Forsaken Isles is the latest instalment in Rock Manor Games' fantasy-themed Set a Watch series of games. It's a standalone cooperative game designed by Mike Gnade and Todd Walsh that uses similar mechanics to the earlier titles in the series, and if you have any of the other Set a Watch games you can treat Forsaken Isles as an expansion and can mix and match the components. The game comes packed in quite a compact box, and there's absolutely no wasted space; indeed, even the magnetic-seal box itself unfolds to create the camp board.
Tho' the rules include the option of a shorter game, Set a Watch: Forsaken Isles is ordinarily played over nine rounds. It takes 1-4 players, tho' you always play with a party of four adventurers regardless of the player count. Other than in the final round, you must keep one of the adventurers at camp, where there are important actions to be taken, but the other three will be 'on watch' where they will be actively defending the kingdom against the various creatures that threaten the realm.
Forsaken Isles comes with six different characters from which you choose the four with which you'll play. They are all quite distinctive, with their own specific ability cards and dice; and different characters roll different sided dice; so, for example, the Corsair rolls d6 dice while the Sorceress rolls d8. Players will be exhausting cards, which is also how they record damage, but they can heal and reactivate cards when in camp. During the course of the game, players will be picking up coins and they can spend these to buy equipment and other items to assign to members of the party.
For the adventurers on watch, encounters are determined by the location card that's flipped. New to this iteration of Set a Watch, there's a doom counter that players need to keep an eye on: when it triggers it adds particularly tough unhallowed creatures to the monster deck, further upping the difficulty. The location card determines the number of creatures to be fought but the level of your party's campfire determines how many of them you can see (ie: how many are placed face up). Characters ordinarily just attack the creature that's first in line but if you have ranged attack you can hit the creature in second place, provided you can see it... Characters usually exhaust cards when used for their attack value and if any monsters remain undefeated at the end of an encounter, then the party will need to exhaust more cards. And undefeated monsters get added to the pile that you'll have to face in the Big Boss-style encounter on the final turn...
The game is playable with three or four players but Set a Watch: Forsaken Isles particularly shines as a solitaire and two-player game. Tho' it's the 'on watch' characters that are using their action cards and dice to actively battle monsters, it's actually the decisions taken at camp that do most to determine the party's success or failure. Every character has to spend two turns at camp - no more and no less - and there's a calculation to be made about the best time to use a character at camp and, crucially, how best to use their camp actions to increase the party's prospects of overall success. It all makes for an entertaining and challenging solitaire and/or cooperative game with a lot of replayability and scope for modifying the level of difficulty.
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