We keep Spirit Island behind the counter rather than on the shelf because handing it to someone unprepared is unkind. It comes in a box the size of a small suitcase, the rulebook is forty pages, and the first time you play you will almost certainly lose. The second time you play you will lose again, but you will understand why. By the third game you will start to see how the pieces fit together, and that is when Spirit Island becomes one of the greatest games ever made.
How to Play
Spirit Island is a cooperative game for one to four players in which each player controls a spirit — an elemental being defending an island from colonial invaders. Each spirit has a unique set of powers and starts with different innate strengths. The island is divided into lands of four terrain types; invaders follow a rigid three-phase cycle: explore new lands, build towns and cities in lands they have already entered, and ravage lands where they have built, damaging the island's Dahan population and the land itself. Players must use their powers — drawn from a growing personal card pool — to disrupt this cycle, push invaders back, and defend the Dahan. The game escalates through an invader deck whose later cards are shuffled in at the start, meaning the late-game threats are baked in from turn one. Win by destroying all the invaders' cities and towns or completing a specific spirit power. Lose if the fear track maxes out, the island's blight capacity fills, or a spirit is destroyed.
Our Experience
Our game master Piotr runs a Spirit Island table every other Sunday. He starts new players with Lightning's Swift Strike (fast, violent, easy to understand) and Ocean's Hungry Grasp (straightforward but powerful positioning). Last month a pair of regulars graduated to playing Shadows Flicker Like Flame paired with Vital Strength of the Earth — a combination that requires genuine coordination — and defended the island against difficulty four invaders on their first attempt. Piotr described it as 'the proudest he has been of any game table all year.' We believe him.