RuleSage cited table rulings
← Forbidden Island

You asked

How do I set up the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Forbidden Islandbg-65244-en-1e

1. Create Forbidden Island by shuffling the 24 Island tiles and randomly placing them face up into a grid, starting with a 4 x 4 square in the center of the playing area and then placing 2 tiles next to each of the 2 middle tiles on every side.[1]
2. Place the 4 treasure figurines (The Earth Stone, The Statue of the Wind, The Crystal of Fire, and The Ocean's Chalice) around the island.[1]
3. Separate the cards into three decks according to card back: Flood deck (blue back), Treasure deck (red back), and Adventurer cards (6 cards).[2]
4. Shuffle the Flood deck and place it face down on one side of the island to form the Flood draw pile.[2]
5. Draw the top 6 cards from the Flood deck one at a time and place them face up next to the draw pile to form the Flood discard pile, flipping the corresponding Island tile to its 'flooded' (blue and the white) side for each card drawn.[2]
6. Shuffle the 6 Adventurer cards and randomly deal 1 to each player.[2]
7. Each player takes a pawn matching the color of their Adventurer card and places it on the corresponding Island tile (looking for the matching pawn icon in the lower right corner of the Gates and Fools' Landing tiles).[2]
8. Put any extra Adventurer cards and pawns back in the box.[2]
9. Thoroughly shuffle the Treasure deck and deal 2 cards to each player, placing them face up in front of them.[2]
10. If anyone receives a Waters Rise! card during this process, give them a replacement card and shuffle the Waters Rise! card back into the Treasure deck.[2]
11. Place the Treasure deck face down by one side of the island, noting there will be a Treasure discard pile next to it.[2]
12. Place the Water Level marker on the left side of the Water Meter and set it to the appropriate starting difficulty level (for example, the Novice level for a first-time cooperative game).[2]
[1] RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook · p.2 · Object · Setup
[2] RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook · p.3 · Setup · 5. The Adventurers Appear: · 6. Hand Out Treasure Deck Cards:
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
outcome
ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile
live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings
search 239 ms · ask 5756 ms · total 2011948 ms
single-flight (PR-5)
queued 2005944 ms · generation 6004 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
[{"page": 3, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "3. Divide the Cards: Separate the cards into three decks according to card back: Flood deck (blue back), Treasure deck (red back), and Adventurer cards (6 cards). The Island Starts to Sink: Shuffle the Flood deck and place it face down on one side of the island to form the Flood draw pile. Draw the ", "headingPath": "Setup · 5. The Adventurers Appear: · 6. Hand Out Treasure Deck Cards:", "sharpsignalDocId": 184}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.048131, "snippet": "Your team of adventurers must work together to keep Forbidden Island from sinking, in order to buy enough time to capture its four treasures. Once you've captured them, you must make it to Fools' Landing and escape by helicopter to win. If however, the island sinks before you can complete your tasks", "headingPath": "Object · Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 184}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.047379, "snippet": "If the Flood draw pile ever runs out, immediately shuffle the Flood discard pile and stack the cards face down to form a new Flood draw pile. If this happens in the middle of a turn, continue drawing Flood cards as necessary from the new pile. Get to Fools' Landing! Once you have collected all four ", "headingPath": "When the Flood Draw Pile Runs Out · Winning the Game · There are four possible ways to lose: · Difficulty · A Word from Gamewright", "sharpsignalDocId": 184}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "The player who last visited an island goes first and play continues to the left. On every turn, do the following three things in order: Take up to 3 actions. Draw 2 Treasure deck cards. Draw Flood cards equal to the water level. The parts of each turn are described below. Also note that the back of ", "headingPath": "Order of Play · 1. Take Up to 3 Actions · Move · Exceptions: · Shore Up", "sharpsignalDocId": 184}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "When the last card of the Treasure deck is drawn, immediately shuffle the Treasure discard pile and turn it over to form a new Treasure deck. You may only have 5 cards in your hand, including Treasure and Special Action cards. If you ever find that you have 6 or more cards (for example because you d", "headingPath": "When the Treasure Deck Runs Out · Hand Limit · 3. Draw Flood Cards · Pawns on Flooded Tiles", "sharpsignalDocId": 184}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "After taking actions, you must draw 2 cards from the top of the Treasure deck and add them to your face up hand. Draw cards 1 at a time. If you draw a Waters Rise! card, do not add it to your hand, but follow the instructions on the card and then discard it to the Treasure discard pile. There are 5 ", "headingPath": "2. Draw 2 Treasure Deck Cards · Treasure Cards · Special Action Cards · Waters Rise! Cards · Notes:", "sharpsignalDocId": 184}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "You may give 1 or more of your Treasure cards to another player if both of your pawns are on the same island tile. It costs 1 action for each card you give away. (See 'Hand Limit' for restrictions.) You may not give Special Action cards. The Messenger may give cards without having to be on the same ", "headingPath": "Give a Treasure Card · Exceptions: · Capture a Treasure · Notes", "sharpsignalDocId": 184}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "2 -4 Players | Ages 10 and up orbidden Island was the secluded retreat of an ancient mystical empire known as the Archeans. Legend has it that the Archeans possessed the ability to control the Earth's core elements - fire, wind, water, and earth - through four sacred treasures: The Crystal of Fire, ", "headingPath": "58 cards, divided as follows: · 24 double-sided Island tiles", "sharpsignalDocId": 184}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
[{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Object · Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 184}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setup · 5. The Adventurers Appear: · 6. Hand Out Treasure Deck Cards:", "sharpsignalDocId": 184}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 184 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 184 boosted
answered-before recall
this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until
Nov 6, 2026 14:44

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. How much wider that pool was is set gateway-side and is NOT REPORTED for this ruling, and neither are the answerer's final rows — so rulesage has nothing of its own to show beside these.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rankdocumentheadingpage fused RRF scoresnippet chars
#1 RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 184) Setup · 5. The Adventurers Appear: · 6. Hand Out Treasure Deck Cards: p.3 0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1) 300
#2 RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 184) Object · Setup p.2 0.048131 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#3 RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 184) When the Flood Draw Pile Runs Out · Winning the Game · There are four possible ways to lose: · Difficulty · A Word from Gamewright p.8 0.047379 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#4 RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 184) Order of Play · 1. Take Up to 3 Actions · Move · Exceptions: · Shore Up p.4 0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#5 RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 184) When the Treasure Deck Runs Out · Hand Limit · 3. Draw Flood Cards · Pawns on Flooded Tiles p.7 0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#6 RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 184) 2. Draw 2 Treasure Deck Cards · Treasure Cards · Special Action Cards · Waters Rise! Cards · Notes: p.6 0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#7 RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 184) Give a Treasure Card · Exceptions: · Capture a Treasure · Notes p.5 0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300
#8 RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 184) 58 cards, divided as follows: · 24 double-sided Island tiles p.1 0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) 300

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

the passages the answerer read: NOT RECORDED for this ruling. Any of three things leaves this empty, and they are all different from the answerer having had nothing to read: this ask may never have reached a gateway at all; a multi-book ask keeps each book's own context on that book's own page rather than here; or the gateway build that answered may simply not report it. What this NEVER means is that the answerer read nothing — an answer was composed from passages either way, and their absence here is a gap in what we were told, not in what it read.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

#documentheadingpagequote chars
[1] RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 184) Object · Setup p.2 no quote on the wire
[2] RULEBOOK Forbidden Island — Rulebook (corpus doc 184) Setup · 5. The Adventurers Appear: · 6. Hand Out Treasure Deck Cards: p.3 no quote on the wire
timing split
retrieval 239 ms · first delta 2645 ms · total 2011948 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown
queued 2005944 ms · retrieval 239 ms · ask 5756 ms · gateway work 6004 ms · total 2011948 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
3120
tokens out (what the answerer generated)
452
tok/sec
136.6 tok/sec — 452 output tokens in 3.309 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child)
answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 36s ago)
stream path
streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog
first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture
both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.
outcome
ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
answered — no abstain rationale applies
decision
NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched
SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question)
set up

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 102), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.