When the Portuguese charted the island of Taiwan, they named it Ilha Formosa, “beautiful island.” That’s the background behind the board game Formosa Formosa, which — and I’m not sure designer Kirk Beiser is aware of this — translates to “beautiful beautiful.” Kind of like when somebody calls a monster a were-person, which just means man-person, except “beautiful beautiful” is even more duplicative.

Appropriately, Formosa Formosa doubles down on its namesake. Designed by someone who has lived in Taiwan for fifteen years, printed in Taiwan, and ultimately about Taiwan, this is a drop-and-write game that’s as charming as it is combo-heavy.

This is how I look when a drop doesn’t go my way.

Welcome to Taiwan. Island of scenic waterfalls, breathtaking hikes, soaring shrines, and… dirty beaches. I’m not one hundred percent sure what we’re doing in Formosa Formosa, but it seems like a combination of sightseeing trip, litter collection, and greenhouse gas management. Travel across the island, but not too often. Visit the surrounding islets, but only sparingly. Hold your emissions while enjoying this scenic vista. Yes, those emissions as well, sir or madam.

For all its silliness, this isn’t all that far out for the genre, which often suffers from some disconnect where settings are concerned. And the puzzle it produces is a solid one, even when we interrupt our vacation to enthusiastically hoover up so much litter that we earn another jaunt up the nearby mountain.

At its most basic, Formosa Formosa is about ticking boxes. So far, so very roll/flip-and-write.

Right away, though, Beiser carves out a somewhat more unique identity than most of his game’s mechanical peers. Rather than rolling dice or flipping cards, selecting actions is all about chucking a bunch of cubes into the box lid. This produces a menu of potential destinations across the island’s four compass directions.

These destinations matter because you only occupy a single space at a time. You might, for example, be sitting pretty in the south, waiting for another chance to visit a shrine, only for the toss to result in a resplendency of activities everywhere but where you’re stationed. Bah, you might say. Bah and ruin, another hike. Another damnable waterfall. More beaches to clean.

Dropped cubes determine which actions are available in which regions.

Except… therein lies the game’s central conundrum. You can travel to another locale, although this produces points-draining pollution. But you can also fulfill other activities, like the aforementioned beach cleanup or perhaps some island-hopping — itself a rather polluting activity — in order to generate bonus actions. These bonuses might then check off that all-important shrine. Or, after some consideration, see you abandoning that objective altogether for something more productive.

The result is a pleasant experience, one where every tick matters, but doesn’t matter so much that it detracts from the twenty or so minutes that it takes to complete the game. Clever players can parlay those cubes into self-replicating turns, one free action spilling into another. These sequences are breezy to track, certainly easier than some of the flip-and-writes we’ve covered here, while still allowing for the occasional turn where somebody absentmindedly chews on the end of their dry-erase pen (yuck) while contemplating their next mark.

If I haven’t made it clear, Formosa Formosa is a light experience all around. It occupies the same design space as any number of shorter something-and-writes, more about the joy of getting to pen three or four marks on the board instead of only two, rather than, say, mathing out the best possible move or even preempting the input. Because here there is no preempting the input. Sometimes a region will receive no cubes at all. Other times, nearly everything will cluster together in one spot. That’s the game, and while it lends a certain soothing air to the experience, one where no decision is your fault and the best you can do is ride it out, it shouldn’t be mistaken for decision-dense.

Still, there’s a lot to like here. The clever use of both the lid and the box bottom, one for the drop and the other for assigning the resultant spill to an action menu. The animal pawns that are used for tracking your location. The tension between shared contests and a personal goal. Again, this isn’t extreme tension. It’s a pleasant friction at best, a gentle tickle. But it’s enough to offer Formosa Formosa as an ultra-light clatter-and-write that doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Bus bonus!

Ultimately, Formosa Formosa offers a nice experience. It’s a bit straightforward, even somewhat forgettable. Like a back rub, I suppose, or a comfort movie. But also like a back rub, it’s warm and tingly and pleasant, and it’s a great deal more fun to chuck some cubes than roll dice or flip cards. For all I won’t remember it in a month, I’m happy to accept one in the moment.

A complimentary copy of Formosa Formosa was provided by the publisher.

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