Pandemic is not half as fecund a core design as it may initially seem. Its social puzzle approach to co-operative gaming and fresh theme were groundbreaking, don’t get me wrong, but its mechanical innovations were simply not foundational enough to be successfully transposed wholesale betwixt systems like Puerto Rico‘s and Dominion‘s were. Apparently, its designer Matt Leacock seemed to be the only one who didn’t notice this and Pandemic‘s two follow-ups, Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert, burst onto the scene a short while after it like no big thang. Forbidden Island is basically babby’s first Pandemic, which is all that needs to (or can) be said about it. Forbidden Desert, while a significant improvement, is still nowhere near unique or interesting enough an experience to stand on its own in its predecessor’s wake. It doesn’t help that both games are simple to the point of mindlessness. Now I get it, these are children’s games, basically just toys, and I probably shouldn’t even bother reviewing them. On the other hand I’ve played games with lower age ratings that I consider masterpieces, so let’s do this!
Let’s start with Forbidden Island, a game about hunting for treasure on a sinking island. I’m going to forego my usual structural/mechanical overview and instead paint this one in broad, abstracted terms. This will only work if you’ve played Pandemic. If you haven’t then I’m not sure why you’re even reading this, but hey, you do you. Forbidden Island is often described as Pandemic-lite (notably by Leacock himself), but to me it feels more like Pandemic-minus (minus anything interesting, ayoooooooo!). The disease/outbreak mechanics have been reduced to flipping tiles back and forth from one side to the other, the board navigation puzzle has been reduced to simple grid movement, and the end-of-turn card draws are now a tired sequence of hopeful RNG (although it kinda always was). Playing the game a single time reveals everything it has to offer, and what is has to offer ain’t a whole lot. Flip tiles from bad to good until you draw the cards you need, that’s about it.
Forbidden Desert is a lot better. In it, you contend with the shifting sands of a desert as opposed to the rising waters of a sinking island. Instead of treasure hunting, you are looking for the scattered pieces of a flying machine. Its improvements over the first game are numerous. Navigating the desert is (slightly) less brainless because of the wind constantly shuffling the sand around and creating new barricades. You have to explore and actually go do things to find the pieces you need instead of just drawing cards and hoping for the best (this is even an improvement over Pandemic, at least thematically). Players also now have health meters in the form of water canteens, which creates a need for coordination around the various ways to manage that. So yes, this is unequivocally a superior design to Forbidden Island, and the game definitely deserves credit for that. But is it good? Not really. Its puzzle is still way less involved and way less interesting than Pandemic‘s, and, just like Forbidden Island, it takes but a single play to exhaust the depth of its experience.
Some positives: these are good looking games, abound with detailed illustrations in a clean, consistent art style. The components are also top notch, though I would argue they shove the games further into the “toy” category than they would be otherwise. I also appreciate that both games retain the individual player powers that are an important ingredient in Pandemic‘s tactical stew, so props to Leacock for not axing everything. It goes without saying that the same mechanic in a less interesting game will by default be less interesting, but at least it’s a sign that the designs here at least aim at preserving the social nature of their antecedent.
Anyway, you’d think a twofer review like this would end up longer than usual, but I really don’t have much else to say. I acknowledge that my criticisms about these game can largely be deflected by saying “They’re family games, who cares if they’re simple and largely mindless?” Even if I bought that (which I don’t), I don’t see how you could possibly get more than a play or two out of either game. The only difference on the harder difficulties is that you draw more bad cards, which is hardly enough to make the experience worth returning to. Pandemic already had issues (I’ll save the subtleties of those criticisms for another essay), and to see new designs stem from it that fix nothing and even go backwards in many ways is disheartening. Dumbing down the systems of successful games is not an acceptable way to craft experiences for younger or casual audiences. A game should always be the best possible version of what it hopes to deliver. A lot of times this means high complexity, sure, but just as often it doesn’t. It’s not a simple matter of reducing or expanding your systems to hit your target demographic’s rules threshold. Forbidden Island is a worse offender than Forbidden Desert of this, sure, but both games reek of corporate marketing strategies to make Pandemic more “accessible” to kids or whatever. Well I critique games, not business maneuvers, so for me there is very little here to appreciate.
A third game in the series, Forbidden Sky, came out last year. I haven’t played it, and I have no desire to. Since I will likely never review it, allow me to briefly state how I think the game looks based on information I have gleaned from reviews, previews, and other press coverage. Bad. Maybe even worse than Forbidden Island. But don’t fret! There ARE games majorly influenced by Pandemic‘s social puzzle formula, such as 2017’s Spirit Island, which are taking the genre in a much better direction and proving to be massively popular while they do it. So I’d say the genre’s future is perfectly bright, even if some of Leacock’s own work seems stuck in the past.
Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert get ratings of TWO out of FIVE, indicating they are NOT RECOMMENDED.