Spirit Island

How the game is built

Spirit Island is a cooperative game for 1-4 players. You are the nature spirits of an island, and your job is to stop the Invaders who have sailed in to colonize it and who spread Blight as they go. The Dahan, the island's own people, are not on the Invaders' side - they live alongside the spirits.

Nobody plays the Invaders. They are driven entirely by the Invader Deck and the Invader Board. Each turn one card enters the Explore space and every card already on the board slides one space left, triggering Builds and Ravages. So this is not a game about not knowing what the opponent will do - it is a game where you already know which lands will be Ravaged two turns from now.

• Every phase is played simultaneously. Talking it through and agreeing is part of the rules.
• Every spirit has its own Growth options, Presence Tracks, and Innate Powers. The asymmetry is the game.
• The victory condition is not fixed - it gets easier as the Terror Level rises. Frightening the Invaders is how you lower the bar for winning.
• It is a heavy game. The rulebook itself suggests that your first game or two use a low-complexity spirit with its Power Progression Card, and leave out the Blight Card, Adversaries, and Scenarios.

Components

Setup

1. 1If you are using an Adversary or a Scenario, choose it before setup - some of them change setup itself.
2. 2Put out the Invader Board and place 4 Fear Markers per player in the Fear Pool.
3. 3Shuffle the Fear Cards and place 9 on the Fear Deck space, divided into three groups of three: put the “Terror Level 2” divider between the top and middle groups, and the “Terror Level 3” divider between the middle and bottom groups.
4. 4Build the Invader Deck: 5 Stage III cards, then 4 Stage II on top of them, then 3 Stage I on top, and set it on the Explore space. One card of each stage is left over - return those to the box without looking at their faces.
5. 5Take one Blight Card at random without looking at its back, place it “Healthy Island” side up on the Blight Space, and stack the indicated amount of Blight on it.
6. 6Pick one Island Board per player at random, lay them out, and populate each land with the Invaders, Dahan, and Blight shown by its icons. This Blight comes from the box, not from the Blight Card.
7. 7Shuffle the Minor and Major Power Decks separately and put the Energy, Cities, Towns, Explorers, and Dahan where everyone can reach them.
8. 8Each player takes all Presence and Single-Turn Effect Markers of one color, then chooses a spirit and takes its Spirit Panel and 4 Unique Power Cards.
9. 9Place starting Presence following the setup instructions on the back of the Spirit Panel. Every player starts on a different Island Board.
10. 10Flip the Spirit Panels face up and cover every dashed circle on both Presence Tracks with your remaining Presence. The leftmost solid circle on each track stays uncovered.
11. 11Finally, the Invaders' starting action: reveal the top Invader Card, resolve the Explore action in that terrain, and place the card face up on the Build space.

The five phases of a turn

1. 1Spirit Phase - (1) choose one Growth option at the upper right of your Spirit Panel and do everything in it, in any order you like. (2) Gain Energy equal to the highest uncovered number on your Energy Presence Track. (3) Choose the Power Cards you will play this turn and pay for them immediately. You gain the Elements on those cards right away - the card effects wait.
2. 2Fast Power Phase - resolve Fast Powers. You may agree on the order, but you may not interrupt one Power with another. A Fast Power you do not use now cannot be held back for later.
3. 3Invader Phase - (1) Blighted Island effect, if it applies, (2) Fear effects, (3) Invader Actions (Ravage, then Build, then Explore), (4) advance the Invader Cards.
4. 4Slow Power Phase - resolve Slow Powers exactly as in the Fast Power Phase.
5. 5Time Passes - discard the Power Cards you played to your personal discard pile, clear every Element gained and all Damage dealt this turn (stand the tipped models back up), and remove the Single-Turn Effect Markers.

The Invader Board - two turns from Explore to Ravage

The Invader Board has three Action Spaces - Ravage, Build, and Explore - with a discard space to their left. The Invader Card sitting in a space tells you which land type that action affects. If a space is empty, that action simply does not happen this turn.

3a. Ravage - in each land of the type shown on the Ravage card, the Invaders deal Damage to the land and the Dahan simultaneously, and the surviving Dahan fight back. The arithmetic is in the next section.

3b. Build - in each land of the type shown on the Build card, add 1 City if the land has more Towns than Cities, and 1 Town in all other cases. You are not upgrading a Town into a City, you are adding a new piece. Do not Build in lands without Invaders.

3c. Explore - turn the top card of the Invader Deck face up. In lands of that type, add 1 Explorer if the land contains a Town or City, or is adjacent to a Town, City, or Ocean. Only 1 Explorer goes in no matter how many sources are adjacent, and it comes from the supply. If there is no card to turn up, you lose on the spot.

Ravage and Blight - why this game hurts

In each land of the Ravage card's type, the Invaders deal Damage to the land and the Dahan at the same time: 1 per Explorer, 2 per Town, 3 per City, reduced by any Defend Powers played. Then two things happen together.

• Damage to the land - if it is 2 or more, add 1 Blight to the land. Only ever one, no matter how large the Damage. If it is 1 or less, nothing happens.
• Invaders fight the Dahan - every 2 Damage destroys 1 Dahan. You may not spread the Damage around to keep them alive. A Dahan dealt only 1 Damage is turned over to show it, and surviving Dahan recover at the end of the turn.
• The Dahan fight back - once the Invaders' Damage is fully resolved, each surviving Dahan in that land deals 2 Damage to the Invaders there, divided as you choose. Dahan whose Damage was entirely absorbed by Defend still fight back. If the Ravage in that land was skipped or stopped, though, there is no counterattack either.
• The Invaders never attack the spirits directly. Presence does not fight back either. The only way Presence dies is Blight being added to its land.

Adding Blight does two bad things at once. First, it destroys 1 Presence from each spirit in that land - and destroyed Presence is removed from play, never returned to the Spirit Panel. Second, if the land already had Blight, you must add a Blight to one adjacent land as well (a Cascade). If that adjacent land also had Blight, it cascades again, and so on.

Spirits, Growth, and Presence Tracks

A Spirit Panel carries Growth options, two Presence Tracks, and Innate Powers. Each turn you pick one Growth section and do everything in it, in whatever order you like. The common Growth effects are these.

The top Presence Track is Energy gained per turn and the bottom one is Card Plays. At setup everything but the leftmost space on each track is covered by Presence. When you place Presence on the island you choose which track to take it from, always from the left, and the bigger numbers appear as the track empties. You do not add the tracks together - you use the highest revealed number on each track.

• A Sacred Site is a land where one spirit has 2 or more Presence. Some Powers can only be used from a Sacred Site, and one land can be a Sacred Site for several spirits at once.
• There is no limit to how much Presence, or how many different spirits' Presence, a land can hold.
• Destroyed Presence never comes back. It does not return to the Spirit Panel and it never re-covers a track number.
• Some tracks have a “Reclaim One” space. While it is revealed you may return 1 Power Card from your discard pile to your hand during any Spirit Phase, starting the very turn it is revealed.
• Some tracks carry bonus Elements. While revealed, you count as having that Element every turn. An “Any” space grants one Element of your choice each turn, but you cannot change it mid-turn.
• Instead of adding Presence from your panel you may move one of your Presence already on the island to the same destination - useful once all your Presence is out.

Power Cards and Elements

There are eight Elements: Sun, Moon, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Plant, and Animal. Playing a Power Card grants the Elements printed on it immediately, and they go away when the card leaves play (usually during Time Passes). Innate Powers cost no Energy and no Card Plays - they demand Elements instead.

• “Up to” is not the same as a fixed number. “Up to 3” may be 0, 1, 2, or 3; a plain “3” must be done as fully as you are able.
• Do as much as you can. If part of an effect cannot be applied, skip that part and resolve the rest.
• You may skip a Power entirely. You do not get the Energy back, but the Elements from the card still count - playing a card purely for its Elements is a real tactic.
• Gather moves things into the target land from adjacent lands; Push moves them out into adjacent lands. Both move things exactly one land, and boosts to a Power's Range do not extend them. You may not Push off the board or into the Ocean.
• Repeat does not grant Elements again and never chains (ignore the word “Repeat” on the repeated card). It also does not count as another Card Play.
• Forget may take a card from your hand, your discard pile, or cards in play - including a Major Power you have only just gained. A Forgotten Unique Power goes under your Spirit Panel.

Fear and the Terror Level

Fear is fright done to the Invaders. It comes from Powers carrying the Fear symbol and from destroying Invaders - 1 Fear for a Town, 2 for a City. For each Fear generated, advance one Fear Marker from the Fear Pool into the Generated Fear area.

1. 1When all the Fear Markers have advanced, move the top card of the Fear Deck face down into the Earned Fear Cards area.
2. 2If that reveals a Terror Level divider, move it to cover the old Terror Level. The new Terror Level and victory condition apply immediately - you can win on the spot.
3. 3Move all the Fear Markers back to the Fear Pool. Any leftover Fear is then advanced again.
4. 4Earned Fear Cards are resolved during the next Invader Phase, in the order they were earned, using only the row for the current Terror Level. Resolved cards go to the Fear Discard space.

Victory and defeat

You win immediately the moment you meet the victory condition for the current Terror Level - the Invaders have had more than they can bear and abandon the island. The condition gets easier as the Terror Level rises.

• Too Much Blight - when the last Blight comes off the Blight Card, follow its instructions. From the “Healthy Island” side you flip the card; from the “Blighted Island” side, you lose.
• A Spirit Is Destroyed - if any spirit has no Presence left on the island, that spirit is destroyed and all players lose.
• Time Runs Out - if you need to draw an Invader Card to Explore and the deck is empty, you lose.

Strategy that falls straight out of the rules

• Clear Explorers before the Build. A land holding only Explorers gets a Town; a land holding nothing gets nothing. The rulebook calls this an extremely effective tactic.
• Read two turns ahead. A terrain Explored this turn is Built in next turn and Ravaged the turn after. That forecast is how you choose targets for Slow Powers.
• The terrains on Build and Ravage are the urgent ones. The terrain on Explore still has two turns of slack.
• Keep Presence out of lands about to be Ravaged. Blight there destroys Presence, and a spirit with no Presence loses the game for everybody.
• Build Sacred Sites near the Invaders. Many damaging Powers and strong Fear effects require one.
• Move Dahan into lands with a moderate Invader presence. They counterattack after a Ravage and they satisfy Fear-effect conditions. Do not stack them where the Invaders are overwhelming - one Ravage wipes them out.
• Pour several spirits' Damage into the same land. Damage accumulates within a turn, so three separate “1 Damage” effects bring down a City.
• If you cannot find a good target, it means one of two things: victory is close, or your Presence and Sacred Sites are too far from the fight.
• If Energy is always short, take more Presence off the Energy track, spend fewer Card Plays, choose cheaper cards, or pick a Growth option that grants Energy.

Difficulty dials and variants

Spirit Island treats difficulty as a number. Adversaries and Scenarios each carry a difficulty rating, and you may use one, the other, or both. If their rules changes contradict each other, the Scenario takes precedence.

• Each Adversary has levels 1-6, and the effects are cumulative - at level 3 you also use the level 1 and 2 effects.
• Every Adversary panel carries an Escalation effect for Stage II. It fires when the escalation icon is revealed on a Stage II Invader Card, and unless stated otherwise it resolves before the Explore.
• Higher levels change how many Fear Cards are used and how they are split between top, middle, and bottom - from 9 (3/3/3) up to 14 (4/5/5), making high Terror Levels harder to reach.
• Some Adversaries add an extra loss condition (England, for example, wins if 7 or more Towns and Cities pile into a single land).
• Four Scenarios - Blitz, Guard the Isle's Heart, Rituals of Terror, and Dahan Insurrection. Difficulty ratings run from 0 (no change) to 10 (insanely difficult).
• Thematic boards - the reverse side of the Island Boards, the island as it “really” is. Terrains clump together and there are more starting Invaders, which raises difficulty by 3. The layout is fixed per player count (1 player Northeast; 2 players West and East; 3 players those plus Northeast; 4 players all four).
• Solo play uses a single Island Board. You may target yourself with Powers that say “another Spirit”, but you do not gain the extra benefits such Powers give when used on someone else.

Rules people get wrong

History and editions

Designed by R. Eric Reuss, developed by Ted Vessenes, and published by Greater Than Games. The rulebook carries a 2016 copyright line and the game shipped in 2017.

The designer's own note in the rulebook is candid about where it started. Playing colonization-themed euros, he kept thinking about how the people already living there must have felt, and how thoroughly those games ignored them. Spirit Island turns the viewpoint around and puts you on the side being colonized. The stated goals were a memorable cooperative experience in the vein of Arkham Horror but more strategic, and a design that blunts the alpha-player problem common to co-ops.

• The Korean edition is made by BoardM Factory under licence from Greater Than Games; the rulebook's credits page names the translators and rules checkers.
• A PC version arrived in 2020, followed by iOS and Android. A streamlined spin-off, Horizons of Spirit Island, came out in 2022. (wiki cross-check)
• It has held a place in the BoardGameGeek top ten for years, peaking at 9th between March and June 2022, and topped BGG's user-voted Top 200 Solo Games for several consecutive years. (wiki cross-check)
• Outlets outside the hobby press have repeatedly described it as one of the very few flat-out anti-colonial games on the market. (wiki cross-check)