Easy to Learn How to Play Spirit Island Rules
Get our guide and summary of the rules.
We use visual mind maps to teach you the essential how to play Spirit Island Rules, making it easy for you to learn how to play
Find out more about Spirit Island
What is the goal?
- Players are Spirits of Nature and are defending their island against the Invaders
- The Invaders do not care about the land and its inhabitants (called the Dahan)
- Each turn, Spirits use Powers to:
- push the Invaders back,
- help the Dahan and
- protect the land
- The Spirits start out small but learn new tricks and grow along the way to fight against the rapidly expanding Invaders
- The Spirits must destroy the Invaders and generate fear amongst the remaining survivors, in the hope that they retreat
- If the Spirits act too slowly, or the land is overrun by Blight or a Spirit dies or fails to drive off the Invaders, they lose!
Spirit Island
The game is played with one Island Board per player, laid out to make an Island. Each board is divided into lands and also have an ocean.
Dahan
The Dahan are the native human inhabitants of Spirit Island.
Dahan only attack invaders when the Spirit Powers ask them to do so or when attacked.
Game components
Game setup
Setup Invader Board
- Put 4 Fear Markers per player into Fear Pool
- Put Invader Board one side of play area
- Shuffle Fear Cards
- Put 9 cards on Fear Deck Space (deck is divided into 3 group s of cards)
- Place Terror Level 3 Divider 3 cards from bottom
- Place Terror Level 2 Divider 3 cards above that
- Put 9 cards on Fear Deck Space (deck is divided into 3 group s of cards)
Take a random Blight Card and place it on top of the Blight Space on the board, “Healthy Island” side up, without looking at the back. If you are not using a Blight Card, use the Blight instructions printed on the Invader Board instead. Place the shown amount of Blight onto the card.
Island and Supply
- Setting up of Island (Randomly pick one island board per player)
- Arrange to form an island and populate with Invader Cards as indicated by icons on the board
- Dahan
- Blight
- Arrange to form an island and populate with Invader Cards as indicated by icons on the board
- Supply
- Shuffle Minor and Major Power Decks
- Put supply markers near the board
- Energy
- Cities
- Towns
- Explorers
- Dahan
Player Setup
- Players choose their colour and Spirit Panel
- Each player takes Spirit Presence Markers of their colour
- Each player takes Single Turn Effect Markers of their colour
- Players start on different Island Boards and follow setup instructions on the back of their Spirit Panel
Invaders Start Action
- Invaders take an initial Action
- Reveal the top card of Invader Deck
- Place card face-up in \’Build\’ Action space on Invader Board
Gameplay
How do you win?
Solo Rules
Solo games work like normal games, but with a single board as the whole Island. The only difference:
- you can target yourself with Powers that specifically target “Another Spirit”, but you do not gain extra benefits from Powers that are better when used on another Spirit, like Gift of Constancy or Elemental Boon
- the luck of the draw is high, and you have no fellow Spirits to make up for your Spirit’s weaknesses and limitations.
Optional Rules
Adversaries
- Adversaries are specific colonizing Powers from the world of Spirit Island.
- Including an Adversary is optional. It adds depth and strategy to the game.
- Be sure to choose your foe before Setup begins, as some may change the rules of Setup
The Adversary Panel specifies an Escalation Effect, which is performed when the is revealed on Stage II Invader Cards.
Some Adversaries have additional loss conditions. Each Adversary offers multiple increased difficulty levels, indicated by the number on the left. All listed game effects are cumulative: if you’re fighting vs. Level 3, you also use the effects from Level 1 and Level 2.
Some Adversaries modify the Invader Actions. There are Reminder Tiles to put below the Invader Action spaces on the Invader Board to remind you that the rules for those Actions are modified.
Fear Cards
As the difficulty increases, reaching higher Terror Levels becomes harder. Each Level shows how many Fear Cards to use and how many cards go in the top/middle/bottom of the Fear Deck.