The mysterious, perilous FOG is rolling in. No one who has been swallowed by it has ever come back… As the island Guardian, it is up to you to help the islanders escape before it’s too late. The path may be difficult to navigate, but with the islanders counting on you, we know you’ll be able to come to the rescue. Hurry now, before the FOG consumes the whole island!

What Is It?

Variable Set-Up – Positioning of islanders and obstacles will change each game, and you can play on a small, medium, or large board, or a customizable flex board

Drafting – The 1st phase of each game consists of players drafting the islanders on the board. There are 3 to 5 different nations, depending on the game set-up, and each islander has a special movement ability

Grid Movement/Movement Points – Players will work to move as many of their islanders as possible to get on the available boats (they get more points if the islander matches the boat, but they do not have to match to be on board) Players have 7 movement points per turn to use as they wish, and the different movement types (run, squeeze, et cetera) have varying costs which can be affected by the islanders’ abilities (“enhanced movements”)

Race – Players are trying to get their islanders to the boats quickly in order to earn additional bonus points

Who Is It For?

  • 1 to 6 Players – Solo is a nice little puzzle of balancing different movement points. More players always adds more time it seems, and some maps require less players to use multiple player colors. I think that 3-4 players is the sweet spot
  • Ages 10 & Up / Family-Weight Gamers – Game play is simple at first glance – drafting followed by movement – but there’s a bunch of ways to strategize and you have to be able to adapt to being stuck in tight spots
  • Fans of drafting, racing, and lots of variability
  • Players who like a theme of impending doom

Options

This game has a lot of different options that players can use for their games:

Hourglass – Use timers for turns, unused movement points are lost if time runs out – I like the added pressure, thematically, but I definitely don’t need to add a real-time element to the game personally

Scoring Changes – Use different tokens for boat are scoring and/or use individualized score tokens for each boat area on each boat, and/or use tokens to vary negative points on the beach for lost islanders – These are all simple scoring variations to use, so I love the easy customization to scoring to change up your games

Drive Off – Can allow players to “double up” on boat spots if certain conditions are met (or replace/move other players’ islanders to affect how they score, depending on if they play this as a family, advanced, or intensive variant) – I think this adds an additional layer of strategy to the game, no matter how you use it, which is interesting, but can also make for a more “take-that” type game, so treat carefully

Boats Without Player Color – For each boat, if a player doesn’t have any islander on a productive place they lose 12 points – Makes things a little bit more competitive, but I don’t love the addition of even more negative points

Minimum Boat Crew – Stated number of islanders have to be in areas A & B in order for boats to score. Players who contributed the last to the sections lose 20 points – It’s good if you tend to see some boats (or the farthest sections) ignored to ensure players don’t leave some boats unattended. But again, don’t love the chance at more negative points

Solo – Play with 3/4/5 nations and each has its own movement points each time it’s their turn – Nice variation on the game, and allows you to balance movement differently. It was a bit of a fun puzzle if you like a heftier solo game

Teams – Can total team’s player points or only count lowest player score on each team – To me, doesn’t feel like a game that needs teams. It can really extend the game too, which feels unnecessary

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Very nice art, and great table presence!
  • Components – As a note, I did look at the deluxe edition, but I love the player pieces, the 3D obstacles, and thought it just had great components across the board
  • Rules – Clear; separates the options well so you’re not overwhelmed
  • Interesting strategy/balance of racing your islanders to the boats while also trying not to leave the ones in the back behind
  • Lots of variability with different boards, varied set-up, and more
    • Plus, the draft means you have different pieces/movement abilities each game, which will change your strategy
  • Solo is a fun puzzle of balancing the different movement points for each nation. Also a quicker play, which I liked
  • Reference boards are nice for remembering how much the different movements cost
  • Turn order track works well and I think the double turn is neat and can help players when planning for the FOG
  • Theme – I think the game does a good job of pairing the theme with the mechanisms to give players a real sense of the impending doom with the FOG

CONS

  • Length – Runs a bit long; turns can sometimes take a while if players are caught up on how to spend their movement (but personally, I don’t think the hourglass option solves that, I think it just adds frustration)
    • While there was some strategy in how you moved islanders of course, turns also felt a bit repetitive at times
  • Set-up & clean-up is lengthy as well
  • I’m not a fan of negative points, and this has a few built in, plus options for more
  • I also don’t love having to use multiple player colors at a lower player count, so I don’t like the game as much at 2 players (or 3 if you’re using the large map)

Final Thoughts

I really like the overall look, and definitely the theme of this game. I think the first phase of drafting islanders is neat because it makes every play different since you don’t know what you’ll get.

It seemed pretty inevitable that you’d lose at least a few islanders, so it seemed like it was always a good idea to rush your closest islanders up onto the boats to grab some bonuses to offset that. I think some of the variable scoring options do help to make this a slightly less obvious go-to strategy, because of everything else going on.

For me, I just thought it lasted a bit too long, no matter how many players I played with. But, if you really like that racing element, and like having all those different options available in a game, you might want to check this one out for yourself!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Robert Müller-Reinwarth
Artist – Unique Litani Soparie
Publishers – Grand Gamers Guild, XOLLOX Games
MSRP – $69.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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