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Game rules

Spirit Island rules: how to play and how to win

Reviewed on 15 October 2026 against the publisher’s rulebook. How we check

Spirit Island plays 1 to 4 players, all together: you are the Spirits of an island and must drive off the Invaders before they cover it in Blight. Here are the essential rules, setup and victory conditions, based on the official rulebook.

Players
1 to 4, cooperative
Play time
90 to 120 minutes
Winner
The whole team, by driving off the Invaders; or everyone loses

Spirit Island quick rules

The goal
Spirit Island is a cooperative game: you win or lose together. Colonists, the Invaders, explore the Island, build Towns and Cities, and cover it in Blight. The Dahan, the people of the Island, can help you. You must drive the Invaders off by destroying them and frightening them.
A turn
A turn has five phases, and all Spirits play at the same time: the Spirit Phase, Fast Powers, the Invader Phase, Slow Powers, then Time Passes. At the end of the turn, played cards go to each player’s discard pile and all Damage goes away. You discuss your plans freely.
The Spirit Phase
Each Spirit chooses one Growth option on its panel and does everything it shows: add a Presence to the Island, gain a Power Card, Reclaim its discarded cards. Each Presence placed uncovers a bigger number on one of its two tracks: Energy per turn, or Card Plays. It then gains its Energy, chooses its Power Cards and pays their cost right away, even for Slow Powers.
Powers
A Fast Power acts before the Invaders, a Slow Power after them. Each Power targets a single land, within a certain Range of one of your Presence. Played cards give Elements, which trigger the Innate Powers on your panel for free. A land where you have at least two Presence is a Sacred Site.
The Invaders
Three Invader Cards show where they Ravage, Build and Explore, each for one terrain. Ravage: they deal 1 Damage per Explorer, 2 per Town, 3 per City; surviving Dahan fight back with 2 Damage each. Build: a Town, or a City if there are more Towns than Cities. Explore: one Explorer in each land adjacent to a Town, a City or the Ocean. Then the cards move along one space.
Blight
A Ravage that deals at least 2 Damage to a land adds one Blight there, only one. It destroys one Presence of each Spirit in that land. If the land already had Blight, another Blight goes to a single adjacent land: that’s a cascade. When the Blight Card runs out, the Island becomes Blighted; if it runs out again, you lose.
Fear and Terror
Destroying a Town generates 1 Fear, a City 2. When all Fear Markers have moved, you earn a Fear Card, which helps at the start of the next Invader Phase. Fear Cards raise the Terror Level, and victory gets easier.
Beginner traps
A Ravage adds only one Blight, even with 6 Damage. A cascade affects only one adjacent land. Invaders only Build and Ravage where they already are. Destroyed Presence is gone. And to start, choose simple Spirits with their Power Progression, and no Adversary.

How to win Spirit Island

No ranking
Spirit Island is played as a team: the whole table wins or loses together.
Victory
It depends on the Terror Level. Level 1: no Invaders left on the Island. Level 2: no Towns or Cities. Level 3: no Cities. Every Fear Card earned: immediate victory.
Defeat
A Spirit has no Presence left on the Island; or the Blight Card says so when it runs out; or you need to Explore and the Invader Deck is empty.
Difficulty
The Adversary’s at its level, plus the Scenario’s, plus 3 with the Thematic Map. 0 with no Adversary or Scenario.
Rulebook score
Victory: 5 × Difficulty + 10 + 2 per card left in the Invader Deck. Defeat: 2 × Difficulty + 1 per card out of that deck. Then +1 per group of living Dahan and −1 per group of Blight on the Island, a group having as many pieces as there are players. The Ludingo sheet works it out.

Example ending

Emma and Jake win at Difficulty 3, with 4 cards still in the Invader Deck, 7 living Dahan and 3 Blight on the Island. Score: 5 × 3 + 10 + 2 × 4 = 33, plus 3 for the Dahan (7 ÷ 2, rounded down), minus 1 for the Blight (3 ÷ 2): 35 points.

Common mistakes

  • Thinking you always have to clear the Island: at Terror Level 2, it’s enough that no Towns or Cities remain.
  • Forgetting the extra Blight on the card: 2 per player plus 1, from the official errata.
  • Counting the Blight on the card in the score: only Blight on the Island counts.
  • Removing a City instead of destroying it: only destruction generates Fear.

How to set up Spirit Island

Setup takes about 15 minutes. It comes in four parts: the Invader Board, the Island, each Spirit, then the Invaders’ first Explore.

The Invader Board

  1. First choose an Adversary and a Scenario, if you want them.For your first games, play without either.
  2. Place the Invader Board on one side of the table.
  3. Put 4 Fear Markers per player into the Fear Pool.
  4. Make a face-down Fear Deck of 9 cards.The Terror Level 3 divider goes above the bottom 3 cards, the Level 2 divider above the next 3.
  5. Make the Invader Deck: 3 Stage I cards on top, 4 Stage II, 5 Stage III on the bottom.Shuffle each Stage separately; remove one card from each without looking. The deck goes on the Explore space.
  6. Place a random Blight Card, Healthy Island side up, with 2 Blight per player, plus 1.Without a Blight Card, for a very first game: the space on the board, with 5 Blight per player, plus 1.

The Island

  1. Arrange one random Island Board per player.Solo, a single board is the whole Island.
  2. Place in each land the pieces shown by its icons.Explorers, Towns, Cities, Dahan and Blight, taken from the box.
  3. Shuffle the Minor Power and Major Power decks separately.
  4. Put the Energy and the pieces in a supply everyone can reach.

Each Spirit

  1. Each player takes all the Presence of one color.
  2. Each player chooses a Spirit: its panel and its 4 Unique Power Cards.To start, a low-complexity Spirit and its Power Progression Card.
  3. Each player places their starting Presence on their Island Board, as shown on the back of their panel.
  4. Each player flips their panel and covers both Presence Tracks, except the leftmost spaces.

The first Explore

  1. Reveal the top Invader Card.
  2. The Invaders Explore the lands of that terrain.A land that contains or is adjacent to a Town, a City or the Ocean gets an Explorer.
  3. Put that card on the Build space: they will Build there on the first turn.

Frequently asked questions

Who goes first in Spirit Island?

Nobody: there is no first player. All Spirits play each phase at the same time.

How much Blight goes on the Blight Card in Spirit Island?

2 per player, plus 1 since the official errata: 3 in a solo game, 9 with 4 players. Without a card, 5 per player, plus 1.

How do you win Spirit Island?

By meeting the current Terror Level’s condition: no Invaders at Level 1, no Towns or Cities at Level 2, no Cities at Level 3.

Ludingo’s Spirit Island sheet was last reviewed on 15 October 2026, based on: greaterthangames.com, rulebook 1 (PDF), rulebook 2 (PDF), BoardGameGeek.