Spirit Island

[afuna]

I've been playing a lot of Spirit Island (board game) recently. Sometimes with zorkian, sometimes solo. It's a fascinating game: co-op (1-4 players). You are spirits on an island that is being colonized by invaders. They're not really trying to do anything bad, but as they build up their towns and cities, they blight the land.

As a spirit, you can't really let them hurt you / your people, eh? So you fight back.

Love the theme. Love the flexibility. Love the thinkiness. Love that it's co-op.

I'm slowly getting better at it. Slowly, ever so slowly. I'm trying to get people around me to play it more, but so far no luck. It's so good though!

Comments

[pauamma]

Intriguing premise. (Out of curiosity: is that "spirits" as in souls of dead people, spirits associated with land features like mountains, rivers, or forests, or something else? Or does it matter?)

[afuna]

It is the latter! There are spirits of the river, the ocean, the earth, and of fear/nightmares among other things.

There's a mechanism I really like, where when you destroy a town/etc, you bring up the terror level. In most games, terror level would be a bad thing but in this case it's one to actively aspire for :)

[jadelennox]

it's pretty cool, it's basically an inverse Catan or Tikal. Like, the game is being the players in a resource allocation settlement game, and you're playing the spirits of an occupied island.

I didn't know you could play it solitaire, though, Fu. I should try that!

(From a Better Messaging point, I always kind of wanted the game to have us play the local indigenous population, not the spirits, because that still leaves the locals without any initiative. But man oh man do I appreciate the intent. Now I want someone to rewrite Puerto Rico so it's just as good a mechanic but not blindingly racist.)