Forbidden Island

A fun cheap little cooperative board game for 2-4 players. I've played it a few times and it's been fun every time. I even grabbed some pictures the last time.

Forbidden island is about trying to collect four treasures by way of matching cards. While doing so you have to manage the island to prevent it from flooding and ultimately sinking into the abyss leaving you underwater and out of luck. Ages 10 and up, but with some help I've played the game with much younger. 30 minutes for a game is about right, faster if you know what you're doing.

The game was really easy to figure out how to play. We tried on the "Novice" level since it was our first time playing. We won, fairly easily the first time. Though I'm a fairly decent player at most games and my partner was decent as well. It was fun and quick. Novice was a bit too easy I think.
My second game, I played with Black Iniquity and we played on "Normal." This time the game was much closer. We managed to grab the treasure and flee the island as it crumbled behind us.
The final time, I played with 3 players. The line up was myself, an 8 year old and a 4 year old. With this band of treasure hunters we went with "Novice" due to the small child playing. With my experience and some lucky card draws we set about quickly grabbing the first couple of treasures, followed quickly by a third. Just one left and the island was mostly intact.

Unfortunately that's when things got "cray cray" as my niece put it. Once a few "Waters Rise" cards came flying out, everything started sinking. Two cards in quick succession put us into the three flood card draw area. A third saw parts of the island begin to sink into the abyss. We snatched the final treasure as the water took the island from around us. A few banked Helicopter flights, a sandbag and me being the Pilot helped us pull out the the end. The Engineer kept the flood deck just a little bigger long enough. With a flood card draw of 4 and only 3 flood cards left in the deck I came up with a crazy idea that got us off the island just as it sank into nothingness.

We survived and made it out with the treasure. Just another crazy day.
Highly recommended, especially for the price. How can you beat such fun for under $20?