural progression with deeper strategic elements.

Experienced cooperative gamers might enjoy jumping directly into Forbidden Desert for its additional layers of decision-making. Both games work well for introducing new players to cooperative gaming concepts and team-based strategy.

Comparing the Two Adventures

While both games share core mechanics, they offer distinct experiences that appeal to different preferences. Forbidden Island emphasizes quick decision-making and flood management, while Forbidden Desert adds resource management and gear optimization for deeper strategic gameplay.

The island setting feels more urgent with its sinking tiles and rescue scenarios, whereas the desert creates a survival atmosphere with water scarcity and environmental hazards. Both themes work effectively to create tension and encourage teamwork throughout the game.

Feature	Forbidden Island	Forbidden Desert
Complexity	Beginner-friendly	Intermediate
Play Time	30 minutes	45 minutes
Main Resource	Treasure cards	Water tokens
Special Equipment	None	Gear cards
Board Layout	Variable island	5×5 grid

Final Thoughts

Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert represent some of the best entry points into cooperative gaming, offering exciting adventures that bring players together instead of pitting them against each other. These games prove that working as a team can be just as thrilling as competing for individual victory.

Whether you choose the sinking island treasure hunt or the harsh desert survival challenge, both games deliver memorable experiences that will have your group planning the next adventure before you finish cleaning up. Start with either game this week and discover why cooperative adventures have become such a popular choice for family game nights.