Kraken Island - need to ramp up the ending

I think that this could work well, as long as there are a couple features.

It should be almost impossible to escape the island if you are deep in, looking where the best treasure is likely to be, when the kraken appears. (Unless, perhaps, you're holding a couple of extra move cards.)

There should be lesser places to search for treasure (in which the treasure is less likely and less valuable) from which it is likely -- but not certain -- that you'll escape.

The bulk -- but not all -- of each person's score should be visible. That is, I should be able to know if I'm behind, but not absolutely certain that I'm ahead (unless I'm way ahead).

For instance, if A is showing 30 points, and B is showing 33 points, but each might have anywhere from 2 to 12 points additional points hidden. If A has only 4 points hidden, he knows that he's behind, so he has to risk being deep in the island where the best treasure is. If B has, say, 7 points, he thinks he is probably ahead, but isn't sure. He might stay in the safer zones and hope to trigger the end of game quickly, before A finds something really valuable.

If this lower level of mobility hurts the rest of the game, then you can say that the kraken appearing reduces mobility by causing earthquakes, waves, etc. That is, the mobility is as you have it now until the creature appears.

This combination makes for great tension both for people who think they're ahead (Am I really ahead?) and for those who think or know that they're behind (I need to take this risk and get lucky, NOW.)

In games like Forbidden Island or Forbidden Desert, things become more difficult to do, in addition to the time "running out." Is there a way you can make tasks more challenging for the players to complete the more tentacles have been uncovered? For example: maybe with each draw of a tentacle card, a location is listed/illustrated on the card itself, now making that location inaccessible.

Additionally, I assume that you started prototyping with eight tentacles being revealed. You can mess around with this to make the game more urgent. For example: if it's a deck of cards, simply make more than eight tentacle cards and you increase the frequency of drawing a tentacle from the outset. And with every draw of a non-tentacle card, the possibility of drawing another tentacle card increases - even drawing more than one tentacle card in a row.

I think a lot of it depends pretty heavily on whether or not the players *need* to wake the kraken (i.e., is doing that what triggers the game end sequence that results in a win) or is it merely something that can *sometimes* happen (if they have bad luck drawing cards, say).

That all said, Arkham Horror is another game with tentacles and a great beast whose awakening can trigger a game over. For most of the bosses the great evil waking up triggers a combat sequence (though a *very* lopsided one that only well prepared heroes can hope to win). This incentivizes the players to play *efficiently* (in the hopes of winning the game before the bad guy wakes up) but if they know they aren't going to make it in time, they can focus on gearing up for a climactic battle instead. They still have a *chance*, and that chance of victory is what drives the dramatic tension.