Forbidden Desert Equipment Cards

Equipment cards are drawn when landing on tiles that indicate an equipment card. There are twelve equipment cards. These cards can only be played once during the game, you do not have to play these cards until the player deems it necessary, and equipment cards can be passed to other players that are on the same tile.

Although Forbidden Desert is not Steam Punk in nature, the equipment cards seem to represent Steam Punk to devices. What do you think?

There are six different types of equipment cards that can be brought into play. There are two Solar Shields. These cards allow the holder to ignore the effects of the Sun Beats Down cards, which would typically require the player to    intake from their water supply and tick their water supply down by one. 

There are two Terrascope cards. The Terrascope allows the holder peak under any unexcavated tile, in other words you may look what may be underneath accumulations of sand before actually excavating the tile.  

There are three Dune Blaster cards. The Dune Blaster is used to remove all sand from the tile the player is currently on or they remove all sand on an adjacent tile.

There are also three Jet Packs cards. These cards allow the barrier and one other player on that tile to move to any unblocked tile.

Lastly there are two Time Throttle and Secret Water Reserve cards. The Time Throttle cards allow the player to take two additional actions in their turn and the Secret Water Reserve cards provide all players on that tile with two additional rations of water. 

Forbidden Desert Adventures Cards

There are six Adventurer cards. Each player receives one of these cards. The cards provide two purposes. One, they provide a method of viewing a players health, that is to say how much water they have on hand and the card also provides the player with an unique character. Each character has attributes that add some value to the game and to the other players

Archeologist

The Archeologist can remove two sand markers from any single tile for one action. That is double the amount of sand ordinarily can be removed from a tile.

Climber

The Climber may move to a blocked tile, which is a tile with two or more sand makers on it and may take one other player with him. Players on the Climbers tile are never buried and may leave the tile even if the tile has two or more sand markers on the tile. Normally when there are two or more sand markers on a tile, the player would have to dig their out before being able to move to another tile.

Explorer

The Explorer may move, remove sand and use the Dune Blaster diagonally. The Dune Blaster is used to remove all sand from a tile.

Meteorologist

The Meteorologist may choose to pick-up one less Storm Cards then is required, or may choose to spend one of their actions looking at the top Storm Cards, equal to the storm level and may play one of these cards on the bottom of the deck.

Navigator

The Navigator may move another player up to three unblocked tiles per action. The Navigator may move the Explore diagonally, and can move the Climber through blocked tiles. When moved this way the Climber can also take one player along, including the Navigator.

Water Carrier

The Water Carrier starts with five rations of water instead of four. The Water Carrier can take two water rations from excavated wells as one action and the Water Carrier can give players on adjacent tiles water at any time as a free action.

Forbidden Desert Order of Play and Player Actions

There are two basic actions required from each player:

1. Take up to four actions
2. Draw Storm cards equal to the Sand Storm level

The actions that a player may make are:

• Move
A player may move on tile up, down, left, or to the right, but cannot move diagonally, to a blocked tile, that is a tile with two or more sand markers on it, or into a sand storm (that is a empty tile)

• Remove Sand
The player may remove one sand marker per turn

• Excavate
If a tile no longer contains any sand markers the player excavate the tile by turning the tile over city side up

• Pick Up a Part
The tile must be free from any sand before the player can claim the part. The part is set before the player. Once all four parts have been excavated, rush to the Launch Pad, assemble the flying machine and take off to win!

Forbidden Desert Board Game Overview

“Your team of adventurers has been sent on a mission to excavate an ancient desert city.” Judging by the art work on the game tiles, the city looks like an advanced civilization. Your job once you get there is to recover an ancient flying machine, which is reported as being powered by the sun

On your way there, your team’s helicopter is forced down by a sand storm and your only way out is to uncover this ancient city, find clues about the flying machine, and escape from the grips of this hostile environment before being buried alive in sand or running out of life sustaining water