REVIEW

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on The Cursed Island Review

by Luke Walsh, August 17th, 2018

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on The Cursed Island is the second version of the game which has been redesigned to make it easier to play with a more concise and clearer rulebook. The co-op board game is set on a cursed island for up to 4 players and each round will last anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours depending on the scenario and number of players.

The rulebook is pretty hefty even for the newer version with 40 pages and explains how to set up the game for both 1-2 or 3-4 players with some different rules depending. For two players they just explain how to make the game a little easier by selecting certain cards and adds in an additional character. The solo play is the same rules as the 2 players but gains an extra character with the costs for buildings being the same cost as the 2 players also. These small changes make the game easier to cope with but still provide a challenge.

Robinson Crusoe the board game comes with eight different scenarios that you can play, each has their own different special rules to make it a little different. On top of these rules, each scenario has a unique win condition but the core of the game stays the same regardless of which one you pick.

For each round, it starts with the Event Phase which is about drawing the event cards that have both a direct effect and one that will be in the future. The Morale Phase is next which decides based on your actions if you gain or lose morale. Next up comes the resources collecting which is known as the Production Phase.

The Action Phase is broken down into two parts – Planning and Resolving Actions, it is where you will do most of your stuff in the game. You can in this phase explore the island, build new buildings, gather resources, hunt animals and other auxiliary actions like cleaning the campsite. Each character in the game has two Action Pawns which is basically just a fancy word for being able to do two things each Action Phase. All actions need to be assigned before the game continues and you must use your points for your characters. This seems like a good way of making sure every turn something happens.

It might seem a little unfamiliar at first being forced to use your actions as a lot of RPG based board games let you save and store points to use later. Instead, in Robinson Crusoe looking after your characters is the most important and if you don’t want to do anything at all, just rest. This action will heal your player character of 1 health point and can be useful in later stages of the game.

Tasks like building and crafting can be successful straight away if you use both Action Pawns, if you only want to use one then you need to roll dice and match up the correct die roll with the correct color on it. This choice gives you the balance of using all your points for 100% success but being able to do less or taking a chance on the die roll and being able to do more. Each of the three dice has a different result, you can get wounded, succeed in your action or adventure (these are usually pretty dangerous)

To add more complexity to the action phase, the tasks you want to complete can have additional requirements. For example, you might need to discards resources or you might need to have a weapon of a certain level to do it. There’s also some pre-planning needed when using items as you can only use what you have from previous rounds, you can not use two actions in the same round build two components if one needs the other. The same can be said for resources or items assigned in a round. If you use 3 wood assigned to build a shelter and you have 4 that will only leave you with 1 wood remaining for that round.

The last two rounds are the Weather and Night phases, this is where not using your action phase correctly can have some serious consequences and playing the game we learned this the hard way. Weather takes a massive beating to your shelter and resources if you do not prepare and at Night, it requires you to eat some of your food and water, plus you lose health. Like the other actions, Weather is controlled by dice rolls.

The Night Phase is a point in the game where players must eat and if food is available they must use it. Players can also heal in the night if they want like drinking wine and special abilities reset. If you have not built a shelter like we did not on the first play, all the characters also take 1 damage which if you are not careful can finish off unsuspecting characters. Perishable food is also discarded if it was not eaten.

You then follow these phases each round until you either win the game or all your playable characters die from their wounds, eaten by animals or starve to death. It is hard to grasp the depth of the game in my brief overview of the rounds. There are so many systems in the game that the first playthrough will take some getting used to. It is a little complex to get everything right and might put off some casual tabletop gamers. I’d say it is not a game for the newly initiated.

After a few rounds though, you can start to get the flow of the game going and you’ll be building, crafting, storing your food and preparing for the bad weather or dangerous animals and it becomes a really engrossing experience with a lot to offer and a lot of fun. The narrative side of the game really pushes through in everything you do from your overall goal to each of the different 22 Adventure Cards.

The difficulty curve of the game is extremely high, there were a lot of games that we played that ended in failure. Bad dice rolls can be devastating to the island settlement, plus the island environment as a whole is really unforgiving. Even if you try and plan well the unexpected can happen and destroy rounds worth of preparation. For some, this will be a really frustrating and enraging experience. Personally, I liked the challenge that the game offered and this is mainly down to the fact the game’s flow is spot on.

You start off with absolutely nothing and must plan your survival adventure by crafting, weapons, building a shelter and exploring the item. You’ll gain more stranded people as you go and on each round, the island will fight back trying to make you the next victim. Using each character to their potential is key to even a small chance of success. Just like games like Age of Empires, resource management is important and also one of the run parts of the game, gather wood using it for shelter, fire pit or even a bow gives you so much choice.

The fact you get 8 different scenarios to play through the replay value is pretty extensive. Each one of them plays very differently and have separate goals and outcomes thanks to special rules and the adventure cards. The fact you’ll probably not finish a scenario first time makes it even better when you finally beat the game and want to explore the next one.

Ultimately though for a seasoned board gamer this is an absolute joy to play, the challenge might be a little hard for some to enjoy but it makes you believe that surviving on a desert island is hard. There has been a lot of thought into how the game plays and how you need to plan to make your chances of winner better. The replayability is good because of the number of scenarios coupled with the depth of the overall game. If you are looking for a more thematic experience then this game is for you, however, if you are new to these games you might want to try something a bit more forgiving first.