Forbidden Desert


Forbidden Desert is a cooperative board game developed by Matt Leacock and published by Gamewright Games. It is a sequel to the game Forbidden Island. It is also available on mobile.

Premise

Legend tells of an ancient technologically advanced civilization hidden deep within the desert. According to the legend, the civilization was capable of creating a solar-powered airship. Two to five players represent a group of explorers flying over the desert in search of ruins. However, as they're exploring the desert, their helicopter is caught in a desert storm, and they crash into the desert. While the explorers survived, they must now search the desert and find the airship, or they will be stuck in the desert forever.

Setup

Each player receives one role card, which explains what actions they can take, as well as their role's special ability. Each player also receives a water meter marker, which they use to represent the level of water they have in their canteens.
The board is created with 24 desert tiles placed in a 5 x 5 formation, with a space in the center of the board, representing the storm. All desert tiles are facing the same direction. 8 sand markers are placed on the board in a diamond formation. All player markers start at the crash site.
The level of difficulty is selected, and the storm meter marker is placed on the corresponding level of the storm meter. The gear deck and storm deck are shuffled, and they, along with the airship, airship pieces, and sand markers, are placed off to the side.

Gameplay

The thirstiest player goes first, and turns move clockwise.
The current player can take up to 4 normal actions, or one free action. The same type of action can be done more than once during that turn. Actions include:
Some tiles have a special icon on them, and may have special effects when excavated. These icons include:
If a player has an equipment card, they may use it at any time, as well as give it to any other player as a free action. Once used, however, the gear card is put back into the game box. Gear Cards include:
After the current player has completed their turn, the player looks at the Storm Meter, and draws cards from the Storm Deck equal to the Storm Level. If the Storm Deck runs out of cards, the Storm Discard Pile is shuffled and used as the new Storm Deck. There are three types of cards:
The turn then goes to the next player. Gameplay continues until one of the following happens:
Forbidden Desert is for two-to-five players. Like Forbidden Island, there are 6 different roles. Each Role corresponds to a different color, and each role has a different ability. Some of these roles are similar to the roles in Forbidden Island. Some roles carry more or less water than the others, depending on their role.