Yeah, Pegasus had a lot of SJGames licences (still do) and at my first couple of Essens I demoed with them.
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I believe I have mentioned this before, but my husband and I have played this way. He has a spirit, I have a spirit, and we have a shared spirit. We each make rough plans for our individual ones then talk through what the third one could do to fill gaps. It is a little slower early game as we end up backtracking a bit and making changes to our original individual plans, but as the game goes on and we get a sense of all the spiritsā capabilities, we rarely have that problem.
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One of the things that appeals to me about three spirits is having a nice round island!!
(Unless using the āthematicā boards; the region edges donāt work. Possibly my only complaint about Spirit Island, and itās a pretty minor one!)
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Just curious: people that play Spirit Island, do you usually win? Despite it always seeming kind of hopeless at some point? At least until you tweak the difficulty settings up? But even then, do you usually play at a difficulty where you tend to win?
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I tend to play at a difficulty level that lets me win, yes. I begin playing at a higher opponent level when I feel that I can deal with it. I like a medium challenge and slowly getting better more than banging my head against the wall. I always play with an opponent but mostly at level 1 or 2. I tend to need 6 to 7 rounds. When things go badly, I may run into the stage 3 cards but this rarely happens.
I also choose less complex spirits when I donāt play as frequently.
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I usually (but not always!) win at easy levels with uncomplicated spirits. As soon as the spirits get more complicated or I add in an adversary I usually (but not always!) lose.
But -
When I started I lost all the time. All. The. Time.
And in Spirit Island I donāt mind losing, the gameās so very good.
And yes - it very often looks beyond hope before managing a win. You know the phrase āthe darkest hour is just before dawn?ā That could have been invented for Spirit Island. A speedy, never-in-doubt win is a rare thing indeed.
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One of the many superbly brilliant things I love about Spirit Island is the range of difficulty settings. With the differing spirits, the adversaries with their range of challenges, the scenariosā¦ it can be a relatively gentle puzzle or a ferociously difficult and unforgiving challenge. Or any point between.
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I suppose that puts to rest my theory: that Spirit Island is so popular because it nearly always lets you win, while making it seem that you are about to lose. Apparently not the case.
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Certainly not the case for me! Itās just as likely that Iāll think āthis is going very wellā and two rounds later it will all have gone horribly, dreadfully wrong, with towns and cities springing up in places I canāt reach.
I have always upped difficulty as I go along so I find my win rate to be a little over 50%. some adversaries are so difficult at the higher levels I never get confident of victory against them. Russia and England come to mind. Brandenberg Prussia is most straight forward so even against level 6 Iād have reasonable confidence. The others if itās been enough time that I have lost sharpness against them I would go back to expecting to lose. When Iām confident against an adversary Iād hazard around a 60% chance of victory. We often to get familiarity against a foe go back in at level 3 or 4 to not have to remember all the rules at once.
Spirits can make a difference. River Surges in Sunlight, Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds and Thunderspeaker are all playing on easy and Iād expect to win when using them. As I always play multi player Fractured Days Split the Sky is never used as itās pretty much an auto win spirit on a small effective loop and so very boring. Conversely I really struggle to get Finder of Paths Unseen to work. Partly I think as my most regular partner struggled to work out how to assist it properly but also itās arcane in itās working so managing the flow requires some very different thinking. Iād guess Iād need to drop down to no or very low level adversaries to have a chance to work it out.
So even 100s of games in I keep going back as I need to play well to win so itās not a boring formality.
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Youāre unlucky that you asked this while Branch and Clawās out of stock. It would have been best.
I think Iād agree Jagged Earth is next best though. Iād have a concern about not having enough events but I donāt know that is well founded. Looking on the wiki itās got tons of playable spirits even if you ignore the very high complexity spirits. Thereās 2 I personally find boring and donāt see them often purposefully played a second time by others. Volcano looming high is a bit too linear in what it pushes you to do so gets samey and Iāve mentioned Fractured Days just above in this thread. Also Starlight Seeks itās Form is listed as very high complexity but thatās more a lot of upfront rules overhead than complexity of strategy so itās more usable than it would present as initially
Edit: more event cards in Jagged Earth than branch and claw so no fears there
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I usually win, but my plays are so far between that I have yet to try playing a scenario or adversary, so it comes down to what spirits I use. I play two handed solo, and do try to branch out in which ones I use, so I will often have at least one I am not familiar with.
As such, victory is not guaranteed, and with the event cards, your plans for your next turn can get wrecked at the flip of a card. It is easier to guarantee victory if you arenāt using the events because there is no real change to the flow of the game.
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Iāve played once so far and lost quite badly. I imagine thatās common for new players. Will be looking to get some more plays in soon and see how long it takes to get a win.
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Iād be amazed if most people didnāt lose at first! I lost, badly, several times before getting close to winning, then managing my first win.
Keep going, stick to the least complex spirits, but do try it with other straightforward spirits, as they are all different and you will probably find you get on better with some than others, at least at first.
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I wouldnāt say that is totally wrong though.
As a player you have a lot of options to adjust the way you play the game. As others have stated by just choosing certain spirits or spirit combinations the difficulty scales up or down. Whenever you see me write āI played with Thunderspeakerā you know I didnāt intend the game to be difficult. Thunderspeaker is not only a very easy to play spirit, Iāve played with her so often ā¦ when I donāt have the bandwidth but still want to play Spirit Islandā¦ I play protector of the Dahan.
(@EnterTheWyvern I completely agree about the rainy birdāstill I like playing it. Finder is so cool but so weird. I tend to end up with a big āproblemā that needs a really ābig solutionā when playing Finder. I only did a few times though. Stressful to think through the pathsā¦).
And the rest of the scaling can be adjusted with the adversaries or scenarios. Itās really a question of understanding at what difficulty I can achieve the perfect arc for the game on any given day with any given group (mostly: me and myself). Perfection is: win on turn 6,7 or 8 in the Swift phase so I donāt actually have to execute the turnāas soon as I see a sure path to a win, I stop playing. The turn before winning should provide some kind of major reversalāusually through major powers or very big power plays from the spirits. Before thatā¦ there should be struggle and escalation obviously or the big turn is not going to be needed. It is also the best length of the game because after 1.5-2 hours I really want to be done and playing solo with 2 spirits thatās the time it takes me to play.
I think that arc is also more or less the default that is supposed to play out. When it is not, I think the difficulty is usually off by an adversary level or 2 or a ton of luck in either direction is involved. Luck is a thing. With the many factors in both directions it usually evens outā¦ but sometimes it does not.
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Gosh. I donāt. Then you donāt get to physically remove the invaders and enjoy your newly pristine island! Whereās the fun in that?
I suspect you (and indeed a high percentage of people here) play games a lot more analytically than I do. Iām quite slapdash and instinctive, as a rule.
But there you go - players of all types have Spirit Island as the best game ever. Thatās how good it is!
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I rarely ever get a pristine island. Yesterday I generated so much fear, that I only got to remove one last city on my victory turn. And to get there I needed to play this card and this card and trigger that spirit ability ā¦ planning out a full turn for that just feels tedious. I know this happens in Swift phase before any random elements come into play. I play it out in my mind and that is enough.
You are maybe right. I tend to want to not overthink my game turns and I think I play quite fast in most multiplayer settings. But the analytical part of my brain is being trained every week from Monday to Thursday for at least 8 hours a day. Now add to this that I have played this game probably 100 times (I didnāt log games when I first acquired it). Playing a game so much certainly changes the way I play.
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I lied. I do take that city off the map and celebrate a victory lap around the table (well a half-lap anyway as the table is pushed against a wall)
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So after years of criticising the game, it looks like Iām about to own nearly everything Spirit Island.
A local guy wanted to trade it for kidsā games. I sent him a list of games my kids had grown out of or never clicked with, and he offered to trade for a subset of that list. Ridiculously good deal, in terms of resale value.
Maybe Iāll even play Spirit Island cooperatively at some pointā¦
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If you play it, I think that is your only option. I donāt think thereās a competitive mode 
(unless you are talking about the soloā¦)