Spirit Island English Version

- Game in English

 

- Player count: 1 - 4

 

- Duration: 90 - 120 min

 

- Suggested Age: 13+

In the furthest corners of the world, magic still exists, embodied by the spirits of the land, sky, and everything natural. As the great European powers expand their colonial empires, they will inevitably claim a place where spirits still hold power - and when they do, the land itself will fight alongside the islanders who live there.

Spirit Island is a complex and thematic cooperative game about defending your island from colonizing invaders. Players are different spirits of the earth, each with their own unique elemental powers. In each round, players simultaneously choose power cards to play, paying energy to do so. Using combinations of power cards that match a spirit's elemental affinities can result in free bonus effects. Faster powers take effect immediately, before invaders spread and wreak havoc, but other magics are slower, requiring foresight and planning to use effectively. In the Spirit phase, spirits gain energy and choose how to Grow: to reclaim used power cards, to seek new power, or to expand their presence into new areas of the island.

The invaders spread across the island map in a semi-predictable way. Each turn, they explore certain lands (parts of the island); the next turn, they build on these lands, forming settlements and cities. The following turn, they wreak havoc there, bringing blight to the land and attacking any native islanders present.

Islanders defend themselves against invaders when attacked and provide additional help to spirits, but they don't always do so exactly as you might expect. Some powers intervene with islanders to help them (for example) drive out invaders or cleanse the land of blight.

The game escalates as it progresses: spirits expand their presence to new parts of the island and seek new, more powerful powers, while invaders intensify their colonization efforts. Each turn represents 1 to 3 years of alternate history.

At the beginning of the game, to win, all settlements and cities on the board must be destroyed. But as you frighten the invaders, victory becomes easier: they flee even if a certain number of settlements or cities remain. Defeat occurs if a spirit is destroyed, if the island is overrun by blight, or if the invader deck is exhausted before victory is achieved.

The game includes different adversaries to fight against (e.g., a Swedish mining colony or a distant British colony). Each adversary changes in a different way and offers a different difficulty path, allowing the challenge to be raised as you gain skill.