I played Spirit Island, an analog game created by Greater Than Games that targets board game enthusiasts 14+. Spirit Island flips the script compared to games like Catan where you are the colonizer: in this game, you are the resistance. You play as spirits of the land whose mission is to defend your island home and its Indigenous people from colonizing Invaders. Spirit Island invites players to care about its world by embedding its anti-colonial narrative into every formal element of gameplay, from asymmetric player powers to environmental storytelling in the board design. Through this cohesion of theme and mechanics, the game dmakes you feel responsible for the land and its people.
Each spirit in the game represents a natural force. For example, Thunderspeaker is the voice of the Dahan (the Indigenous people of the island), Lightning’s Swift Strike has powers focused on air and fire, and A Spread of Rampant Green spreads over the map like kudzu, reclaiming the land from invaders. The spirits’ powers, progression paths, and growth mechanics are narratively consistent. For instance, Ocean’s Hungry Grasp can only influence coastal tiles because it’s the ocean. This forces players to position themselves strategically and tell different stories each game depending on which spirits they control and how they collaborate.
Unlike traditional games where players directly build or harvest, in Spirit Island, actions that would be “productive” in most board games like settling and building are here framed as destruction. The game forces players to ask who gets to shape the land and carefully consider what “progress” costs. The mechanics (e.g., spirit powers, fear generation, blight spreading) feed into the dynamics (cooperative defense, positioning, escalating urgency), which culminate in aesthetics of dread, resistance, and restoration. Players are immersed in this experience of being under threat, compelling them to reflect on colonial history. The board itself is segmented into diverse terrain: jungle, wetland, mountain, and sands. The invaders’ presence scars this landscape, represented through “blight” tokens. Watching the board change from lush terrain to dark and degraded evokes a visceral sense of loss.
The spirits in Spirit Island are incorporeal forces, but the game mechanics assign them traits: some grow quickly, others slowly; some strike fast, others are slower. While the spirits aren’t human, their traits shape identity, capability, and value in-game. Unlike D&D, Spirit Island defines abilities as natural, not biological or cultural. The Dahan, too, are never defined by race-based traits. However, there is still room to question and evolve. For example, spirits don’t change or adapt based on the Dahan or evolving ecosystems. A potential mod could let spirits learn from the Dahan—gaining unique powers depending on relationships built across the game. This would better reflect real-world interdependence between land, people, and spirit. Moreover, while the game respectfully positions the Dahan as Indigenous allies, it flattens their culture into a single identity. A mod that introduces Dahan factions or cultural expressions (music, agriculture, oral histories) could deepen the representation without undermining the central tension of colonial invasion.
