Stephen GeeLast Updated on January 4, 2025 by Candice Landau
A note from Candice: In general we only recommend games that are ocean or travel-themed and EASY to travel with, as in, you could take them on a dive liveaboard and play with friends.
Tranquility is a cooperative game with beautiful art and an island-hopping theme. Made for 1-5 players with a 20-minute playtime, it’s quick to learn. Authentically so—this isn’t one of those games where the creators write “It’s quick to learn!” and then you’re reading a 23-page rulebook with half a dozen options per turn. With only two actions available, we got started in less than 15 minutes and enjoyed the strategy as it unfolded.
The most unique aspect of Tranquility is that, though it’s cooperative, players are not allowed to discuss their moves during the game. This solves for a potential drawback of co-op games like Forbidden Island or Pandemic, especially when you have players of different levels of familiarity and/or strategic skill, where the more experienced (or overbearing) player(s) dominate the table and functionally end up playing for everyone.
That’s just not a possibility with Tranquility. By limiting communication about the game to a few select moments where it’s strictly necessary—once or maybe twice per game—everyone has to play their own game while collaborating to win. That, combined with the lovely (and slightly wistful) art, makes for a game that is, indeed, tranquil to play.
As of this writing, Board Game Geek has Tranquility as a 7.0/10, which feels low to me. Though, bias alert: I love co-op games, and Board Game Geek always seems to underrate them, so calibrate for that as you will.
Still, with multiple mini-expansions, variants, and optional rules in the box, it looks to have the replayability to please any co-op game fan, and even my much more competitive partner found that the mood, art, and strategy all combined to make for a very fun game.
Recommendation: Tranquility is a buy for me, as it should be for any co-op fan or board gamer who wants a game with depth to the strategy without a huge rulebook to go alongside it.
I’ll unpack a few more details, with more impressions and some details that tripped us up in our first playthrough below.
Tranquility Rules
The rules are fairly simple: after laying out the game board and shuffling the cards according to the rules in the box, each player draws a hand of 5 cards and takes two actions per turn: Place a card, or discard two cards. After completing either, players draw back up to 5 cards from their personal draw pile as long as they’re able.
The game is won when the entire board is filled + Start and Finish cards are played (the Finish card must be played last), or when someone cannot make a legal move (Play Card or Discord 2 Cards), in which case everyone loses.
The Play Card rule has some sub-rules that initially tripped us up. Cards can be played anywhere on the game grid, but they must go from lowest to highest numerically, starting in the bottom left and going to the top right in rows. (ie. 8 comes before 12, which comes before 14, or 20, or whatever number is higher). See the image below.
In addition, when a card is played next to another card, the player must discard the difference between the card(s) adjacent to it, but only the lowest difference. So for example: if a player places the 36 next to the 37, they must discard 1 card. If they place the 36 next to the 38, they must discard 2 cards. If they place the 36 between the 34 and the 37 (ordering: 34-36-37), they discard cards equal to the lowest difference between adjacent cards, which in this case is between the 36 and 37, or 1 discard.
There are 36 spots, with 80 cards (called Island cards) that can be placed there.
The rest of the rules are fairly straightforward and understandable as written, at least for the 2-player base game we started with. Though we did thumb through the mini-expansions and variants, and they too seemed like small twists to the game that change it up without introducing hugely different mechanics, including the first expansion that’s a single card and a paragraph of rules. (Others are more involved.)
Additional Considerations
Travel-ish size: Though not a large game, Tranquility comes in a chonky square box and requires a lot of table space to play. We’re always on the lookout for games we can bring to a restaurant or brewery, and this isn’t it. It would be a fine one to bring along on a trip, though, to have a nice tranquil game to wind down after a big day of diving or exploring.
Wish it had: The game comes with two reference cards, which detail to the rules for Start cards, Finish cards, communication rules, and solo play. We wished it had a reference card for the base Place/Discard rules, and potentially had enough of those reference cards for every player—though in truth we didn’t find ourselves needing to refer to the rules much after we got going. Not a huge issue.
Look out for: The animals on all the cards! Look for them sleeping on the night side and awake on the day side, and for all the other little details on the cards. The art is beautiful, and really adds to the experience of the game.
This review will be updated as we play Tranquility more, including with the expansions.
Other Co-Operative Games You May Also Like:
- One Deck Dungeon (and expansion)
- Tiny Epic Defenders (there are other games in this series too)
- Forbidden Island (series of games)—the latest is Forbidden Jungle which can be played standalone.
- Pandemic (there’s also a whole series of these and Legacy Games)
- Betrayal at House on the Hill
