Every so often a game comes out of nowhere and takes you by surprise. In Spirit Island you play the spirits of a lovely island whose inhabitants are happily minding their own business, when colonising western nations invade them and start to settle.
It's the anti-Catan.
The people cry out to you to fight back. And you do - with all the magical powers, skills and followers at your disposal.
When I first played this game, I instantly played it again. And again. and again. In fact I played it non stop for an entire weekend where we tried out all the different spirits in turn, in different combinations. Because its that kind of a game. Every spirit plays differently and every player has cool stuff to do on every turn.
The invaders come with their own rules, determined by their nationality and the difficulty setting - they are a game mechanic, so nobody is playing them for a total co-op game experience. And its this variety - in spirit, in invader, in difficulty - that keeps you coming back.