Forbidden Desert Review

Intro

Matt Leacock's Forbidden Desert throws you and your friends into the scorching heat of an ancient desert city, where you're racing against time to find pieces of a legendary flying machine before the sun bakes you alive. This cooperative adventure game works beautifully with 2-5 players and typically runs about 45 minutes, making it perfect for family game nights or when you want something engaging but not overwhelming.

The game earned a solid 7.07/10 rating from players and won several awards including the 2013 Golden Geek Best Children's Board Game, though don't let that fool you into thinking it's just for kids. The complexity sits right in that sweet spot where anyone 10 and up can jump in without feeling lost, but there's enough strategic depth to keep experienced gamers engaged. It's the kind of game where you'll find yourself naturally talking through plans and celebrating small victories together.

How It Plays

Every player takes on the role of an adventurer with a special ability, like the Navigator who can move other players or the Archaeologist who digs more efficiently. You start on a grid of tiles representing the buried city, and your goal is simple in concept but tricky in execution: find four pieces of the flying machine and get to the launch pad before you die of thirst or get buried in sand.

Each turn follows a straightforward pattern. You get four action points to spend on moving, clearing sand, excavating sites, or sharing water with teammates. Then you draw cards that might give you useful equipment or water, but could also trigger sandstorms. Finally, the storm moves across the board, piling more sand on tiles and potentially burying crucial locations.

The clever twist is how you find the machine parts. Each piece corresponds to two tiles on the board, but you won't know which tiles until you excavate them. Once you've uncovered both tiles for a part, you can collect it from whichever tile the storm is currently blowing toward. It's this dynamic relationship between the moving storm and your excavation efforts that makes every game feel different.

Water management adds constant tension. The desert heat steadily drains your water supply, and if anyone hits zero, the whole team loses. You'll find yourself carefully rationing sips and making tough calls about who needs water most urgently.

Highlights

The shifting board mechanism is genuinely brilliant. As the sandstorm moves, it doesn't just dump sand randomly—it follows a pattern that you can predict and plan around. Watching tiles disappear under growing sand dunes while others get revealed creates this perfect sense of a living, breathing environment that's working against you.

Unlike many cooperative games where one player can dominate, Forbidden Desert naturally encourages everyone to contribute. The individual water management means each player has personal stakes in every decision, while the varied character abilities make everyone feel uniquely valuable. The Meteorologist might predict the storm's path while the Water Carrier keeps everyone hydrated.

The game scales beautifully across different player counts. Two-player games feel intimate and puzzle-like, while five-player sessions become chaotic adventures where someone's always one turn away from dehydration. The difficulty levels also let you tune the experience perfectly, from novice games where you'll usually succeed to elite challenges that will humble veteran players.

There's something deeply satisfying about the physical act of building and destroying the board. Placing sand markers, flipping tiles, and moving the storm tracker creates a tactile experience that makes the theme come alive. When you finally clear that last sand marker and grab a machine part, it feels earned.

Criticisms

The game can sometimes feel overly dependent on luck, especially with the card draws. Drawing multiple storm cards in a row can create impossible situations where you're fighting the desert's fury faster than you can make meaningful progress. While this adds tension, it occasionally crosses the line into frustration, particularly for players who prefer games where skill clearly trumps chance.

Some players find the water management more stressful than fun. The constant threat of dehydration means you're always on edge, and games can end abruptly when someone runs dry. If you're looking for a relaxed cooperative experience, Forbidden Desert might leave you feeling parched rather than refreshed.

The game also suffers from what I call "optimization fatigue." Once you understand the systems, there's often a mathematically optimal move each turn, and some groups can get bogged down analyzing every possibility. This analytical paralysis can slow the pace and drain some of the adventurous spirit from the experience.

Conclusion

Forbidden Desert hits the sweet spot for players who want a cooperative game with genuine challenge and meaningful decisions. If you enjoy games where you're constantly adapting to changing circumstances and working together to overcome escalating threats, this will absolutely deliver. Families looking for something more engaging than typical board games will find it perfectly accessible, while hobby gamers will appreciate the tactical depth lurking beneath the approachable exterior.

Skip this one if you're sensitive to luck-based outcomes or prefer games where you can plan several moves ahead with certainty. But if you want 45 minutes of tense cooperation, clever mechanisms, and the satisfaction of pulling victory from the jaws of the desert, Forbidden Desert belongs on your shelf.