Year: 2017
Players: 1–4
Play time: 120min
Min age: 13+
Weight: 4.08
BGG rating: 8.34
BGG rank: #11
Best with: 2

Owned by

Local copies

Michael Redlich

MeepleMates notes for Spirit Island

Public snippets combine board game metadata with MeepleMates play history so visitors can evaluate the game for real group play and game night planning.

Spirit Island is available as a public board game page on MeepleMates for group planning and collection tracking.
Best with 2 player according to player poll data.
BoardGameGeek average rating 8.34 and BGG rank #11.
Groups use this page to connect Environmental, Fantasy, Mythology metadata with real play history, ratings and game night notes.
Recommended player counts include 1, 3, 4.

In the most distant reaches of the world, magic still exists, embodied by spirits of the land, of the sky, and of every natural thing. As the great powers of Europe stretch their colonial empires further and further, they will inevitably lay claim to a place where spirits still hold power - and when they do, the land itself will fight back alongside the islanders who live there. Spirit Island is a complex and thematic co-operative game about defending your island home from colonizing Invaders. Players are different spirits of the land, each with its own unique elemental powers. Every turn, players simultaneously choose which of their power cards to play, paying energy to do so. Using combinations of power cards that match a spirit's elemental affinities can grant free bonus effects. Faster powers take effect immediately, before the Invaders spread and ravage, but other magics are slower, requiring forethought and planning to use effectively. In the Spirit phase, spirits gain energy, and choose how / whether to Grow: to reclaim used power cards, to seek new power, or to spread their presence into new areas of the island. The Invaders expand across the island map in a semi-predictable fashion. Each turn they explore into some lands (portions of the island); the next turn, they build in those lands, forming towns and cities. The turn after that, they ravage there, bringing blight to the land and attacking any native islanders present. The islanders fight back against the Invaders when attacked, and lend the spirits some other aid, but may not always do so exactly as you'd hoped. Some Powers work through the islanders, helping them, for example, to drive out the Invaders or clean the land of blight. The game escalates as it progresses: spirits spread their presence to new parts of the island and seek out new and more potent powers, while the Invaders step up their colonization efforts. Each turn represents 1-3 years of alternate history. At game start, winning requires destroying every last explorer, town and city on the board - but as you frighten the Invaders more and more, victory becomes easier: they'll run away even if explorers or even towns and cities remain. Defeat comes if any spirit is destroyed, if the island is overrun by blight, or if the Invader deck is depleted before achieving victory. The game includes different adversaries to fight against (eg., a Swedish Mining Colony, or a Remote British Colony). Each changes play in different ways, and offers a different path of difficulty boosts to keep the game challenging as you gain skill.

Mechanics

Hand ManagementSimultaneous Action SelectionTagsVariable Player PowersVariable Set-upModular BoardArea Majority / InfluenceCampaign / Battle Card DrivenAutomatic Resource GrowthSolo / Solitaire GameCooperative GameAction RetrievalDeck, Bag, and Pool Building

Best with how many players

Recommended

Best

Recommended

Not rec.

Community votes from BoardGameGeek

Language dependence

Extensive use of text(62 of 87 votes)

Sub-rankings

Strategy Game Rank#10

Expansions in collection

Spirit Island: Branch & Claw

Videos

Video language

YouTube12

Instructional12

BoardGameGeek9

Review1

My Top 5 Games I Regret Selling, & Why Spirit Island is the MOST heartbreaking
BoardGameGeek · Boardgaymergirl
English · Curated source

Session6

Instructional1

Not that scary! | Spirit Island Solo Playthrough, Beginner Tutorial & Impressions
BoardGameGeek · Darknlves
English · Curated source

Unboxing1

Spirit Island | Box Score: The Solo/Coop Classic, Best Game of All Time!
BoardGameGeek · Darknlves
English · Curated source

External data

Wikidata enrichment: 3 links · 7 facts · latest game data 07/26/2026.

Latest Wikidata run: ok · 09/23/2026.

Facts

Publication date: 2017
Publisher: 999 Games
Publisher: Fox in the Box
Publisher: Ghenos Games
Publisher: Hobby World
Publisher: Pegasus Spiele
Publisher: Portal Games