Ruling — 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): [{"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): [{"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

retrieval — what the search arm returned

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 rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet 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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote 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

generation — timing and the path taken

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 12s 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.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

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

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

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.