Quick Answer: Spirit Island is a cooperative strategy game for 1–4 players (90–120 minutes, BGG weight 3.87/5) where ancient spirits defend an island from colonizers. A free fan-made Steam Workshop mod lets you play the full game — plus every expansion — on Tabletop Simulator, with scripted automation that handles most of the bookkeeping. This guide covers everything you need to know about how to play Spirit Island on Tabletop Simulator: installation, rules, common mistakes, and strategy.
Spirit Island on Tabletop Simulator: What You’re Getting Into
What Is Spirit Island?
Spirit Island has been sitting in the BGG top 15 for years, and it deserves every bit of that reputation. Designed by R. Eric Reuss and published by Greater Than Games, it flips the colonial conquest narrative completely: you’re not the settlers — you’re the island’s ancient spirits, and you’re trying to drive the colonizers into the sea before they ruin everything.
Thematically and mechanically, it’s one of the most coherent games I’ve played. It’s also genuinely heavy at BGG weight 3.87/5. Your first game will probably take 2–3 hours and involve a fair amount of rules lookups. That’s fine. It’s worth it.
Why TTS Is a Great Way to Learn It
The fan-made Steam Workshop mod for Spirit Island is one of the most polished TTS mods in existence. It includes every expansion through Nature Incarnate, automates the fear track, scripts the invader phase to reduce errors, and sets up the entire game at the click of a button. If you want to try the game before spending $60+ on the physical copy, this is the obvious starting point.
Installing the Spirit Island TTS Mod
You’ll need Tabletop Simulator on Steam — it runs about $20. That’s your only required purchase. The Spirit Island mod is completely free.
- Open Steam and go to the Tabletop Simulator Workshop page (easiest via the in-game browser).
- Search “Spirit Island” and look for the most-subscribed version with recent updates. The top result has tens of thousands of subscribers and includes all expansions.
- Click Subscribe. Steam downloads the mod automatically.
Once subscribed, launch TTS, go to Games → Workshop, and load Spirit Island. When the table loads, hit the Auto-Setup button in the scripted UI panel. Don’t try to set things up manually — it’s tedious, error-prone, and completely unnecessary. The script handles spirit selection, island board placement, invader deck construction, and token distribution.
After setup completes, lock the island boards via right-click. Unlocked boards shift if anyone accidentally clicks them, and realigning a four-board island mid-game is miserable.
How You Win (and Lose)
The Core Premise
Each round, the Invader deck drives European colonizers to explore new lands, build towns and cities, and ravage everything in sight. Your spirits disrupt, destroy, and terrify them before the damage becomes irreversible.
Default win condition: destroy all Cities and Towns on the island, or exhaust the Invader deck. Scenarios change this, but that’s your target in a first game.
You lose if:
- All Blight tokens are depleted from the Blight card
- Any single spirit has all its presence removed from the board
- Certain adversary-specific conditions trigger
The Fear Track Is Not a Bonus System
This is the mechanic new players most consistently misunderstand, so I’ll be blunt: Fear is a parallel win track, not a reward system.
When spirits generate fear — through powers or by destroying invaders — tokens fill the Fear track. When it fills, you draw a Fear card and advance through Terror Levels 1, 2, and 3. At Terror Level 3, your win condition shifts dramatically. Instead of needing to clear all Cities and Towns, you might only need to eliminate all Towns, or even just all Explorers. Some groups win games almost entirely through fear pressure without ever clearing the board conventionally. Keep that in mind from turn one.
How to Play Spirit Island on Tabletop Simulator: The 5 Phases
Phase 1 — Spirit Phase
Each spirit picks one Growth option from their panel — placing new presence, reclaiming used cards, or gaining bonus power cards. Then you collect energy based on your presence tracks and select which power cards to play, paying their costs.
Two things new players consistently get wrong: First, your presence tracks show both energy income and card play limits — you use the rightmost revealed value only, not every number you’ve uncovered. Second, fast powers (lightning bolt icon) resolve before the invaders act; slow powers (moon icon) resolve after. That distinction matters more than it looks.
Phase 2 — Fast Power Phase
All fast powers resolve now, in whatever order players choose. This is your window to destroy invaders before they ravage, push Dahan out of harm’s way, or block an explore. Experienced players often consider this the most impactful phase in the game.
Phase 3 — Invader Phase
This runs in a strict sequence:
- Ravage: Invaders in matching lands deal damage simultaneously — Cities deal 3, Towns deal 2, Explorers deal 1. This damages both Dahan and the land itself (adding Blight). If a land with existing Blight receives more Blight, it cascades to an adjacent land, which can chain.
