Spirit Island
Experience one of the top-rated Free games on the App Store, Spirit Island! Developed by the innovative team at Handelabra Studio LLC, this Strategy game provides a unique gaming experience like no other. With a content rating of 9+, it’s perfect for a wide range of players. Since its initial release on 16th December 2020, the game has seen numerous updates, with the latest version launched on 10th October 2023.
Are you a fan of Strategy, Board, games? Then Spirit Island is right up your alley! You won’t be able to resist its appeal.
User Ratings of Spirit Island
Over 98 players have rated Spirit Island. Join them and share your thoughts!
How Much Does Spirit Island Cost?
Good news! You can download Spirit Island on your iOS device absolutely free!
Spirit Island Release Date
Eager to know when Spirit Island first graced the App Store? It was launched on 16th December 2020.
When Was Spirit Island Last Updated?
The latest version of Spirit Island was updated on 10th October 2023, ensuring a more enjoyable gaming experience for all players.
Where Can I Download Spirit Island?
To get started with Spirit Island, head over to the official Apple App Store.
A Glimpse into Spirit Island
In the most distant reaches of the world, magic still exists, embodied by spirits of the land, of the sky, and of every natural thing. As the great powers of Europe stretch their colonial empires further and further, they will inevitably lay claim to a place where spirits still hold power – and when they do, the land itself will fight back alongside the islanders who live there.
Spirit Island is a cooperative settler-destruction strategy game designed by R. Eric Reuss and set in an alternate-history world around A.D. 1700. Players become different Spirits of the land, each with their own unique elemental powers, forced to defend their island home from colonizing Invaders spreading blight and destruction. Your Spirits work with the native Dahan to increase your power and drive the invading colonists from your island in this strategic area-control game.
Spirit Island includes:
- Free access to unlimited plays of the tutorial game
- Create custom games with up to 4 available spirits and play 5 full turns
- 36 Minor Power cards that enhance the abilities of your Spirits
- 22 Major Power cards with more powerful effects to devastate the Invaders
- A modular island, made up of 4 balanced island boards, for a variety of layouts
- Thematic island boards that reflect the canonical island and provide a new challenge
- 15 Invader cards driving a distinctive Invader expansion system
- 2 Blight cards with challenging effects as the Invaders blight the Island
- 15 Fear cards with beneficial effects, earned as you terrify the Invaders
Every rule & interaction in the game has been carefully adapted and thoroughly tested by expert Spirit Island players, as well as the designer himself. If you’re wondering how a certain situation works in Spirit Island, this game is the ultimate rules lawyer!
Features:
- Original dynamic music composed by Jean-Marc Giffin brings Spirit Island to life. Each Spirit has unique musical elements that wax and wane as the game progresses.
- 3D Textured maps bring a realistic look and isometric perspective to the Island.
- 3D Classic maps present the Island the way it looks on the tabletop.
- 2D Classic maps provide a simplified top-down option for all you number crunchers out there.
When you are ready for more, choose the best option for your budget to unlock the full game, including cross-platform online multiplayer with friends and others from around the world.
Purchase the Core Game – Permanently unlocks all content from the Core Game and Promo Pack 1, including 6 additional Spirits, 4 double-sided Island Boards, 3 Adversaries, and 4 Scenarios for a wide variety of play and fine-tuned challenge.
Or, purchase Horizons of Spirit Island – Permanently unlocks all content from Horizons of Spirit Island, an introductory set of content with 5 Spirits tuned for new players, 3 Island Boards, and 1 Adversary.
Or, subscribe for Unlimited Access ($1.99 USD/month) – Unlocks all content during the term of your subscription. Includes all Core Game content, Promo Pack 1, Branch & Claw, Horizons of Spirit Island, as well as all future content as it becomes available.
Also available: Branch & Claw expansion with 2 Spirits, an Adversary, 52 Power Cards, new Tokens, 15 Fear Cards, 7 Blight Cards, 4 Scenarios, and an Event Deck.
Currently in development and coming soon: Jagged Earth expansion with 10 Spirits, 2 double-sided Island Boards, 2 Adversaries, 57 Power Cards, new Tokens, 6 Fear Cards, 7 Blight Cards, 3 Scenarios, 30 Event Cards, 6 Aspects, and more!
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What’s New in the Latest Update?
Find out what’s new in the latest version of Spirit Island updated on 10th October 2023:
This update has various bug fixes and improvements, including:
- Added a button to view your Personalized Player Report (maintained by MindWanderer) from the Statistics screen. Check out the main page here: https://mindwanderer.net/si/
- Made subscription access work more reliably when playing offline.
- Fixed a problem where undo or resync in multiplayer could get stuck in some situations.
- Command Beasts now works properly in multiplayer.
- Eyes Watch from the Trees and Thunderspeaker no longer get stuck in multiplayer when Dahan are moved by the special rule.
- Fixed several issues with Second Wave in multiplayer.
- Fixed some cases where damage increasing powers (Gift of Furious Might, Flame’s Fury) were not interacting properly with other powers.
- Repeating thresholded The Land Thrashes in Furious Pain with Powerstorm now works properly.
- Fixed a problem where Invader health changes could be lost in certain situations.
- Fixed the interaction between Trade Suffers and Fathomless Mud of the Swamp’s special rule.
- Fixed some issues with Undo related to a few Event cards.
User Reviews on Spirit Island
Looking for more information? Read a comprehensive review of Spirit Island below:
We have played the original at least 25 times. We were eager to try this app and see its worth. Truth be told, if they didnt have that 2$ pass to access everything, we would have never consider buying it. However, we are glad that we gave it a try. We did not encounter any bug and was impressed by how efficiently every cards quirky power is handled. We had not realized how much work it would take to adapt a game like Spirit Island. They did a good job. All in all, we recommend it. We love the board game so much that we wish we could have had an adaptation by a more professional studio like DireWolf. We would have loved to have a reworked esthetic of SI like they did for Root. Especially at the 40$ price tag asked for Spirit Island we are glad to support a small studio, but we wish everything looked better. Perhaps they can work on that when they will have everything added in.
Changing review to 5 stars now that offline support is fixed according to the recent patch notes. We havent tested yet, but exciting to see responsive devs.
The worst thing about Handleabras implementation of Spirit Island is it teaches you how you were paying the game wrong. For example, the Ocean spirit cant push an invader into the sea during an event action. Its not an easy game to learn on the phone, and reasonable on an iPad. That said, once you know the game you can play it dozens of times and still discover new tactics. Spirit island is a game that has both incredible inherent and emergent complexity. It can be hard, at first, to understand whats going on and what to do. Then, once you do, you can see incredible possibilities and interactions. Great implementation of our favorite game of the past five years.
We are playing as Shadows Flicker Like Flame. We have 1 presence in a Sand Zone. We are trying to target the zone with Quicken the Earths Struggles which has a range of 0. The zone does not light up as targetable, but all other zones we have presence in do light up (as well as zones with Dahan) Very confused – possible bug? Also cannot use our inherent ability in that same sand zone. Starting to think the game doesnt realize we actually have presence there in that zone.
We really like the app for solo play, and its a great adaptation of the original game. But we ran into a nasty issue when we were playing online with some friends. If your device goes to sleep (I accidentally clicked the power button on our iPad) then it boots you from the game with no way to rejoin. It ruined the game we had going :/
We think the gameplay is great but we subscribed so that we could play the game on a flight without Wi-Fi and it doesnt appear that you can play the full game without Wi-Fi which is complete nonsense. We could be wrong about the Wi-Fi thing but nobody could be bothered to answer us when we submitted the question through the support site.
The app they have has been great aside from you couldnt play online the new update fixes that problem but it changes the layout of the game you can no longer clearly see the growth phase abilities on your we phone or clearly see or read the cards your about to play with no way to zoom in on either of them. It basically makes the app unplayable. Terrible update. Please fix so that we can play again.
Love the game! Decided to download the expansion. Absolutely despise spirit and claw. We want to remove it from our account.
They trick you into downloading the game and then you have to pay to play. Lame mechanics.
We cant complete tutorial because of bug. The latest version has a bug where it says to press highlighted city, but there are none. Please fix so we can learn to play the game.
Very polished and with just having recently added multiplayer to play with people online, Im impressed. Have yet to run across a game breaking bug and the options are as endless as they are fun. The lack of a 5th star is simply do to the game not translating well to iPhone as opposed to IPad. They have come a long ways in this regard but, in specific, selecting which spirit you want to control while dual playing spirits single player is very cumbersome. Often times selecting the spirit board instead of passing growth or card choices back to the other spirit seems like an exercise in futility. In fact, when the selection does go about correctly on the first click Im shocked. Other than that its a barrel of fun and replayability.
Runs great, looks beautiful and is an absolute blast to play. We know we could get so many many more people playing this if it had multiplayer functionality!
We havent purchased this game yet but we’ve played the physical. So far with just the free demo version we’ve been able to beat the 4 starter spirits solo. Nice implementation and nice you can turn off animations.
Makes Spirit Island and easy solo game, and a great way to practice for group games.
Not complete trash, definitely not good at all. The fact that you can only use the 4 low complexity spirits is pretty bad. Also, 20$ only unlocks the full base game and promo 1, and Branch and Claw is another $10. Like bruh, that combined is as much as the actual branch and claw. $20 in of itself should unlock all expansions and promo packs for the game, including jagged earth(nowhere in sight). The gameplay is actually clunkier than the original, and the subscription is online only. Not worth buying anything for, just buy the main game. Not worth playing if you can bust out the real game. Just a poor attempt at Spirit Island, and hopefully someone else makes another attempt.
You have to pay to play many mobile games. Its a good practice that allows developers to focus on the quality of the game, instead of plastering ads everywhere. Some games include free demos, where players can play the game a bit before playing. This is a great practice, as long as the developers tell the player beforehand that theyre playing a demo. You know what isnt great? Waiting until players have finished a lengthy tutorial, and are 10 minutes into their first game, to tell the player theyve been playing a demo the whole time, and must pay money to continue. Thats what Spirit Island does. Dont play Spirit Island.
On top of being overly expensive, ($20 doesnt even unlock all content) its egregiously aggressive in pushing purchases, going so far as to limit the number of round turns one can play before abruptly being cut off and told to buy it.
Delete after and buy the real game if youre interested. $$
This game is at least twice as expensive as others. It takes 30 seconds for the opening menu to be completely labeled, so unless one memorizes the symbols and what they mean, one has to wait to use the game. Evidently others find this annoying because they have an FAQ about it: The Main Menu is designed as part of the story of the game; the Island has always been there, before colonizers arrived to give their names to things. You can use the buttons on the main menu immediately, so as you attune yourself to the ways of the Island, you can jump right into the one youre looking for. We also provide an accessibility option to disable all animations, including the main menu animation. Im sorry, but sitting through a lame 30 seconds animation everything you launch the app does not make your interface part of the story. It is just simply annoying.
We love spirit island and this is great game. We havent run into any bugs like we see in other reviews and it can be a bit overwhelming learning all the rules, but once you get the basics it is a very multi layered game that we think any tactic player would enjoy. We do hope multiplayer is in the works for the future though.
Fantastic app, great for learning the flow of SI for beginners, and naturally a ton of fun for experienced players. Stars lost for the obvious reasons: 1. No multiplayer. Not too bad, but does kinda knock the cooperative nature of the game. 2. No Jagged Earth DLC, which has far too much content to be missing out on. :( This could easily be a top-rated phone app.
Purchased this game via the subscription thinking we could kind of try it before we buy it. The tutorial is great, and overall the gameplay is awesome. Our only complaint (and its a big one) is that you apparently have to be connected to a network (cell or WiFi) in order to access the content that we paid for. So DO NOT get the subscription if you plan to play on a plane or anywhere without cell coverage/WiFi Couldnt even finish a game. We will likely cancel our subscription knowing this.
Nice app, a good tutorial despite some other reviews. Cant finish a game without buying this for $20. Sorry but not worth it. Poor value.
Really poor tutorial, just boring to play. But the poor tutorial coupled with game breaking bugs make gameplay unbearable, usually like Handelabra games so its surprising how poor Spirit Island is in terms of quality and gameplay.
With a complex game, it is hard to make an experience which welcomes new players, but even though the game might have been fun, we ended up deleting the app before playing because of how unengaging the tutorial was. It’s something a lot of developers don’t think of as a big problem, but with a game like this, it shows. There are lots of ways more effort could have been put into teaching the game. If you haven’t played the game already, we wouldn’t recommend it.
You can get about 8 other quality games for that!
So by game three we’ve identified three bugs. The defend 3 special ability for Vital Strength of the earth doesnt work. It let damage through creating blight and losing the spirit token. Yes it was a sacred site. The 3 shield was showing and the city plus explorer should have done 4 – 1 damage for 1 total. The event wasnt relevant. All Enveloping for Rampant green had a similar problem. A town plus explorer got through the two defense to trigger blight and token loss. Also, when declining to use choke for Rampant green it proceeded to ignore the disease token which should have prevented the build. It took us 20 minutes to find 3 bugs which make the affected spirits significantly weaker and essentially unplayable. We didnt pay $20 to do your troubleshooting for you. We cant imagine how many more bugs are waiting. Just found another, an explorer plus city failed to build anything (should build a town) and no affects were active to prevent that (scenarios, events or powers)
Spirit Island is easily our favorite co-op board game, and this is a great way to play solo without the setup and teardown and adds rule enforcement (digital versions are great to learn rule intricacies). Game plays very smoothly, and the UI is well designed. Even the base game prior to expansions has lots of variety and branch & claw and jagged earth will make that even better when released. The purchase model is great as well – free is enough to get the feet wet and understand the game basics prior to buying the full game. Late game with four spirits crowds the screen when lots of powers are played and could be nice to lay out the power card by spirit one at a time similar to the growth stage to make it easier to see the map, and multi-player would be a welcome addition.
We have never played this board game but heard they were porting this into a solo digital app, so we got it as soon as we saw it pop up. Tutorial is fantastically smooth, and gives enough information at the right time so as to not overwhelm new players. We also like that they give some strategy reasoning in the tutorial as well. Sounds, UI and overall game flow is smooth and the gameplay is seriously fun. Thank you to the entire team for the work you all put into this!
We were excited to see this great cooperative board game become an app. But having played the tutorial, we now see that its 1-4 Spirits, NOT 1-4 players. Hardly a cooperative game when its solo. It really needs the ability to play online with others.
This is a great board game done extremely poorly. No multi, obviously as is Handelabra tradition, but also a very clunky and barebones presentation for a beautiful game. There is nothing here that is deserving of the outrageous pricing. Dont support these bad developers and maybe someone else can make a better (or even good) Spirit Island game.