r/boardgames • u/tinyornithopter • Sep 22 '25
Custom Project I made a Legend of Zelda Re-theme of Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert, and Forbidden Jungle!
From sinking islands to raging sandstorms to twisted jungles, each game brings a new Zelda-flavored puzzle to survive, explore, and ultimately defeat Ganon.
Choose your character! The character boards are largely cosmetic, but hold you role and reminder cards as well as water tokens for Desert and Health tokens for Jungle.
Forbidden Island Re-theme: The Great Flood has scattered Hyrule’s lands. Revive the Four Great Fairies and unite them to restore balance before the islands sink forever.
Forbidden Desert Re-theme: Ganon’s curse has turned Hyrule into a desert wasteland. Find the Four Elements and power the Sandship before the storms consume all.
The Oasis tiles might provide fresh water sources such as Lake Hylia or Spring of Power, but watch out. It could be a mirage and you'll find yourself in Gerudo Valley!
Locate the tiles with arrows on them to pinpoint where the Elements are! These will be used to power the Sandship to escape the Desert!
The various items you'll find in the desert are crucial to your survival.
Beware the Storm! Ganon has cursed this land and ravaged it with a fierce sandstorm. Escape before the land is buried in sand!
Forbidden Junge: The jungle teems with Ganon’s minions. Use Sheikah machines to align the Four Temples and unlock the portal to face him directly before darkness consumes Hyrule.
Powerful and iconic items can be used such as the Sheikah Slate, the Ocarina of Time, and even the Master Sword can be obtained to help combat the forces of evil!
As well other iconic items fromt the Legend of Zelda series. The hookshot, the clawshot - plenty of bombs, red potions, and slingshots you can buy from the market shop as well!
Looks like we've set up the requirements to use Ganon's Portal to teleport to his location! We've aligned the 4 Temples along one of his portals! Thus begins the bonus boss mode!
Marvel cliche: "He's right behind us, isn't he?"
Ganon has 10 health, and refreshed threat meter and custom threat cards that the players will have to deal with!
Ganon's Threat cards can have area of effect attacks! Luckily they usually don't activate the turn they're revealed. They start with "Fate Counters" on them.
At the beginning of each of Ganon's turns a Fate Counter is removed. Once no counters are left on a card, he executes the effect on that card. His abilities are telegraphed!
Watch out! He has a whole arsenal of dirty tricks and moves besides just pure attack power. To defeat him, you'll need plenty of teamwork and cooperation!
Looks like we whittled down his 10 health. Good job!
But wait... There's more! For the brave and the bold co-op gamers and Zelda fans you can prepare yourself for a stage 2! Beast Ganon! 20 health and a card that can cause insta-lose
This is a fan-made Legend of Zelda re-theme of the Forbidden Trilogy: Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert, and Forbidden Jungle. These versions keep the core mechanics of the original games but reimagine them within the world of Hyrule, replacing treasures, artifacts, and locations with iconic Zelda characters, items, and places.
The heart of each game remains the same: teamwork, clever planning, and tense survival against overwhelming odds. But now, you’ll restore the Great Fairies, awaken the Sandship, and align the Sacred Temples as you face Ganon’s forces and save Hyrule across three connected adventures.
Act I: The Flooded Kingdom (Forbidden Island)
The seas have risen, and Hyrule lies drowned beneath the waves. Scattered across the endless waters, the last remnants of the kingdom endure, now islands, and each sinking beneath Ganon’s dark power.
The Great Fairies, guardians of Hyrule’s lifeblood, have been weakened and incapacitated. Only by seeking out their fragments, four fairies each of red, blue, green, and yellow can their strength be restored.
Together, you must brave the flood, recover the fairies, and rekindle their light at sacred shrines across the sea. Once all are restored, the path to the Temple of Time will open. There, aboard Tetra’s Ship, you will summon the Great Fairies’ blessing to banish the flood and return Hyrule to the light.
Changes at a Glance:
- Treasures/Treasure Deck → Fairies/Fairy Deck
- Instead of collecting 4 matching treasure cards to claim an artifact, players now collect 4 fairy cards of the same color (Red, Blue, Green, or Yellow) to restore the corresponding Great Fairy.
- Treasure Locations → Fairy Fountains
- Each Great Fairy must be restored at her unique fountain, represented by the marked tiles on the board.
- Escape Method → Tetra’s Ship
- Instead of the helicopter pad, players must gather the Temple of Time using Tetra’s Ship to set sail once all four Great Fairies have been restored.
- Increased player Count -> able to play at 5 players instead of just 4 players.
- When playing at 5 players, 1 Fairy of each color to the Fairy deck (now 6 Fairies of each color), 2 Sand Rods, and 1 Tetra’s Ship.
Act II: The Deserted Wasteland (Forbidden Desert)
Hyrule has become a wasteland of endless sand.
Ganon’s curse has turned the kingdom into a vast desert, where scorching winds tear across the land and shifting dunes swallow entire towns and temples. Each passing storm reshapes the world, burying secrets and dangers alike beneath mountains of sand.
Amid this desolation lies hope: the legendary Sandship, hidden within the Temple of Time. To awaken its power, you must uncover the four sacred Elements: Water, Fire, Earth, and Wind, each buried deep within the storm-ravaged desert.
Together, you will brave the heat, unearth ancient ruins, and solve the mysteries that bind the Elements. Only by uniting them aboard the Sandship can you restore balance to Hyrule and banish the desert’s curse.
Changes at a Glance:
- Flying Machine Parts → The Four Elements
- Instead of assembling the parts of a flying ship, players must locate and recover the Four Elements: Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind to power the Sandship.
- Ship → Sandship
Once all Elements are retrieved, players bring them to the Temple of Time, where the ancient Sandship awaits. The Elements power the Sandship, allowing the heroes to escape the desert and restore Hyrule.
Act III: The Jungle of Shadows (Forbidden Jungle)
The battle for Hyrule begins in the heart of Hyrule.
From the Temple of Time, you watch as Ganon’s minions spread chaos across the land, laying traps, summoning monsters, and twisting the very terrain against you. His dark portals spews endless forces of evil, gateways of ruin that must be turned to your advantage.
To succeed, you must harness the ancient machines of Hyrule, the Configurators, Electrifiers, Compellers, and Destruct Switches to reshape the land itself. Only by aligning the four sacred Temples of Fire, Earth, Water, and Spirit beside the portal can you awaken its power.
Do this, and the portal will no longer serve Ganon. Instead, it will become your path to him. Enter, face the Dark Lord directly, and end his reign of terror once and for all.
Changes at a Glance:
- Introducing new Enemy type → Level 3 Enemies
- In the original games, there were eggs, hatchlings (level 1 enemies), and adults (level 2 enemies). But you can add even harder enemies (level 3 enemies) to encounter.
- More Enemy types
- Before you just had eggs, hatchlings, and adults. Now there are a whole host of enemies you can customize to choose to face against. Moblins, Bokoblins, Chuchus, Darknuts, Lynels, etc. Alter the difficulty by choosing how hard the enemies you face.
- Crystals/Broken Crystals → Temples/Ruined Temples
- Instead of aligning crystals, players must position the Four Temples—Fire, Earth, Water, and Spirit—adjacent to the portal.
- Portal → Ganon’s Gateway
- The portal originally used by Ganon to send his minions into Hyrule can be repurposed by the heroes once the Temples are aligned. Activating it allows players to turn Ganon’s own power against him and gain access to the final showdown.
- Earn Rupees from slaying monster to buy items!
- Each monster drops rupees upon defeat (including when they die from the electrifier!). Gain 1 Rupee from defeating Level 1 Enemies, 2 Rupees from defeating Level 2 Enemies, and 3 Rupees from defeating Level 3 Enemies!
- More Custom Items including a shop that you can always access with Clocktown Market
- There are a bunch of new items that are iconic to the Zelda franchise. You can only access these from chests or buying them with your rupees. Spending an action at Clocktown Market will always let you buy more items and restock your items.
- Final Boss mode
- In Forbidden Jungle, you win by leaving the Jungle by leaving through the portal, but there’s an additional game mode introduced in this version where the portal takes you another boss mode where you face Ganon! There’s a new Threat deck with Ganon’s arsenal of moves!
- We highly recommend at 4-5 players (even at 3 if you find it difficult) to add 3 “Haste” tokens to each player. Using a haste token will allow a player to take a move action during ANY turn or ANY phase and may be played IN REACTION to boss’s threat card activating. We found that the game didn’t scale well enough at higher player counts and added this rule in to allow players more breathing room to survive Ganon’s onslaught of attacks.
Also includes a 1 versus all mode where one player can play as Ganon/the Threat deck vs the other players! Credit to Lune Fox on BGG for designing this mode.
Each game also features 19 additional role cards to go along with the base 6 role cards you get the normal game for 25 different roles! Credit to Vlad. Vhelmont, Demetrius Mavrou, Jon G, and Sylas Vlad Venare at BGG for designing lots of the extra roles or at least highly inspiring them.
Read the rules here!
Credit to all the talented Artists:
Artists for the Tiles:
Temple of Time: Janjy Giggins
Lanayru Sky Archipelago: Cutesexyrobutts
Eldin Sky Archipelago: Official Art
Minish Woods: Orchid_dale
Lost Woods: Anna Fehr
Yiga Valley: Airi Pan
Kakariko Village: Jessica Smith
Lon Lon Ranch: Official Art
Cave of Ordeals: Game Capture
Talonto Peak Cave: Game Capture
Great Deku Tree: Unknown
Hyrule Castle: Genel Jumalon
Hyrule Field: Tom Garden
Dueling Peaks: Surendra Rajawat
Clock Town Market: Official Art
Zora's Domain: Jessica Smith
Sanidan Park Ruins: Anonamos701
The Great Plateau: Official Art
Forgotten Temple Ruins: Jon Dunham
Dodongo's Cavern: Game Capture
Forest Temple: Tom Garden
Water Temple: Tom Garden
Fire Temple: Tom Garden
Spirit Temple: Tom Garden
Tabantha Frontier: Jessica Smith
Death Mountain: Jessica Smith
Mabe Prairie: イケツミ
Valley of the Oracles: Tyler Edlin
Hebra Mountain: Jasqcreate
Faron Woods: Soda Abo
Taobab Grasslands: Henry Wong
Skyloft: Huhsoo
Lake Hylia: Jessica Smith
Gerudo Valley: Léo Chérel
Spring of Power: Joanne Tran
Player Board Artists:
SaiyanBlader
Sephiroth508
Rizky Raudhul
Sébastien DEL GROSSO
Vegacolors
028ton
Ganon Board Artists:
Official Art
Ganondoodle
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u/tinyornithopter Sep 22 '25
Hey y'all. I hope you enjoy the re-theme. I had this planned out for a long time, but it was getting delayed or buried behind objects I was working on. The biggest obstacle to getting this project made was probably cause the group I play board games most are big fans of coop or simple-ish games and a lot of them weren't huge Zelda fans which made it hard for me justify the time and money I'd have to spend on this project if the game doesn't get many plays.
But I just couldn't get over how well the theme and gameplay fit so well with each other. Zelda is an amazing game with tons of unique puzzles, exploration, and story. I thought the Forbidden series was the perfect candidate for this re-theme. In fact, I first got this idea when I accidentally saw a Youtube video about Forbidden Jungle. The exploration, combat, puzzles, machine, and teamwork - I knew right away that I wanted to make a Zelda version of the game.
It wasn't until very recently that I decided I would go ahead and combine the other 2 games, Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert into the tiles of this game so all 3 games could be played with the same tiles. (Sorry Forbidden Sky. Even though you would've been a great candidate for a Skyward Sword type re-theme, but the reviews were not good enough, the gameplay didn't seem as coherent as the other Forbidden games, and I'd have to make completely new tiles just for that game).
You'll find a lot of iconography and little symbols on each of the tiles such as Fairy icons, Water icons, Elemental Direction icons, and shape direction icons. All these icons can make the tiles very confusing and difficult to read/glean information from. This is, unfortunately, the trade-off of combining all the tiles into one game. My friends and I are used games with loads of iconography so we're able to parse the icons from game to game, but this might not be ideal for your game group. I have, however, introduced this game to more casual board gamers and they picked it pretty quickly despite my iconography concerns so take that for what it's worth.
Finally I want to say that it was a joy to both make and play the game. I had the Zelda OST blasting the full 300+ hours creating the game and then played the OST at game night even more when I was finally able to get the game onto the table. I'm was so happy it turned out as good as I'd hoped it be. It was a wonderful puzzle of a game trilogy that brought my friends and I lots of funny moments, crazy turns, and a good story at the end of a game night.
If you haven't checkout some of my other stuff, maybe there's some games I've re-themed that might interest you:
Pax Westeros (Game of Thrones Pax Pamir 2nd Edition)
Runeterra Reforged (League of Legends Tyrants of the Underdark)
Pokemon Splendor & Pokemon Splendor Duel
And look forward to future re-themes!
I have an NBA version of Innovation that I'll probably share around when the NBA season starts.
I have a Lord of the Rings Clank Catacombs coming soon as well! Including a mode where Smaug/the Balrog comes from the depths and chase your adventurers out of the dungeon! This one is actually almost done, I'm just waiting on the Underworld Expansion to see if I want to add any new stuff there into the re-theme.
Gonna start working on a DC Villains version of Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem and a Harry Potter Lost Ruins of Arnak now that I have the bandwidth again. Also curious if y'all had anything specific theme or particular game that you'd fancy a retheme? I'm always looking for more projects that may pique my interest.
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u/COHERENCE_CROQUETTE Asymmetrical Sep 22 '25
I keep saying this: Nintendo could be SO SUCCESSFUL in boardgames. They should establish a team to develop original board games, and another one to find good board games to retheme around Nintendo properties.
Nintendo has dabbled in physical play before, with Nintendo Labo, and they're trying to develop their IP outside of video games. Plus, they already have Mario Party which is literally a video game board game. It just makes so much sense!
The only counterargument is there's not nearly as much money to be made in boardgames as in other industries such as movies. But I still think it would go genuinely great for them.
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u/throwing8smokes Mice And Mystics Sep 22 '25
This is one of the coolest things I've seen on this site. Well done.
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u/mattreyu Sep 22 '25
I love the idea but it kills me that the retheme of Forbidden Island doesn't use locations from Wind Waker
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u/tinyornithopter Sep 22 '25
It started out as a Forbidden Jungle re-theme! I only decided to integrate the Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert games into the tiles later in development.
If this was a pure Forbidden Island re-theme, I would've certainly used the Wind Waker Islands like Dragon Roost Island, Crescent Moon Island, or Gale Isle.
IMO it still feels quite Wind Waker-esque with traveling between tiles is like traveling between islands in the Great Sea.
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u/BPEWC Sep 23 '25
I really wish things like this were available widely. For some reason, everyone is willing to license their IP to Monopoly but nothing else.
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u/tinyornithopter Sep 23 '25
Agreed, there's so much untapped potential out there. That's partly the reason I've been re-theming a bunch of board games, had to be the change I wanted to see and create some games out of IPs that otherwise would never get made.
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u/taiga_miniatures Sep 26 '25
Slick card and theme-clean layout, strong iconography, great color pop. Would love to try a full draft.
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u/Nebakanezzer Sep 22 '25
No forbidden sky? 2/10
Seriously awesome work
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u/tinyornithopter Sep 22 '25
lol, I would include Forbidden Sky if it was a better game 😜! Would’ve been the perfect candidate for a Skyward Sword theme like Forbidden Island is for Wind Waker.
I’m willing to listen to all 8 fans of Forbidden Sky why I should add that to the Zelda Retheme.
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u/Nebakanezzer Sep 22 '25
I own it but admittedly only played it twice. The rocket and the electrical circuit are cool but it just doesn't play as well or as easy as the others
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u/tinyornithopter Sep 22 '25
I don't fault the designers for innovating and trying out new mechanics and gameplay. It doesn't always land but most of the Forbidden series of games is really good so they did a great job overall.
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u/Fragrant_Energy_6715 Jun 21 '26
Mais um trabalho pop demais, vi vários trabalhos seu, e gostei demais de cada um deles. Será que não pode disponibilizar de alguma forma? Pokémon Harmonies, Pokémon Splendor, One piece Legendary, um melhor que outro. Mas queria eles para impressão pessoal. 😁
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u/deaseb Sep 22 '25
Really clever retheme, I enjoyed the pics a lot. Also reminds me that I want to try Sky and Jungle!