Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Revisiting Islebound
Red Raven Games has done a fantastic job marketing their games. If you haven’t heard of one, you’ve probably at least recognized the art from one. Ryan Laukat has carefully crafted the world of Arzium—the setting for all these games—with a unique style made up of memorable critter characters, fantastical lands, and imaginative items. The world of Arzium houses other games such as Sleeping Gods, Above and Below, Near and Far, Creature Caravan, Roam, and Eight-Minute Empire: Legends. Islebound originally hit the shelves in 2016 and has recently been “refreshed” with the Emerald Edition. In it, players take on the role of privateers in a swashbuckling light-weight euro, picking up and delivering to different islands while building their crew and managing them wisely. Oh, and building some powerful buildings too!
While some may say it’s an “updated” version of the base game, the publisher equates it more to a variant of the original. Aside from upgraded components, the Emerald Edition adds improved town actions, a new resource (emeralds), and an updated building deck that incorporates mechanics from the Metropolis expansion. If you’ve played the original, the book resource has been swapped for chunky green emeralds. It’s more than just a fresh coat of paint—it improves on some of the shortcomings from the first version, including making buildings more difficult to construct and adding a bit more player interaction. For reference, I hadn’t played the original Islebound, so I won’t be comparing the two versions, but rather taking a deeper dive into how the Emerald Edition shakes out.
Let’s Go Exploring
In Islebound, players are trying to gain the most renown to become the best ship crew on the mysterious archipelago. The turn structure is straightforward: move, then perform one of four game actions and any free actions. Players must always move their ship to another island; the distance is based on their sail power and can be augmented with crew tokens that match the sail icon. If players visit the same island as another player, they gain an emerald (more on those later!). In a 2p game, this rule is expanded to the same region rather than the same island.
The first action is to visit, which costs coins and exhausts a crew member; this activates the island, which may include things like gaining resources, hiring crew, building, triggering renown cards, or refreshing crew. Another action is to simply take all the coins that have accumulated in the treasure chest from other players’ spending. Towns can also be taken over through attacking or diplomacy, depending on a player’s strength in those respective categories. Controlling a town makes that action cheaper for the owning player and more expensive for others.
Players can also use free actions, which include fulfilling an event card or buying buildings. Buildings are the core of the game—they score the majority of points, provide ongoing powers, and trigger the endgame when a player builds eight. However, an emerald must be spent for each building constructed, and this resource is the hardest to come by.
Island Delivery
I’m a moderate fan of pick-up-and-deliver games, and if that’s a mechanic you love, this one’s an absolute home run. The loop of running around different islands to gather what you need, then heading where you can use it—combined with the puzzle of efficiency—creates a well-balanced experience. Then there’s the layer of hand management: you have to exhaust your crew members carefully so you aren’t hamstrung for certain actions. (Exhausting crew occurs when you boost a certain value or activate town actions.) There were times when I didn’t have enough of a certain crew type and just couldn’t use that lane efficiently. There’s only so much time and only so much space on your busy ship. The diplomacy takeover was an interesting twist to me as well. The diplomacy track has specified numbers, and players place cubes on the leftmost open spot (values increase as the track fills). As players spend those cubes for diplomacy actions, they’re removed, making diplomacy gain less sexy in future turns. It’s almost as if diplomacy can get stronger, faster, the less it’s used? I’m sure there’s a political science metaphor in there somewhere.
Since the endgame is a race, you’ll have to adapt your priorities quickly. Seeing someone gear up to fulfill an event (which rotates islands) might have you ditching your plans to beat them there and cash in on that sweet renown bonus. Aside from furiously sailing to beat someone to a location, there isn’t a ton of player interaction. All actions are open to everyone, and one player owning an island doesn’t hinder others too much—it just costs an extra coin (which can feel like too much if you’re strapped for cash!). In our play, the hot-action islands were quickly taken over, locking out potential savings. It’s an interesting mechanic: you’re not paying a player directly, but you’re still bleeding money to them by visiting.
Overall, I had a great time exploring the islands of Islebound. The charming art I’ve come to love and expect from Red Raven Games sticks the thematic landing yet again. Though I haven’t played the original Islebound, the systems here feel well-balanced and interconnected enough that I’d guess this is the stronger version. Considering the original came out almost a decade ago, it speaks to the growth of Ryan Laukat as a game designer. If you’re a fan of pick-up-and-deliver, the Arzium game line, or just cozy lighter euros, Islebound: Emerald Edition is not only worth checking out—it’s worth exploring again and again.
Islebound: Emerald Edition details
- Designer: Ryan Laukat
- Artists: Ryan Laukat
- Publishers: Red Raven Games
- Release Date: 2024
- Player count : 2 - 4
- Age range : 13+
- Time range : 90 minutes
- Mechanism(s):
- BGG Geek Rating: 7.7547 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 4.0.
- More articles about Islebound: Emerald Edition.
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