Week 11 (game) Forbidden Desert

I invited my sister to join us for our stay-at-home date night this time. We decided to play a game and with having an extra brain we figured we would be able to understand the instructions better. Jadae opened up "Forbidden Desert". It is a co-operative game, where you work together to win. About half-way through the game we really started to discuss what our next moves should be before we took our turn instead of just taking our turn independently. Once we started to do that we started to win! You really have to work together or you all will lose and die. I really like the concept of these kinds of games. You are not just looking at your own best interests or what would benefit you but everyone around you.

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I have not played any of the co-op games yet but I have heard high praises about them. The premise of "Forbidden Desert"" is your team's helicopter has crushed in the desert, which happens to be an ancient city that is buried under sand. This city has pieces to an solar-powered flying machine that are buried under the sand. 

The board of the game is made up of tiles. The tiles are constantly being moved around due to sand storms. Once one digs up all the sand and excavates the tile it gets flipped over to the city side. In order to win you have to find all the pieces of the flying machine and everyone has to get to the landing dock. You find the flying pieces by clearing the sand and flipping over the cards, hoping that they will revel where the pieces are buried. One you have collected all 4 pieces and everyone gets to the landing dock your team wins!

There are a total of 6 different characters. Each character has a special power that helps with the game. Some of the characters include an Archaeologist can remove two sand tiles at a time, while everyone else can only do one. The other characters are climber, explorer, meteorologist, navigator, and water carrier.

All the players are racing against time. After each turn you have to draw from the sand deck. There are several different cards in this deck. Most often a sand storm happens, which buries the tiles more in sand. The sun can beat down and deplete your water supply- which means you can die of thirst, or the severity sand storm can pick up so badly that you cannot get off the island and you end up being buried alive!

It wasn't until half-way through the game when we realized that we were making it more difficult on ourselves. During your turn you are allowed up to 4 actions. We originally thought that it meant you had to play the actions each only once per turn and you had to play in a certain order. The actions can actually be played in any order or more than once. But you are only allowed 4 actions per turn. The actions are very easy to understand and perform. The player can perform any combination of the following actions:

1) move to another tile (you just can't move diagonally
2) removing sand (from your own tile or one adjacent to your tile)
3) if there is no sand on the tile you are on you can excavate it by flipping it from it's desert side to the city side. The city side has several different actions; gears (which are very helpful and can be played at any time), water!, or a clue to where a piece of the flying machine is
4) Pick up a part- if the tile is not under sand and you have both clues to a part of the flying machine, and are on the matching tile you can pick up a part
This game also plays really well with only 2 players! 

52 Date Nights in 52 Weeks
Getting out of a rut- The post that explains why I started this journey

1.  Week One- (movie) The Bucket List

2.  Week Two- (game) Post Cards from North America
3.  Week Three- Art Night!
4.  Week four- Deal or No Deal

5.  Week 5- Game Night (Chrononauts)
6.  Week 6- Wii Game (Super Mario Maker)
7.  Week 7- (movie) Tourist
8.  Cruise!
9.  Week 9- (Game) Star Fluxx
10.Week 10- (movie) Nim's Island