Review Details

Forbidden Desert

Product Review (submitted on October 6, 2015):

Forbidden Desert has proved to be well worth the price at our table.

In Forbidden Desert, each player chooses a character that has a special ability or abilities. For example, the explorer can move orthogonally and diagonally, the climber can move through buried tiles, and the water carrier can distribute water to others.

The players are exploring the tiled board to excavate the four key pieces to the legendary flying machine. Each excavated tile will reveal a buried ruin of the ancient city or may provide one of the two coordinates for each of the four buried parts.

After each player turn, cards are drawn from the deck to move the sand storm around the board, advance the sand storm meter, and force the players to take drinks of water from their meager supplies. Balancing exploration with your water supply is a continual concern as each character has a different sized canteen.

Overall, I felt the game is very well balanced, provides a lot of replayability and is actually winnable. Everyone is on the edge of their seats by the end of the game to see if we can squeak out a narrow victory.