Play On! - Forbidden Desert

The desert is a sprawling wasteland of sand, sun, and storms, or so the stories go by those who’ve attempted the journey before you. Your archaeological team is not the first to attempt the retrieval of the ancient flying machine, but you hope that you are the last. The glory of making such a discovery would be the defining moment of your career, and the dangers that await you in the desert are outweighed by the achievement that is just within reach...or so you thought. As your team flies into the desert upon a helicopter, the great storm encapsulates your vehicle, disabling the mechanics, and forcing you to crash land. The only way out of the desert now is to evade the deadly storm, stay out of the excruciatingly hot sun, excavate the ancient flying machine, and fly home. Your potentially crowning discovery is now your only means for survival. Good luck! Your lives depend on it.

Forbidden Desert is a cooperative, modular board game for two to five players that requires a little bit of luck, resource management, discussion, and hard decisions in order to survive the desert and beat the game. There is only one way to win, but so many more ways to lose. Let’s start with the odds that are against each player. The main issue with the desert is the ever-shifting storm. After each person’s turn, the eye of the storm moves, adding more sand dunes to the desert, causing the game tiles to shift, and changing the locations of potential burial sites for the ancient flying machine. If too much sand builds up as a result of the storm, the team is buried and dies. If you manage to keep up with the mounting sand dunes, the storm can reach critical mass and kill the entire team. Water is the next problem in this desert. Only two locations contain water in all of the desert, and these sites easily evaporate once unearthed by your team. Water is easily conserved, until the sun decides to beat down on the land. Once these cards appear, water is depleted from each team member. If any team member’s water supply is completely depleted, they die, and the damaged morale of the team causes the remaining players to give up and die, too.

The only advantages afforded to each player in the game is through the individual skill sets of each character card and the discovery of gear cards. Each character card has a different skill set within the team (see image below for greater detail). These skills come in handy when dealing with the threats of the desert. Gear cards can be found in almost every location of the board. Unearthing them is not so easy, as each player only receives up to 4 actions per turn (moving, clearing sand, excavating tiles, and picking up part). However, acquired gears also provide ways in which to navigate around the hazards that plague you in your fight for survival.

As you may be able to tell from my descriptions above, this instance of play was not our first encounter with the Forbidden Desert. My gaming group and I have been playing this game for a little over two years, gradually increasing the difficulty of the game each time we’ve played (the game is designed for users to customize the level of difficulty as they see fit). Our goal in this particular round of play was to finally play with all five players on the hardest level of the tracker which is called the Legendary level. Up until now, the board had always gotten the best of us in this particular configuration. This time we had a plan that we felt would actually secure a victory for us. All started out well with our initial strategy of fanning out across the board in search of as much gear and parts as we could muster before the first sun beats down card appeared. We managed to acquire at least 2 of the 5 pieces of the flying machine and numerous gear cards with our “spread out and check everything strategy.” We thought all was well after the first sun beats down card appeared. Then two more reared their ugly heads immediately in succession with the first. Two of our members were down to only one water each. Another sun beats down card would end the game for everybody. Prior to this we all agreed not to use our character skills in order to maximize searching potential, but now it was inevitable as we were all too far apart to benefit from excavating a water tile. We had to communicate extensively with our Water Carrier and Navigator to ensure the water replenishment of our thirsty teammates. This took up 5 individual turns, meanwhile the sand and the storm were building and we still had 3 more pieces to find.

With so much sand on the board, it became difficult to excavate and search for pieces. Not even our Archaeologist, with the ability to clear multiple sand tiles, could keep up with the demanding shifts of the board. We had to make some executive decisions at this point for who would carry out what tasks and there was no deviating from the plan no matter what other shifts in the board occurred. We couldn’t afford to be wrong in our strategy. Knowing how harmful it was to not capitalize on character strengths and gear cards from previous playthroughs, we chose to put all of our effort into utilizing these properties of the game. When finally we had found the last piece of the machine, we needed to all gather on the same tile for assembly. Still taking one player’s turn at a time, we made our way to the airstrip tile. Tensions were high at this point. Only the water carrier had enough resources to stay completely alive and everybody else was too far away to benefit from her water resources. One group member was, again, down to one water. The turn of the next card revealed a sun beats down card. We all sat in shock as we realized what this meant - game over. We just stared at one another wondering what had went so wrong. Then one of the players spoke up and said, “What do you think it means when a card says it can be used at any time? Like, do you think it can be used on anyone’s turn and at any point in the turn?” We didn’t really know where our friend was going with this at first, so we consulted the rule book and had a hearty discussion about what that rule could mean. When we came up empty handed, we continued discussing until we all agreed that the gear cards could be used literally at any time and on anyone’s turn. Our friend then claimed that they would use their jet pack card to teleport the water-depleted character to the tile with another character who possessed a sun shield card thereby saving the previously dying teammate from thirst. Working on borrowed time, we worked together to reconstruct the flying machine. Once it was complete, we called out victory!

This game is one that my gaming group comes back to time and time again. It is rare for us to say that about a game that is so simple in design. The replayability of this game is incredibly high due to the customization options available to players new and experienced. Being able to control the starting difficulty level, allowing players to choose their characters or select them randomly, having choice in how to move around the board, and being able to talk openly with each player of the game provides endless options for play. One of my major critiques of the game is that new players can sometimes feel overwhelmed by experienced players with extremely competitive personalities. Those types of players can dominate the decision-making dynamic of the group and leave new players feeling controlled and useless. My gaming group avoids this toxic dynamic by allowing new players to instigate the conversations in game and tell us more experienced players what to do in order to invite new modes of thinking and new strategies.

Forbidden Desert is a game straight out of James Paul Gee’s gaming dreams. So much of this game embodies the traits of good gaming and good learning. Assuming a new identity in game and inheriting “smart tools” from the character sheet allows users to fully immerse themselves and become invested right away with the components of the game. There is personal investment as you want your team to be successful in completing the mission. This investment maintains itself as the game gradually amps up the level of difficulty from the customizations you can make. Customization is another huge component to good learning. Being able to make choices that influence a variety of strategy trying emphasizes risk-taking and system thinking. Sometimes the solution to the scenario isn’t always cut and dry or obvious. Pleasant frustration is profound in this game as new strategies are worked on collaboratively. Not all of them succeed, but players can still try other modes of playing and strategizing until they find something that works for the particular setup chosen during game play. It is a game that involves complex levels of thinking, communicating, and collaborating, yet is approachable from any particular learning style while also encouraging players to learn and try new things.