I’ve opted to ditch the Isolation Day count for new games we play, given we’ve been out of isolation for a while now so using that metric doesn’t make particular sense any more. At least for now I’ll be rolling with “New game” titles on these posts. Here’s hoping this is the first of many.
Spirit Island is a 1-4 player game whose premise is the antithesis of the long-time best-seller tabletop game Settlers of Catan. In Settlers, players are explorers of a new island with resources that the players use to build up their settlements and roads as they expand, and the first to reach a particular score from that expansion and building up wins.
In Spirit Island, settlers have arrived on an island and are trying to expand and explore. The players, meanwhile, are spirits of the land who want the invasive, ravaging settlers to leave. Each spirit has its own unique set of powers that can be used independently or in harmony to help chase the settlers away in fear.
As the game advances, the settlers dig in more firmly and push on to new areas of the island faster. To counter that, the powers of the spirits grow and can change, becoming more devastating. With each round, discussion ensues about what the best approach is for the current situation, the powers the players currently have, and how each of those may be used to best advantage for not just the state of things at the moment but for where the settlers will be exploring or digging in next, in order to stay ahead of what could otherwise become problem surges of settler infestation. It’s often not so much about what each player can do to personally hit those settlers where it hurts with each turn, but to figure out how to work in conjunction with other players to get the most bang for their buck in that full round. Maybe one defends certain regions while another player sweeps other settlers and cities to a different area where another player can attack the larger group directly for better effect.
Unlike Settlers, with its lone winner goal, Spirit Island is a group win or lose situation. If you can’t get the settlers to leave before they expand too much, all players lose. If you can get them to leave before that tipping point, all players win.
We had a chance to play this recently when old friends, the ones who gifted us the game, were visiting. Huge gamers themselves, they had played Spirit Island plenty and so were able, as they so often do, to summarize the gameplay for us so we weren’t plodding along as we read through the rules for the first time at every step (although just by the depth of the game and options, it still does go on; game time on the box suggests that even seasoned players will be taking 90-120 minutes to finish one game).
With other stuff going on that evening, we didn’t have time to complete the one game we started, but we got a very good taste of how things flow and the way the game operates. I can say with certainty that it’s got high replay value. Not only are there several spirits to choose from in just this one original version of the game that each offer their own unique abilities and focus — destroy the settlers directly or help sweep them toward another who can, defend against the damage they cause or do no physical damage but scare them faster, etc. — but what powers those spirits start with can vary, as can what powers they gain and lose as the game goes on. So players will not only probably find affinity for what spirits they like playing the most, but also what spirits work best together, so long as the powers progress in your favour. We also hear that a two-player game these friends play most is decidedly different than the three-player game we did, which will certainly be different with four players and different again in the one-player approach (a variation far too few games offer, in my opinion).
The only drawback to the game is its length of play, which will undoubtedly determine when we can play it next. But we’re definitely looking forward to it.