Forbidden Desert User Reviews

Name: Forbidden Desert
Rating: 4.8 (480 reviews)

Forbidden Desert

Button Mash Games Inc.

🎮 Games

🎲 Board

🏰 Strategy

What users say

Summarized from real user reviews of Forbidden Desert. Based on 480 reviews and a 4.8/5 average, it highlights the 13 positives and 8 negatives reviewers mention most about this game.

Positive things

👍Excellent faithful adaptation of board game
🎮Engaging co-op gameplay and strategy
🎨Great visuals and animations
🔊High-quality sound effects
📱Works well on iPad with clear interface
⏱️Quick 20-40 minute games
🧠Challenging and mentally stimulating
🎯Multiple difficulty levels available
♻️High replay value with different roles
⚡Fast developer response to bugs
📖Good tutorial and rules documentation
🎪Fun for both solo and group play
⏸️Ability to pause and resume games

Negative things

🐛Tutorial functionality issues
📚Insufficient directions for new players
🎚️Steep difficulty curve between beginner and novice
🔀Questionable shuffle/randomization algorithm
🔊Overrides podcast and background audio
📱iPad-only, not available on iPhone
🎬Animations slow down gameplay
🌐No online multiplayer option

Top reviews

Most Recent Highest Rated Lowest Rated

Terrific co-op game and app for family play

Great visuals, sound effects, gameplay, strategy. Hoping for the forbidden sky and jungle games to become apps soon :)

Brucebot

2 years ago

Terrible

No directions!

Artess1

3 years ago

Good Game

I won so I’m happy

AmelieStar2007

3 years ago

Excellent but novice level too hard

Superb game for iPad but gap between beginner level and novice level far too great as storm meter set too high. Hope this is remedied soon. Update. Finally succeeded on novice level after 30 goes quite a challenge but great fun. After 10 years of playing IPad games my top games are now Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert, Four Winds (proper Mahjong), Pandemic, Virtual Pool 4 (great snooker option), and the old favourites Cluedo and Monopoly. They are all very well made and challenging and help exercise my brain in retirement!!! Many Thanks

N Mackinnon

4 years ago

Get it

Everything you need to enjoy the classic board game without all the extra stuff that gets in the way with other games

R3Kl35

5 years ago

The ForbiddenDesert review

I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#happyparent

5 years ago

Easy to learn, 20-40 min games

Used to play with college friends, now my son and I play on easy. Great fun strategy game, makes you think you’re really surviving in a desert!

Blues Rate

5 years ago

Next game

Have both this and island on my system. Can’t wait for forbidden sky to join the mobile set

Random reseter

6 years ago

Makes you loose

I always loose! One star 4 U

kydx2666

6 years ago

Response from developer

I’m sorry that you aren’t enjoying the game. If you send me an email using the Feedback button in the app, I’ll send you some strategies that might be helpful.

Back to perfection!

Ever since Carcassonne was downgraded and Pandemic was utterly trashed, I get nervous when I see my favorite board game apps getting updated. Luckily after a few small bugs in the latest updates the developers responded quickly and fixed the problems. So back to 5 stars!

Hopefully we get Forbidden Sky someday as this series is currently among the best board game adaptations on iOS.

pbeasi

6 years ago

Response from developer

Thanks for taking the time to list these issues. 1 and 2. I recently released an update that fixes both of these. :-) 3. That one sounds pretty annoying. We’ll try to isolate the problem and fix it soon. I can’t commit to adding better UI support for the 12.9” iPad, but I’ll see what we can do.

Broken

Tutorial doesn’t work - I slide the shovel to the right but nothing happens, I cannot advance or get the tutotiral to work. Can’t figure out how to play. Disappointed.

jsjjsjdkcmc dkiejes

6 years ago

Response from developer

Hi! Thanks for reporting this. We just released an update to fix the tutorial bug.

Love it!

Great rendition of the game!

I did initially think that I’d be able to play online with friends, but we solved that with a video conference. Just one person has to do all the driving, that’s all.

Super fast response to the bug in v1.5, thanks!

HeyIt'sMeTonia

6 years ago

Best team game ever!

Love this game! Combined with airplay on a big screen - it rocks!

Teach@MPA

6 years ago

Forbidden Sky App?

Love these board games and I love that my wife and I can play them on the go. Please release the next game soon so we can continue to enjoy these games.

Sting wray

6 years ago

Response from developer

Thanks for the kind review! For the time being, we don’t have plans to make Forbidden Sky. My friends and I created these as hobby projects and we just don’t have the time needed to make an entirely new one.

No online play

Disappointed that I can not play this online with friends

true dungeon fan

6 years ago

Response from developer

It’s true, Forbidden Desert is pass-and-play multiplayer only. I’ve updated the app description to make it clearer. My friends and I created this app as a hobby project and, unfortunately, we don’t have the dedicated time available to maintain online features (they tend to need a lot of maintenance). One workaround is that you can share your iPad screen on some video chat apps. You’ll be the only person able to control the board, but it works okay because the game is entirely cooperative.

Beautifully faithful

Love the board game and this app perfectly recreates and even enhances the game with great little animations and sounds but never sacrifices the visibility of the board and info. Very well designed and one of the top apps out there!

usbeadles

6 years ago

Nice game, mine can't shuffle well

I bought the board game to play on our next game night and decided to get this app to play several games ahead of time. They have a nice tutorial video and good rules section. If you are new to the game I would review these and play on the easiest level (one below Novice) which is unique to this app with less bad cards and is almost a sure win. Remember there is an Undo button in case you click on the wrong button. I have been playing on the Novice level which was a 50/50 chance of winning or better until I hit all four of the Storm Beats Down (SBD) in six cards which was sure death in two straight games. In my next ten games I had all four SBD a few times in eight cards and nine cards. It can't seem to get a good shuffle lately. I just hope the game wii eventually get out of this cycle. Having my Water Bearer die three straight games of thirst almost had me delete this game. I really like this game and hope my experience isn't normal.

Chicago Karl

8 years ago

Overrides podcast audio

Game is great, but can’t listen to anything while I play it, real bummer

DIstull

8 years ago

Maddeningly fun

This game has 5 different levels of difficulty. Level 1 you should win every time. Level 2 you may win about 50% of the time. Level 3 you might win 1 out of every 100 games so roughly 1% success rate. Level 4 and 5 you better be able to accept that you’ll never win... Regardless it is insanely fun to play. I prefer level 3 myself, but get use to losing.

HNK Tranportation