Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
Friday Night Shots – Cooperative Games
No, you’re not drunk or stoned or just seeing things.
Yes, this is the third week in a row for a Friday Night Shots post.
The bar is now open weekly!
At least for now.
Maybe not next week.
I’m glad you happened to be walking by noticed me working in here.
I’m not sure why nobody else is?
Oh, maybe it’s because the Open sign is malfunctioning.
That could do it.
That’s what it’s supposed to look like! The contractors told me they fixed it and I guess I never checked.
Probably might have had some customers this week if not for that.
Anyway, why don’t you have a seat and we’ll talk about some boardgames.
Don’t worry about the lack of music. It was still stuck on Justin Bieber’s Greatest Hits so I took a hammer to it.
It’ll get better.
Just like last week’s post, I can’t believe that I haven’t talked about this one yet.
What are your opinions on cooperative games?
I’m not a huge fan of cooperative games, or at least they don’t really get played much in our game days, even at conventions.
But some of them are old favourites while others are just kind of neat and fast.
Before I say anything else though, please note that I’ve only played the regular Pandemic game once, many years ago, and have not played any of its sequels at all.
Though I do own and have played the dice game, Pandemic: the Cure.
This one is kind of fun, but it’s also been years since I’ve played it either.
We used to play it at lunch at work sometimes.
I should probably bring it back out, now that I’m talking about it.
Much like the original game, players are specialists moving around the globe trying to stop four diseases from spreading so much that the Earth is doomed.
Instead of a map, though, there are six rings/areas of the world that you’re moving between.
Instead of cards and cubes, you’re using dice.
Each colour of dice is a disease. Players need to collect samples from the various places around the world, bottling them up and then rolling to try to cure it.
This is helped by various specialists, with each player taking on the separate roles (and there are a bunch in the base game, not to mention the expansion).
Each specialist has a number of unique dice that will let them move, treat dice (moving them off the map and into the centre ring), and collect samples.
They also have a pandemic sign on them.
Each of those moves the infection rate track up, making things more difficult. And they can’t be rerolled.
All of the other dice can be rerolled as much as you want.
It’s a fun little game, especially if you like dice chucking.
The expansion adds some new cards and roles, a new disease, and some other options, but I haven’t played with it much.
Of course, for me, the grandfather of cooperative games is Flash Point: Fire Rescue.
It’s a game I have, along with a bunch of expansions, but I don’t bring it out much.
The boards are so heavy! And it’s multiple boxes for me.
Maybe I’ll bring it to Bottoscon next month.
Anyway, players are firefighters trying to keep a building (there are various maps with different buildings) from collapsing due to fire, rescuing victims as much as they can.
Make sure you rescue the cat and the dog first (or just don’t use them).
If you’re playing the advanced game (or the main game, since the family game is just way too boring), then each player has a role with some special rules.
Some will give you extra action options, or even more action points to do your actions with.
You’re wandering around the burning house (or whatever), putting out flames, removing hazardous materials, rescuing people, and trying not to get knocked down by an explosion.
It’s a fun game, but very susceptible to quarterbacking (which I think I may have been guilty of a little bit last time I played).
In fact, let’s get to the elephant in the room now that I’ve mentioned it.
Quarterbacking, or one player dominating play and basically making decisions for each player, is something that cooperative games can be prone to.
Some games get around that by having all of the action and choices be simultaneous, so nobody knows what anybody else is going to do at any given time.
Other players can make some suggestions, like “if you can take care of this issue over here, I can take care of this one over there.”
But they won’t be saying “play this card to do this, then play this card to do that…” etc.
It’s especially not going to happen if everybody’s rolling dice and taking care of things in real time.
It is an issue with cooperative games, though, and it’s something to really be aware of.
There is also the classic superhero card game Sentinels of the Multiverse, which I Kickstarted the Definitive Edition for.
The Definitive Edition apparently streamlined things so that you don’t have to use an app to just keep everything straight.
This game is so good, though the app is even better because it does literally all the upkeep for you.
Each player is a hero who all are working together to take down the big bad villain.
I’ve reviewed the Definitive Edition, so I won’t go into any more detail here, but suffice to say that it is an excellent game.
I backed the first expansion (Rook City Renegades) but haven’t been able to get any of that stuff to the table yet.
The third expansion (Disparation) was backed too, but it’s unfortunately in tariff limbo due to most of the staff being laid off (thanks, Trump!).
I do also have the Castle Panic big box, but as I may have mentioned detailed before, I’m too intimidated by it to actually break it out.
And it’s fucking huge so bringing it to a game day is almost impossible.
But the original game was a fun cooperative game I used to play with my wife. I think I also did bring it out to a game day once.
Finally, though, sometimes you just want a quick cooperative bite (eww…that sounds gross).
You want a nice filler game that doesn’t tax you at all.
Unless doing something with a timer stresses you out.
Kites is a very cool cooperative game where players play cards in turn order to try to keep various kites afloat.
Each kite has a sand timer and when you play the proper card(s), you get to flip over one of the timers.
You do want to make sure it’s almost running out before you do that. Don’t flip it when it’s just been flipped!
You are trying to run the deck out of cards without letting any of the sand timers empty.
I’m not much for real time games, because they do stress me out.
But this game is short and it was quite fun.
And only a little bit stressful.
Of course, the biggest cooperative game I’ve played is that monster Eldritch Horror, though considering we very rarely win and it’s nightmare of shuffling cards to set up, I’m not going to talk about it here.
Sorry, Clio.
(It’s a good game, but just wears me out)
There’s also semi-cooperative games to talk about, but my keg is empty and it’s late, so maybe next time.
What about you? Do you like cooperative games?
What are your favourites?
Let me know in the comments.
Dude! Take Your Turn! 
You’ve listed one of my favorites (Sentinels), so I won’t belabor that one. I’ve played Flash Point (it’s fine, a little long for my usual tabletop settings, and I’m still disappointed the digital version never came to iOS), and I’ve played Pandemic the Cure (one of the worst scaling games with player count I’ve ever run across, it’s nearly impossible at 2 players but perfectly fun and manageable with 4).
My highest rated coop games on BGG:
A note also that I really like Spirit Island, but I’ve never played it multiplayer. To me it’s a solo game.
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Ha! I definitely see your point about scaling. I don’t know if we ever did win at 2, though we did win at 3 at least once.
Of those 4, I’ve only played Burgle Bros. That was a great game.
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Flash Point, what a fun idea! And Sentinels I’d not heard of before. Both sound interesting to me.
And I totally agree who it’s important to guard against quarterbacking, especially if someone has more experience at the game than others. I really try to make sure I don’t do that, but sometime I feel like I can go too far the other way, and not be helpful enough. Tough balance at times, and I tend to like the game that have a limited communication mode to them, like Sky Team. 🙂
Fun article, nicely done!
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Thank you! I’m glad you liked it.
Flashback Point is definitely a fun one if you’re in the right mood.
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I like cooperative games! Wouldn’t play them exclusively, but working together with one’s fellow gamers for a change has its charms 🙂
Agreed on Eldritch Horror – it does take a long time, and it you play with expansions, setup can really be a game in itself (I think I’ve taken 30 minutes)! Still one of my favorites, and surprisingly newbie-friendly (as long as one player knows the game and runs the system), while so full of stuff on every character that it’s hard to quarterback.
Other cooperative favorites: Votes for Women (also fun competitively), Legends of Andor (prone to quarterbacking – best played with a group which has similar levels of experience and good communication).
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All good games there! And cooperative games can be fun with the right group.
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Nice post! I’ve long enjoyed a cooperative game although I definitely agree it’s key not to have one player overshadowing the others.
The Captain Is Dead has been a lot of fun for us, it plays a lot like Pandemic but the theme is very accessible which is a huge point for bringing in non-gamers.
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I almost wrote about that one but I haven’t played it. Is it real-time or do you take turns? I know real-time definitely takes away the quarterbacking
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It’s turn-based so definitely at risk of basically turning into a one-player game. But one of the beautiful things is that it’ll take 7 players so that’s usually chaotic enough to keep it fun for us all.
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I don’t play cooperative games very often, but I’m OK with them. As a matter of fact, I just bought a used copy of Flash Point, which I’ve played and enjoyed but never owned. Other favorites that come to mind are Pandemic, Yggdrasil, Ghost Stories, and Witch of Salem. Paleo was good, too, but very rules-heavy. I remember playing Sentinels a long time ago and wouldn’t mind trying it again. The quarterbacking you mention is a very real issue when the person just cannot accept what they view as suboptimal moves. I try not to play co-ops with people with that attitude. The other issue with co-ops is that they are generally very hard to win, which can be demoralizing. I prefer competitive games but I won’t rule out co-ops.
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Yeah, I know there is definitely thought out there about how difficult cooperative games can be. Eldritch Horror is incredibly difficult! And I’ve stories about, well, Ghost Stories.
I haven’t actually heard of Witch of Salem. What’s it like?
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Witch of Salem has a Cthulhu theme with various monsters (in the form of cards) popping up in different locations across Arkham City, that you need to kill before they appear a second time (think whack-a-mole). Each of these locations may also contain a gate to another world that needs to be closed (or may not).
The players themselves do not have any special abilities, but each has a deck of location cards they use to travel around the city. Each of them can carry three regular tokens and one rune token. The regular tokens help them defeat the various monsters and the runes help close the gates. The players must defeat a Great Old One after sealing the gates. Meanwhile, there is an ever-advancing “doom track” that you cannot let run out and there are events each round that usually cause problems.
The biggest complaint I’ve read about the game, and it is a legitimate concern, is that players are not allowed to talk among themselves about which locations do or don’t have gates, but they simultaneously have to agree when all are closed so the Great Old One can be defeated. This is a little weird and can also make the game hard to win. Since there are three types of runes, we generally put one player in charge of each rune type and make them responsible for closing the gates marked with those runes, but it’s easier said than done.
I have some great memories playing this game with friends who were really into it, but I also have some not-so-great memories of games where the players weren’t.
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Wow, thanks for all the detail! Sounds interesting
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