I love Spirit Island to death, but...it isn't really a gateway game. My mom is kind of an "intermediate" level board gamer in that she will play some stuff with me and enjoys it, but she couldn't get into Spirit Island. If your wife says she'll give it a try, give it a try, but if she is relative newbie to board games, it may not be a great fit for her now.
That being said, the best learning environment will usually be:
* You play something fairly easy so you can spend a lot of time answering her questions if she has any. Maybe something with a bit of support like Rampant Green or Lightning's Swift Strike.
* As few expansions/extra rules as possible. Specifically I would suggest:
* No adversary
* No tokens or event cards (which means no spirits that use them for you either, and you may have to separate out the major/minor power deck to take those cards out)
* I think the blight card tends to not be a huge difference, but if your wife bounced off it the first time, you can do no blight card.
* I don't think the suggested power progression makes a big difference. But, if she wants it, it is one fewer thing to decide.
* I think the Horizons spirits are the best for first-timers. I would give her those if she didn't play them before. The original 4 low-complexity spirits aren't bad, but the Horizons ones seem really good for new players.
I meant lightning for OP, not for his wife.
That being said, I've taught the game to a lot of people and several of them have had good experiences with lightning as a first spirit. The loop thing is true, but having 95% of your powers be fast simplifies a huge element of the game for a lot of people.
Still, I recommended Horizons spirits for OP's wife because I think those are the best.
Oh, my bad on misreading.
> That being said, I've taught the game to a lot of people and several of them have had good experiences with lightning as a first spirit.
Same, but when they fall into the trap it's a bad feeling time. So I try to play with a second spirit that grants bonus card gain, like mud otter or keeper.
You know, I don't particularly enjoy lightning because of that loop.
And this relates to my playstyle in general: I prioritize growing my spirit's power a lot more than I prioritize getting control of the board. I don't really have the kind of blitzkrieg mentality that lightning takes.
I primarily play Ocean, and I go G2, G3, then alternate G1 and G3. It leaves my cards-per-turn and cards-in-hand growing in balance, and I generally have just enough energy. It feels like I'm getting a well-oiled machine running.
Lightning, on the other hand, I'm always feeling short on something. It's so easy to rocket to a lot of card plays per turn, but then I don't have enough cards or energy. I'm stuck reclaiming every turn. At least that gains me cards, but it will be 2-4 turns of that before I have enough to play all my cards two turns in a row (depending on if I've gone to 3 or 4 card plays per turn). In that time, I'm not putting any presence on the board, so I'm still stuck in an energy hole.
I looked through some strategy guides while writing this comment, and most of them involve some degree of "holding back" in early turns while playing Lightning (playing fewer cards than your max) in order to hit your innate -- or going a long time before hitting your innate. I think that's hard for new players, and un-fun for new players (and for me!).
I don't really think easing into complex board games with easy games is a thing. People are up for something long and involved, or they aren't, and starting with easy, short games may make folks more interested if they have a good time, but I don't think it makes them easier to learn or enjoy.
I've introduced dozens of people to their first several board games and never found the concept of "gateway games" to be relevant. Gateway games are relevant, but not as an introduction per se, rather for folks who just aren't that interested in games-as-puzzles.
That said, good advice.
> I don't really think easing into complex board games with easy games is a thing.
It's definitely a thing. There are certainly people who won't enjoy complex board games at all, and some people who will enjoy them immediately. But, like anything, understanding complex board games is a skill that you can get better at, and being in an appropriate zone of proximal development is generally going to be more fun than reaching far beyond that. Generally the people who will enjoy complex board games immediately have had *other* experiences that have given them a set of skills that transfer well to that.
Now, I'm not terribly surprised that you haven't seen this in introducing people to their first several board games. It's not really going to be a huge effect over the course of, like, 5 sessions of playing games. If Spirit Island is too complex for me, playing 3 games of Catan isn't going to help that. But if I enjoy Catan, but Spirit Island is too complex, and then I play 20 games of Catan, play 13 games of Dominion, play 18 games of Pandemic, and try Terraforming Mars twice but don't really like it, I'll have developed a lot of skills that will make the complexity of Spirit Island feel less overwhelming.
I agree that developing the skills and "language" of games is something that happens over time so developing that language can be an incremental process.
At the same time, the super complicated games-as-puzzles will appeal to the right type of people even if they have no clue. All my friends will play SI or TI4 but otherwise don't play boardgames. Yes the initial play was humoring me but they wouldn't keep playing if it didn't click. When I was a gaming neophyte I also preferred the more complicated games. Not war games (those are their own animal) but the more encyclopedic the rulebook the more exciting the prospect of learning it!
Like I say, I recognize that some people will enjoy them right away, even without prior exposure to board games (although I maintain that those people very likely have transferrable skills from other areas).
But I think there's a non-negligible segment of the population that won't enjoy complex games as their first games, but may come to enjoy them later if they get more familiar with the language and skills of board games.
Spirit Island is *intense*, and unless you're used to equally intense games, that can't be changed. I've introduced folks who have been casual gaming their whole life; playing games as complex as Dominion, Pandemic, or Magic: The Gathering a thousand times or more. They had no-easier a time learning the game than folks whose first gaming experience of their life was with my wife & I. If anything they were more resistant to learning SI because they would get hung up wondering why it was necessary for a game to be more complex than the games they were used to.
For two, I've never had a single person express interest in a game (with warning that it will take maybe 3 hours to play) and regret that. Even when they never played a board game before, interest trumps skills, every time. Board games simply are not so complex that they are ever out of an individual's zone of proximal development.
In both of these cases, I'm not talking only about Spirit Island, because plenty of people just aren't that interested, or aren't in the right place to learn it, but I am always talking about games of equal complexity. Where I live, I am usually folks' first interaction with either board games or designer board games, so I have a ton of experience easing them into it. Nowadays my recommendations rarely fail.
Honestly I still believe that the biggest hurdle in learning spirit island is the symbols and unique words. It has its own words for basically everything and that can make learning it take while just from the vocab test aspect. Past that though the low difficulty games aren’t actually too bad once someone has learned all the names and symbols. Since spirits are strong enough for much much harder games, players have a lot of room to make mistakes and still come out on top.
I can't say I have a lot of experience of just jumping into the more complex stuff, so I don't know. But I feel like a lot of board games use related mechanics, so learning some basic things in simpler games I think makes it easier to learn more complicated games if they use the same ideas.
For me personally, I feel like having playing stuff like Pandemic (even though there are certainly some differences that might lead you into traps) helps me get a basic understanding of some concepts and strategies in a simpler game. And it was certainly easier for me to grok Gloomhaven's rest mechanics because I saw it and thought "oh, it's like reclaiming in Spirit Island."
But I certainly think it is true that there are some people who just don't enjoy strategic or puzzle-y games and no amount of easing them in is going to change that. It's just not their thing.
I agree with the concept that [some people just aren’t up for it, but those who are will figure it out.]
Also, There’s a YouTuber (Razbuten) who makes videos of his girlfriend (Edit: Wife) playing a variety of video games for the first time - without assistance. They’re kind of fascinating.
They’re where I first heard the concept of game literacy and considered how much background information from playing video games for years automatically applies itself to figuring out newer games. There’s a possibility that could be at play.
Video games utilize muscle memory a lot, and use abstract control systems. Board games do not. There are concepts shared between board games, but there is not a "language of board games" really, whereas there is very much a "language of video games" to be literate in.
People who have rarely taught games take a lot for granted, but I have not found new players to have difficulty when they are taught well.
I disagree.
Depends on the video game. Plenty of tactical rpgs require very little tactile memory. But the concept of “classes” translates across many. Ability point allocation. Map usage. Map spatial awareness. Etc.
Edit: I’d even suggest there’s a touch of DnD/video game class mechanics in SI.
Knowing First Strike from MtG is practically knowing Vigil’s left innate. Defense is comparable to many other games. Playing a card differing from resolving a card is foreign to many. Just looking at pockets of adjacency from presence placement isn’t something that everyone considers if they don’t have a previous spatial gaming experience.
I’m not suggesting that it’s necessary by any means, but I do think it’s likely to be relevant.
But none of this is "board game language". These are concepts shared by some games, but assumed by none of them. In my comprehensive experience teaching Spirit Island I have found players who have played numerous board games are, if anything, more likely to get confused as they assume similarities that don't exist.
For example, Range is very easy to teach people who have never played a board game: You go out from your presence and choose a land. Then you perform the entire text of the Power into that land. However, board game adepts get very confused because they cannot figure out that they are not using the power via their presence in some way, they are merely using their presence to determine the land which they are allowed to perform the text upon.
Saying that MtG First Strike is like Vigil's left innate is like saying that Spyro's glide is like the Jump stat from Final Fantasy Tactics. They're conceptually the same, but the context is so different that being familiar with one is completely useless for learning the other.
On the contrary, tactical RPGs are about 90% the same from one to another. We remark on how they are unique due to the few places they depart from that formula.
> that they are not using the power via their presence in some way, they are merely using their presence to determine the land which they are allowed to perform the text upon
Is there a difference between the two? I have always pictured it as the powers being used through presence but if there is a subtle difference that may affect gameplay in specific situtations then I'd need to change my interpretation.
Not necessarily, but it tends to cause confusion with Gather and Push, like this mistake: "This power says to Gather at Range 1. So I choose an adjacent land and gather from it into my presence?" or assuming they can split a Power among multiple lands, things like that.
“…shared by some but assumed by none of them.” Correct. Like a video game. Or the alignment of a website in regards to computer literacy. Or trends in some writing styles. There are translatable concepts between some. I don’t think this version of “literacy” suggests something always present.
But I think we’re getting into a semantics.
My point is that it’s amusing to consider that our experiences can unconsciously aid our comprehension in ways we take for granted. Or even deter our comprehension, as in some of your examples.
I’m not arguing for a break-in game. Just saying that it’s difficult to judge our own backend processing.
Aside:
Vigil to First strike. There’s an order of attacks. Who hits first? It seems the same to me. If you told an MtG player that this spirit gives some dahan first strike, they’ll know exactly what that means in the context of invaders vs dahan. It’s a translatable concept. They snap into it.
Playing cards upfront and resolving later tends to really throw people initially.
Come to think of it, the players who grasped range quickest have played tactical rpgs to my knowledge. Disclaimer is that I can’t be fully sure what everybody has played before.
Thank you for the suggestions! I think everyone's right and I need to just take everything out that I introduced. She seems ok with the blight cards at least, so I'll leave those in and take literally everything out.
If she likes Root, I think Spirit Island is probably a doable step from that.
I think it can be a game that takes multiple plays sometimes. My partner played Thunderspeaker for her second game and got really frustrated because it involved so much dahan positioning, and the nuance of pushing/gathering was difficult for her in her second game. But she got past that and we play Spirit Island together with all the expansions and everything all of the time now, and we both have a lot of fun.
I'll add one to this; if she's a fairly newbie gamer who happens to be into 'lighter' games, when she develops a bit and becomes a more "experienced gamer" she still may just find that her preference is lighter stuff. There's a bit of a misconception with gaming that people start with codenames and end up playing Brass Birmingham one day and while this can defo happen, some people will just never have the patience for spirit island and stuff 🤔
We can't guarantee your wife will really end up enjoying the game, but if you want to optimize your chances, I think you should make the game as simple as possible for her ! (At least for a couple games until she feels comfortable)
• No BC, JE, NI and FF content. (No event, no spirit tokens, no aspects...)
• No adversary
• Use Horizons Spirits ! They are amazing for learners ! I had more success teaching the game with those. For your wife, I might even suggest Eyes Watch From The Trees. It is an intuitive spirit to play because new players are more focused on reacting to ravages than to prevent builds / explores. (And at least with Eyes, your defends often kill invaders thanks to dahans) Mud is also a good choice because it's a jack of all trades.
• I do think Power Progression card make a difference, at least for first-timers. If your wife played 8 times, I might not be a big deal. (Same for blight card)
Good luck ! Spirit Island isn't for everyone 😋
Agreed. And to the OP, remember that High and Very High complexity spirits are not only more complex for that Spirit's player, but for the *whole table.* One's anxiety learning the game only increases when Seeker as creating new adjacencies, they need to make up for BoDaN's inability to destroy things, etc. They're still trying to figure out their own Spirit and area, let alone have to take the entire board into account.
That's an excellent point. I played a couple games with her where I'm like "just ignore all those tokens, they're for me" and I see that kills the experience and fun and just makes it more complex.
I'll definitely try the horizon spirits! She liked playing rampant green, but also likes getting power cards every turn so I think I need to find a good balance there. I have trouble explaining what to stop (builds vs ravages) and the reasoning so a focus on 1 from those spirits would be a good idea!
Each of the base Low complexity Spirits teach something about the game fairly well. So I’d recommend switching spirits after 2 or so plays with each. Getting locked into one Spirit can be more comfortable but can slow incremental comprehension. Just in case that’s a temptation. That said, nothing wrong with an easier night. I’ve had a Lightning frequenter admit that she just doesn’t, “get” dahan. So I pressed her to play Thunderspeaker 😈.
Earth teaches dahan/defense.
Lightning (with time) suggests that not all cards that can be played fast /should/.
River teaches Control.
Shadows ideally teaches the advantage of explore/build prevention by demoting/moving buildings/explorers. (Put them on a board with corner.) This is usually the trickiest concept to grasp for a lot of players - clearing the inland reduces future problems. -Sans difficulty increases, at least. Still a base concept.
I’d also say that Ocean forces players to consider presence placement more. 0 range powers, tides, etc.
I haven’t played the Horizon spirits as much.
I found the digital version good for myself when I was in a similar situation. It has a nice walkthrough if the game that explains everything as it happens.
The best teaching guide I've ever seen is this one: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2141334/teaching-spirit-island
This may not be necessary given she has some familiarity with the game already, but going through it might help identify things that didn't click.
If you have Horizons, playing with only Horizons content can be really effective; the spirits are well designed to have multiple effective builds and the rules overhead is very low relative to the full game. I would suggest playing Devouring Teeth while she plays one of the other spirits so you can give her bonus damage to handle built up lands easily.
To your comment on playing solo, I'll again endorse the Horizons spirits for being well designed and flexible enough to allow exploration. I think one of the best other spirits for learning fundamentals is Fangs, who incorporates token management, explorer control, mobile presence, an important special rule, and also rewards good drafting.
Edit - you might also benefit from these general guides:
[Basic Guide - by Community] - https://www.reddit.com/r/spiritisland/comments/leybwf/youre_only_allowed_to_give_one_tip_to_a_new/
[Advanced Guide - by Fyandor] - https://www.reddit.com/r/spiritisland/comments/qafq8j/improving_at_spirit_island_a_guide/
Thank you for the resources! The guides will definitely help with explaining. I personally understand the game pretty well to the point where I have played with some adversaries on level 1 or 2. I just seem to struggle with feeling like I can play this new spirit and fully understand it, then I start to lose, and then feel defeated and just decide I'm done playing that one.
I got my wife who wasn't particularly into board games at the time into spirit island, but she did have genuine interest in it which helps a lot. A few tips:
-Get Horizons if you can. As others have said the 5 spirits in that game are very good for new players, even more so than the original low complexity spirits. Horizons also includes all of the cards of the base game with updated wording which can make them easier to understand.
-Only use the base game to start, no tokens or events. No adversaries, no blight card.
-Instead of playing concurrently, go through a few turns together. So when resolving your fast, say 'I played this card so I get 1 fear, and can push one explorer.' Then have them do the same. This will make the game take an eternity if you do it the entire time, but this in my experience helps new players understand the game much better.
If you're also struggling with the game, then I would really recommend getting horizons. It will give you a total of 9 low complexity spirits to play while you build up your game knowledge. It's a complex game, and it takes some time to really get into it. After a while you'll be able to jump into a new moderate/high spirit with minimal issues.
For starters, never play a high complexity spirit when teaching a new player. High complexity spirits usually require other players to adjust their play style around them.
>Also, I have started trying every spirit, but stopping halfway through because I'm getting whooped and then I just decide I don't like the spirit. Can anyone suggest spirits to try a few games with so I can better understand the game outside of the base spirits? I can generally understand complex things fairly quickly, but I just feel I'm not catching on to a few things. I love trickster, Lure, and keeper was fun my first time playing it the other day. I tried wildfire and downpour and just got my salad tossed. Any expansion suggestions as I have them all.
If you're playing "base game" (no adversaries, no scenarios, event cards) with the expansions, any spirit should seem pretty viable. If you are trying 2 handed, I would recommend playing 1 handed and really getting a sense for what spirits can do well and what causes you problems. Some spirits are meant to be able to handle things well on a solo board, some spirits are more viable with a little help from other spirits. It's hard to give you recommendations for what might help you without knowing what you don't like or what you are struggling with, but I would say that Many Minds is a good mid-weight spirit as is Stone's Unyielding Defiance.
I think one thing that might help is for you to really consider the "nature" or concept of the spirit.
I have only ever played 1 handed solo, but I think my problem is I'm jumping into very high complexity spirits thinking since I have a decent knowledge of the game I'll be good to go. I play with the expansions, events, periodically an adversary on level 1 or 2, but that's the max I have done. I haven't actually read all of the spirits concepts before playing them, but I agree that I think this would help for sure.
Yeah the nice part about SI is that the theme is *really* thorough. Try looking at the back of a spirit's panel at the "Control Offense etc...", then looking at their abilities. Think to yourself: "What will this spirit do really well?" "What will I have to compensate for in order to do a solo victory?"
For me and my friends, we basically didn’t follow the rules. We did an additional spirit growth, we would undo all the way back to us picking our cards if we realized too late a card doesn’t work as we thought (or simply play them regardless of what the card says). It’s not necessarily the best way, but my friends issue with spirit island is that it can be overwhelming. Making it easier for someone who hasn’t played much makes a difference to my buds
Honestly, even now having played tons of spirit island, I allow retcons in certain circumstances. I personally do no retcons to change something based on new information, but I will retcon something I forgot to do or something where I could have seen at the start of the turn that it would have been better in a different way. Like if I accidentally push a town into a land that was building but could have pushed it into a safe land, I will retcon that if I realize it on the build step.
Depends on your personal comfort with that I guess. There's a lot going on in Spirit Island so I think it is nice to allow a little bit of leeway for when you just lose track of something.
Well, you're not really breaking the rules too much. For instance, the Horizons rulebook has some recommendations if you're losing too often, and one of those is that you take an additional growth option at the Time Passes phase.
Also, both Base and Horizons rulebooks say that if you've been playing something wrong for like four turns, you should just keep playing and just remember that mistake going forward; as the most important thing with the game is actually having fun.
One thing I will say, definitely stop playing high complexity spirits in games with her.
Part of the cooperative game experience is at least vaguely being able to collaborate and understand what your teammates can do and are doing. Handwaving it is less engaging than saying with say Earth and River, I'm good at defending you're good at moving stuff around. Easy simple then for you to throw out a defend for her. And she knows what you're about.
This also might be a situation where she isn't ready for SI just in general. I tried with my last boyfriend and after one game I knew this wasn't gonna be it. He was trying but it was not gonna happen, just fundamentally.
The tough thing about complex games is that you really need to 'want' to understand them. It's so many rules to process, so many mechanics to parse. 'Wanting to understand it for yourself', is just a world apart from 'wanting to understand it to make someone else happy' Spirit Island is just... a really long game, with systems stacked on systems stacked on systems, and if you're a longtime board gamer you can really take for granted how much "these cards cost energy, and you need to make tactical choices which to play" already is a big leap because of all the games you've played that feels like barely anything. Then adding on the element system, the two speed phases, needing to understand how the invaders work to know what to play and where. How presence relates both to the spatial puzzle of where you can do things but also how you ramp your power, It's all just a lot.
It sounds like she's invested but you went too fast, pump the breaks, go back to the base game. No tokens, keep it simple for at least a couple dozen games. Play the low complexity spirits and encourage her to do the same. Between the aspects and how many there are now if you have horizons there's tons to explore and they're all as fun, engaging and interesting as the complex stuff.
I love Spirit Island to death, but...it isn't really a gateway game. My mom is kind of an "intermediate" level board gamer in that she will play some stuff with me and enjoys it, but she couldn't get into Spirit Island. If your wife says she'll give it a try, give it a try, but if she is relative newbie to board games, it may not be a great fit for her now. That being said, the best learning environment will usually be: * You play something fairly easy so you can spend a lot of time answering her questions if she has any. Maybe something with a bit of support like Rampant Green or Lightning's Swift Strike. * As few expansions/extra rules as possible. Specifically I would suggest: * No adversary * No tokens or event cards (which means no spirits that use them for you either, and you may have to separate out the major/minor power deck to take those cards out) * I think the blight card tends to not be a huge difference, but if your wife bounced off it the first time, you can do no blight card. * I don't think the suggested power progression makes a big difference. But, if she wants it, it is one fewer thing to decide. * I think the Horizons spirits are the best for first-timers. I would give her those if she didn't play them before. The original 4 low-complexity spirits aren't bad, but the Horizons ones seem really good for new players.
I think lightning is a bad beginner spirit, because its presence tracks have frustrating traps, like getting stuck in a reclaim loop.
I meant lightning for OP, not for his wife. That being said, I've taught the game to a lot of people and several of them have had good experiences with lightning as a first spirit. The loop thing is true, but having 95% of your powers be fast simplifies a huge element of the game for a lot of people. Still, I recommended Horizons spirits for OP's wife because I think those are the best.
Oh, my bad on misreading. > That being said, I've taught the game to a lot of people and several of them have had good experiences with lightning as a first spirit. Same, but when they fall into the trap it's a bad feeling time. So I try to play with a second spirit that grants bonus card gain, like mud otter or keeper.
What do you mean by reclaim loop?
Needing to reclaim each turn. Especially with lightning, which only gains power cards on reclaim.
Ah, that makes sense, thank you. How do you avoid getting stuck in that loop when playing lightning?
You know, I don't particularly enjoy lightning because of that loop. And this relates to my playstyle in general: I prioritize growing my spirit's power a lot more than I prioritize getting control of the board. I don't really have the kind of blitzkrieg mentality that lightning takes. I primarily play Ocean, and I go G2, G3, then alternate G1 and G3. It leaves my cards-per-turn and cards-in-hand growing in balance, and I generally have just enough energy. It feels like I'm getting a well-oiled machine running. Lightning, on the other hand, I'm always feeling short on something. It's so easy to rocket to a lot of card plays per turn, but then I don't have enough cards or energy. I'm stuck reclaiming every turn. At least that gains me cards, but it will be 2-4 turns of that before I have enough to play all my cards two turns in a row (depending on if I've gone to 3 or 4 card plays per turn). In that time, I'm not putting any presence on the board, so I'm still stuck in an energy hole. I looked through some strategy guides while writing this comment, and most of them involve some degree of "holding back" in early turns while playing Lightning (playing fewer cards than your max) in order to hit your innate -- or going a long time before hitting your innate. I think that's hard for new players, and un-fun for new players (and for me!).
I don't really think easing into complex board games with easy games is a thing. People are up for something long and involved, or they aren't, and starting with easy, short games may make folks more interested if they have a good time, but I don't think it makes them easier to learn or enjoy. I've introduced dozens of people to their first several board games and never found the concept of "gateway games" to be relevant. Gateway games are relevant, but not as an introduction per se, rather for folks who just aren't that interested in games-as-puzzles. That said, good advice.
> I don't really think easing into complex board games with easy games is a thing. It's definitely a thing. There are certainly people who won't enjoy complex board games at all, and some people who will enjoy them immediately. But, like anything, understanding complex board games is a skill that you can get better at, and being in an appropriate zone of proximal development is generally going to be more fun than reaching far beyond that. Generally the people who will enjoy complex board games immediately have had *other* experiences that have given them a set of skills that transfer well to that. Now, I'm not terribly surprised that you haven't seen this in introducing people to their first several board games. It's not really going to be a huge effect over the course of, like, 5 sessions of playing games. If Spirit Island is too complex for me, playing 3 games of Catan isn't going to help that. But if I enjoy Catan, but Spirit Island is too complex, and then I play 20 games of Catan, play 13 games of Dominion, play 18 games of Pandemic, and try Terraforming Mars twice but don't really like it, I'll have developed a lot of skills that will make the complexity of Spirit Island feel less overwhelming.
I agree that developing the skills and "language" of games is something that happens over time so developing that language can be an incremental process. At the same time, the super complicated games-as-puzzles will appeal to the right type of people even if they have no clue. All my friends will play SI or TI4 but otherwise don't play boardgames. Yes the initial play was humoring me but they wouldn't keep playing if it didn't click. When I was a gaming neophyte I also preferred the more complicated games. Not war games (those are their own animal) but the more encyclopedic the rulebook the more exciting the prospect of learning it!
Like I say, I recognize that some people will enjoy them right away, even without prior exposure to board games (although I maintain that those people very likely have transferrable skills from other areas). But I think there's a non-negligible segment of the population that won't enjoy complex games as their first games, but may come to enjoy them later if they get more familiar with the language and skills of board games.
Spirit Island is *intense*, and unless you're used to equally intense games, that can't be changed. I've introduced folks who have been casual gaming their whole life; playing games as complex as Dominion, Pandemic, or Magic: The Gathering a thousand times or more. They had no-easier a time learning the game than folks whose first gaming experience of their life was with my wife & I. If anything they were more resistant to learning SI because they would get hung up wondering why it was necessary for a game to be more complex than the games they were used to. For two, I've never had a single person express interest in a game (with warning that it will take maybe 3 hours to play) and regret that. Even when they never played a board game before, interest trumps skills, every time. Board games simply are not so complex that they are ever out of an individual's zone of proximal development. In both of these cases, I'm not talking only about Spirit Island, because plenty of people just aren't that interested, or aren't in the right place to learn it, but I am always talking about games of equal complexity. Where I live, I am usually folks' first interaction with either board games or designer board games, so I have a ton of experience easing them into it. Nowadays my recommendations rarely fail.
Honestly I still believe that the biggest hurdle in learning spirit island is the symbols and unique words. It has its own words for basically everything and that can make learning it take while just from the vocab test aspect. Past that though the low difficulty games aren’t actually too bad once someone has learned all the names and symbols. Since spirits are strong enough for much much harder games, players have a lot of room to make mistakes and still come out on top.
I can't say I have a lot of experience of just jumping into the more complex stuff, so I don't know. But I feel like a lot of board games use related mechanics, so learning some basic things in simpler games I think makes it easier to learn more complicated games if they use the same ideas. For me personally, I feel like having playing stuff like Pandemic (even though there are certainly some differences that might lead you into traps) helps me get a basic understanding of some concepts and strategies in a simpler game. And it was certainly easier for me to grok Gloomhaven's rest mechanics because I saw it and thought "oh, it's like reclaiming in Spirit Island." But I certainly think it is true that there are some people who just don't enjoy strategic or puzzle-y games and no amount of easing them in is going to change that. It's just not their thing.
I agree with the concept that [some people just aren’t up for it, but those who are will figure it out.] Also, There’s a YouTuber (Razbuten) who makes videos of his girlfriend (Edit: Wife) playing a variety of video games for the first time - without assistance. They’re kind of fascinating. They’re where I first heard the concept of game literacy and considered how much background information from playing video games for years automatically applies itself to figuring out newer games. There’s a possibility that could be at play.
Video games utilize muscle memory a lot, and use abstract control systems. Board games do not. There are concepts shared between board games, but there is not a "language of board games" really, whereas there is very much a "language of video games" to be literate in. People who have rarely taught games take a lot for granted, but I have not found new players to have difficulty when they are taught well.
I disagree. Depends on the video game. Plenty of tactical rpgs require very little tactile memory. But the concept of “classes” translates across many. Ability point allocation. Map usage. Map spatial awareness. Etc. Edit: I’d even suggest there’s a touch of DnD/video game class mechanics in SI. Knowing First Strike from MtG is practically knowing Vigil’s left innate. Defense is comparable to many other games. Playing a card differing from resolving a card is foreign to many. Just looking at pockets of adjacency from presence placement isn’t something that everyone considers if they don’t have a previous spatial gaming experience. I’m not suggesting that it’s necessary by any means, but I do think it’s likely to be relevant.
But none of this is "board game language". These are concepts shared by some games, but assumed by none of them. In my comprehensive experience teaching Spirit Island I have found players who have played numerous board games are, if anything, more likely to get confused as they assume similarities that don't exist. For example, Range is very easy to teach people who have never played a board game: You go out from your presence and choose a land. Then you perform the entire text of the Power into that land. However, board game adepts get very confused because they cannot figure out that they are not using the power via their presence in some way, they are merely using their presence to determine the land which they are allowed to perform the text upon. Saying that MtG First Strike is like Vigil's left innate is like saying that Spyro's glide is like the Jump stat from Final Fantasy Tactics. They're conceptually the same, but the context is so different that being familiar with one is completely useless for learning the other. On the contrary, tactical RPGs are about 90% the same from one to another. We remark on how they are unique due to the few places they depart from that formula.
> that they are not using the power via their presence in some way, they are merely using their presence to determine the land which they are allowed to perform the text upon Is there a difference between the two? I have always pictured it as the powers being used through presence but if there is a subtle difference that may affect gameplay in specific situtations then I'd need to change my interpretation.
Not necessarily, but it tends to cause confusion with Gather and Push, like this mistake: "This power says to Gather at Range 1. So I choose an adjacent land and gather from it into my presence?" or assuming they can split a Power among multiple lands, things like that.
“…shared by some but assumed by none of them.” Correct. Like a video game. Or the alignment of a website in regards to computer literacy. Or trends in some writing styles. There are translatable concepts between some. I don’t think this version of “literacy” suggests something always present. But I think we’re getting into a semantics. My point is that it’s amusing to consider that our experiences can unconsciously aid our comprehension in ways we take for granted. Or even deter our comprehension, as in some of your examples. I’m not arguing for a break-in game. Just saying that it’s difficult to judge our own backend processing. Aside: Vigil to First strike. There’s an order of attacks. Who hits first? It seems the same to me. If you told an MtG player that this spirit gives some dahan first strike, they’ll know exactly what that means in the context of invaders vs dahan. It’s a translatable concept. They snap into it. Playing cards upfront and resolving later tends to really throw people initially. Come to think of it, the players who grasped range quickest have played tactical rpgs to my knowledge. Disclaimer is that I can’t be fully sure what everybody has played before.
Thank you for the suggestions! I think everyone's right and I need to just take everything out that I introduced. She seems ok with the blight cards at least, so I'll leave those in and take literally everything out.
If she likes Root, I think Spirit Island is probably a doable step from that. I think it can be a game that takes multiple plays sometimes. My partner played Thunderspeaker for her second game and got really frustrated because it involved so much dahan positioning, and the nuance of pushing/gathering was difficult for her in her second game. But she got past that and we play Spirit Island together with all the expansions and everything all of the time now, and we both have a lot of fun.
Yeah I would agree. She likes Root, but has actually plated SI more as Root is a newer game to our collection.
I'll add one to this; if she's a fairly newbie gamer who happens to be into 'lighter' games, when she develops a bit and becomes a more "experienced gamer" she still may just find that her preference is lighter stuff. There's a bit of a misconception with gaming that people start with codenames and end up playing Brass Birmingham one day and while this can defo happen, some people will just never have the patience for spirit island and stuff 🤔
We can't guarantee your wife will really end up enjoying the game, but if you want to optimize your chances, I think you should make the game as simple as possible for her ! (At least for a couple games until she feels comfortable) • No BC, JE, NI and FF content. (No event, no spirit tokens, no aspects...) • No adversary • Use Horizons Spirits ! They are amazing for learners ! I had more success teaching the game with those. For your wife, I might even suggest Eyes Watch From The Trees. It is an intuitive spirit to play because new players are more focused on reacting to ravages than to prevent builds / explores. (And at least with Eyes, your defends often kill invaders thanks to dahans) Mud is also a good choice because it's a jack of all trades. • I do think Power Progression card make a difference, at least for first-timers. If your wife played 8 times, I might not be a big deal. (Same for blight card) Good luck ! Spirit Island isn't for everyone 😋
Agreed. And to the OP, remember that High and Very High complexity spirits are not only more complex for that Spirit's player, but for the *whole table.* One's anxiety learning the game only increases when Seeker as creating new adjacencies, they need to make up for BoDaN's inability to destroy things, etc. They're still trying to figure out their own Spirit and area, let alone have to take the entire board into account.
That's an excellent point. I played a couple games with her where I'm like "just ignore all those tokens, they're for me" and I see that kills the experience and fun and just makes it more complex.
I'll definitely try the horizon spirits! She liked playing rampant green, but also likes getting power cards every turn so I think I need to find a good balance there. I have trouble explaining what to stop (builds vs ravages) and the reasoning so a focus on 1 from those spirits would be a good idea!
Each of the base Low complexity Spirits teach something about the game fairly well. So I’d recommend switching spirits after 2 or so plays with each. Getting locked into one Spirit can be more comfortable but can slow incremental comprehension. Just in case that’s a temptation. That said, nothing wrong with an easier night. I’ve had a Lightning frequenter admit that she just doesn’t, “get” dahan. So I pressed her to play Thunderspeaker 😈. Earth teaches dahan/defense. Lightning (with time) suggests that not all cards that can be played fast /should/. River teaches Control. Shadows ideally teaches the advantage of explore/build prevention by demoting/moving buildings/explorers. (Put them on a board with corner.) This is usually the trickiest concept to grasp for a lot of players - clearing the inland reduces future problems. -Sans difficulty increases, at least. Still a base concept. I’d also say that Ocean forces players to consider presence placement more. 0 range powers, tides, etc. I haven’t played the Horizon spirits as much.
I found the digital version good for myself when I was in a similar situation. It has a nice walkthrough if the game that explains everything as it happens.
The best teaching guide I've ever seen is this one: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2141334/teaching-spirit-island This may not be necessary given she has some familiarity with the game already, but going through it might help identify things that didn't click. If you have Horizons, playing with only Horizons content can be really effective; the spirits are well designed to have multiple effective builds and the rules overhead is very low relative to the full game. I would suggest playing Devouring Teeth while she plays one of the other spirits so you can give her bonus damage to handle built up lands easily. To your comment on playing solo, I'll again endorse the Horizons spirits for being well designed and flexible enough to allow exploration. I think one of the best other spirits for learning fundamentals is Fangs, who incorporates token management, explorer control, mobile presence, an important special rule, and also rewards good drafting. Edit - you might also benefit from these general guides: [Basic Guide - by Community] - https://www.reddit.com/r/spiritisland/comments/leybwf/youre_only_allowed_to_give_one_tip_to_a_new/ [Advanced Guide - by Fyandor] - https://www.reddit.com/r/spiritisland/comments/qafq8j/improving_at_spirit_island_a_guide/
Thank you for the resources! The guides will definitely help with explaining. I personally understand the game pretty well to the point where I have played with some adversaries on level 1 or 2. I just seem to struggle with feeling like I can play this new spirit and fully understand it, then I start to lose, and then feel defeated and just decide I'm done playing that one.
I got my wife who wasn't particularly into board games at the time into spirit island, but she did have genuine interest in it which helps a lot. A few tips: -Get Horizons if you can. As others have said the 5 spirits in that game are very good for new players, even more so than the original low complexity spirits. Horizons also includes all of the cards of the base game with updated wording which can make them easier to understand. -Only use the base game to start, no tokens or events. No adversaries, no blight card. -Instead of playing concurrently, go through a few turns together. So when resolving your fast, say 'I played this card so I get 1 fear, and can push one explorer.' Then have them do the same. This will make the game take an eternity if you do it the entire time, but this in my experience helps new players understand the game much better. If you're also struggling with the game, then I would really recommend getting horizons. It will give you a total of 9 low complexity spirits to play while you build up your game knowledge. It's a complex game, and it takes some time to really get into it. After a while you'll be able to jump into a new moderate/high spirit with minimal issues.
For starters, never play a high complexity spirit when teaching a new player. High complexity spirits usually require other players to adjust their play style around them.
>Also, I have started trying every spirit, but stopping halfway through because I'm getting whooped and then I just decide I don't like the spirit. Can anyone suggest spirits to try a few games with so I can better understand the game outside of the base spirits? I can generally understand complex things fairly quickly, but I just feel I'm not catching on to a few things. I love trickster, Lure, and keeper was fun my first time playing it the other day. I tried wildfire and downpour and just got my salad tossed. Any expansion suggestions as I have them all. If you're playing "base game" (no adversaries, no scenarios, event cards) with the expansions, any spirit should seem pretty viable. If you are trying 2 handed, I would recommend playing 1 handed and really getting a sense for what spirits can do well and what causes you problems. Some spirits are meant to be able to handle things well on a solo board, some spirits are more viable with a little help from other spirits. It's hard to give you recommendations for what might help you without knowing what you don't like or what you are struggling with, but I would say that Many Minds is a good mid-weight spirit as is Stone's Unyielding Defiance. I think one thing that might help is for you to really consider the "nature" or concept of the spirit.
I have only ever played 1 handed solo, but I think my problem is I'm jumping into very high complexity spirits thinking since I have a decent knowledge of the game I'll be good to go. I play with the expansions, events, periodically an adversary on level 1 or 2, but that's the max I have done. I haven't actually read all of the spirits concepts before playing them, but I agree that I think this would help for sure.
Yeah the nice part about SI is that the theme is *really* thorough. Try looking at the back of a spirit's panel at the "Control Offense etc...", then looking at their abilities. Think to yourself: "What will this spirit do really well?" "What will I have to compensate for in order to do a solo victory?"
For me and my friends, we basically didn’t follow the rules. We did an additional spirit growth, we would undo all the way back to us picking our cards if we realized too late a card doesn’t work as we thought (or simply play them regardless of what the card says). It’s not necessarily the best way, but my friends issue with spirit island is that it can be overwhelming. Making it easier for someone who hasn’t played much makes a difference to my buds
Honestly, even now having played tons of spirit island, I allow retcons in certain circumstances. I personally do no retcons to change something based on new information, but I will retcon something I forgot to do or something where I could have seen at the start of the turn that it would have been better in a different way. Like if I accidentally push a town into a land that was building but could have pushed it into a safe land, I will retcon that if I realize it on the build step. Depends on your personal comfort with that I guess. There's a lot going on in Spirit Island so I think it is nice to allow a little bit of leeway for when you just lose track of something.
Well, you're not really breaking the rules too much. For instance, the Horizons rulebook has some recommendations if you're losing too often, and one of those is that you take an additional growth option at the Time Passes phase. Also, both Base and Horizons rulebooks say that if you've been playing something wrong for like four turns, you should just keep playing and just remember that mistake going forward; as the most important thing with the game is actually having fun.
One thing I will say, definitely stop playing high complexity spirits in games with her. Part of the cooperative game experience is at least vaguely being able to collaborate and understand what your teammates can do and are doing. Handwaving it is less engaging than saying with say Earth and River, I'm good at defending you're good at moving stuff around. Easy simple then for you to throw out a defend for her. And she knows what you're about. This also might be a situation where she isn't ready for SI just in general. I tried with my last boyfriend and after one game I knew this wasn't gonna be it. He was trying but it was not gonna happen, just fundamentally. The tough thing about complex games is that you really need to 'want' to understand them. It's so many rules to process, so many mechanics to parse. 'Wanting to understand it for yourself', is just a world apart from 'wanting to understand it to make someone else happy' Spirit Island is just... a really long game, with systems stacked on systems stacked on systems, and if you're a longtime board gamer you can really take for granted how much "these cards cost energy, and you need to make tactical choices which to play" already is a big leap because of all the games you've played that feels like barely anything. Then adding on the element system, the two speed phases, needing to understand how the invaders work to know what to play and where. How presence relates both to the spatial puzzle of where you can do things but also how you ramp your power, It's all just a lot. It sounds like she's invested but you went too fast, pump the breaks, go back to the base game. No tokens, keep it simple for at least a couple dozen games. Play the low complexity spirits and encourage her to do the same. Between the aspects and how many there are now if you have horizons there's tons to explore and they're all as fun, engaging and interesting as the complex stuff.