I absolutely love Spirit Island!

As someone who owns both the board game and the Steam adaptation, I still prefer the board game. I find that the PC game is great, and it’s reasonably polished. It’s good for when I want to get straight into playing the game without fiddling with the setup/teardown and turn upkeep.

That said, you don’t get the same experience as the board game. The charm and production quality of the game and its components don’t translate seamlessly into the virtual variant. The mechanics & rules may be the same, but I find that the PC and board game present themselves as distinct and separate products.

Haven't tried Spirit Island yet! To be honest, the big price tag kind of scares me from casually trying it(esp since I hear the consensus is you want the branch & claw xpacs too to really make it great).

It might be cheating since it is only sorta a board game, but my favorite is the Arkham Horror LCG. So much content, each campaign has its own quirks and twists, and the deckbuilsing is incredibly deep, especially with the experience leveling up system. One of my favorite board games overall

Awesome! I've been playing Spirit Islands frequently for the past three or so months. I'm really enjoying the different thematics of all the spirits, their aspects and their unique powers. The spirits names are quite unique and awesome as well: "River Surges in Sunlight", "Many Minds Move as One", "Lure of the Deep Wilderness", etc., they're kinda mysterious but still good at explaining the idea behind a spirit.

The artwork you praise so much is a bit overhyped as far as I'm concerned. There's some really nice pictures, but there's also some that are just kinda dull. The big variety of scenarios, nations and spirits is more interesting to me. I do feel like the more complex spirits also have the fancier artwork though. Which is a bit unfair haha.

My personal favourite coop game is Magic Maze, followed by Pandemic: Fall of Rome, The Shipwreck Arcana, So Clover and Top Ten. But Spirit Island is also pretty high on my list, especially when I'm looking to fulfill the itch for a longer, more complex coop game.

Hm, I'm not sure if I was subconsciously influenced by this post, but I dug out Spirit Island yesterday again, got into the rules and played a solo round. It was a lot of fun, but I was totally overwhelmed by the invaders. To the extend, that I googled commonly made mistakes in the hope I did something wrong: I didn't :/

Thanks for posting! I'm almost only play cooperative games (no one in my group is too much of a fan to compete against each other), so I'm always on the hunt for more of these. Luckily, I own all three games you've mentioned, but only spent time on AE and The Crew. This definitely motivates me to open up Spirit Island and give it a go!

I actually own the Target exclusive Horizons of Spirit Island - from reviews, it seems like it's a streamlined version of the original, with lower quality pieces. Have you tried this, and what are your thoughts on it?

Oh man, I've been really looking to get Spirit Island. As mentioned, the problem with a lot of co-op games is that they can be solitaire games split up into a number of players, so I've read that Spirit Island is one of the games that overcomes that. How does it fair with just two players? Thinking of picking it up at some point to play with my wife, so your review is helpful here too!

Black Orchestra is a great coop game. The major complaint that people feel is that the game is a bit too random since really your win/lose comes down to a couple die rolls. I feel that doesn't take away too much from the game. It's a blast.

The Captain Is Dead is a pretty fun co-op game. I think the difficulty fluctuates a bit but it's great for beginners since it's very simple in what you can do. The enemy rounds go very quickly and setup takes less than a minute or 2.

I desperately want to play a full series of The Crew. It's a small trick taking card game where you work together to accomplish some goals. It's the perfect game for me but I can't find 4 consistent players. Very similar to Time Stories in that regard.

For Time Stories, the art is great; the theme is great! I simply can't find 4 consistent players. I feel you have to play this game 3 or 4 times in a row (maybe 1 night 4 weeks in a row). Our set of players fluctuates a bit too much.

Dead Men Tell No Tales is a BRUTAL coop game. I don't think we've ever beaten it. It's super hard but we are gluttons for punishment.

A Fake Artist Goes to New York is absolutely my favorite game of all time. It's a 2 vs many game. Rounds are fast (5 minutes or so) and it's perfect for drunken revelries. You need 5 players minimum. It's a lovely "dessert" game.

Flash Point: Fire Rescue is a very rewarding coop. You get to drive a firetruck around and save people from a burning building. It's also got a lot of expansions. Some of the fire expansions rules are a bit complicated to understand but you'll get the hang of it after a few games.

I haven't played it but Forbidden Desert seems to the best of the Forbidden series. I really enjoyed Forbidden Island and Desert seems to add just a bit more without ruining the base game.

The LOOP has been super fun. I really enjoy this game. Lots of quirkiness, lots of prioritization. It's easy to agree on what the most important thing is. It's a whole other matter to actually do it.

What are your thoughts on Legends of Andor?

I wish I had backed the new expansion. I hadn't played my spirit island copy for a while so I skipped the expansion, but in the past 3 months I have played it tons.

Big fan of SI there is a digital version on Steam that can help you learn while not having to juggle all the rules

We play up to five players and it's entirely fine at that count. Then again maybe our opinion that a highly rewarding game like Spirit Island doesn't have to be over in 90 minutes may be an outlier.

One of the morst important factor in Spirit Island is that everyone MUST be able to play without handholding. And once you're beyond the 3 player mark there's no more room (nor necessity) to discuss island-wide tactics. Some quick words on strategy are alright but the turn to turn tactics are best dealt with when every player figures out what they could do or contribute to and the negotiates bilaterally.

I also disagree with the upkeep being an issue. It doesn't take a whole lot of games to get familiar with the VERY easy formula. Seriously, out of everything in Spirit Island the invader turns are probably the easiest. Everyone can just do their own island board and you're done in a jiffy.

One nice thing about the expansions is that most additions are completely optional. You can play with them if you like or ignore them.

It's definitely a game that's a bit tricky to get new players into. The rules are a bad teaching tool and you absolutely should play with MAX 3 players at the easiest setup imaginable when onboarding newbies. Because you ARE gonna have to handhold them.