Fireball Island
| Players | 2-4 |
|---|---|
| Setup time | < 5 minutes |
| Playing time | 1 hour |
| Random chance | High |
| Skill(s) required | Dice rolling, hand management, strategizing |
Fireball Island is a board game first published by Milton Bradley in 1986. The tagline is "The dimensional adventure game of pitfalls and perils!" It is set on an unexplored tropical island, the home of the primitive idol Vul-Kar. Players progress along winding paths around the island, avoiding fireballs and trying to capture Vul-Kar's jewel and carry it to the escape boat. Game concept originally developed by artist / toy designers Bruce Lund and Chuck Kennedy. The game was licensed to Milton Bradley by Anjar Co., an international toy licensing company and co-licensor of the game.
The game mechanics in Fireball Island are moderately complex, requiring both skill and luck to win. The object of the game is to escape the island with the jewel, which must first be stolen from the top of the mountain on which Vul-Kar sits. There is only one jewel, so once a player grabs it he/she becomes the target of the others. The jewel may change hands many times during the course of a game.
Players roll the dice to choose who goes first.
Five fireballs are seated at various locations on the 3-D game board. One is inside Vul-Kar's mouth; the entire idol can be rotated to spit the fireball in the desired direction. The player who is rolling a fireball picks one and tips it off its perch, so the fireball will roll down the path until it comes to rest. Any player-token that is touched by the fireball, or by another player-token already hit or being pushed along, is considered hit as well and moves to the nearest smolder-pit. Affected players must use their next turn to 'stand up' in the smolder pit, effectively losing that turn. In the event that the player struck by the fireball has the jewel when struck, they lose possession of the jewel and it must be placed next to the smolder pit.
A player must try to hit someone if he can, even if the only available target is himself. Some spaces are only hit occasionally by a particular fireball while some places, which include the steps before Cave One, the peak between the bridges, or the gully steps up to Cave Five and the steps to the first bridge, are unreachable by fireballs.
A player who has been fireballed is immediately placed in a smolder pit. Although for most of the map players simply go to the nearest pit, there are definite rules for which smolder pit a player on a particular space heads to. The divisions between the zones of trail that are covered by each smolder pit are usually divided by ridges or steps in the trail. Note that it is the location a player starts on, not where he ends up, during fireballing that determines where his body goes. Any number of players may occupy a smolder pit. The only exception to the firepit rule is when a player is knocked off a bridge by a fireball. Then the player proceeds to the Water Penalty Area. Any fireballed player in a smolder pit must lose a turn to "stand up."
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