My Other Hobby: Tabletop Gaming #2: Cooperative Games

Cooperative is a very neat genre of tabletop games. In a cooperative game, the players are all working together against the game itself. This is nice because competitive games can get ugly, especially if there is player elimination. You know what I'm talking about. You get smoked early in Monopoly, then sit there like a schmuck as a couple players sit there for 3 hours trying to wear each other down. It sucks, and can easily end in a flipped over table or a punched player. Cooperative games still carry that risk, because you are can lose to the game or to your fellow players' stupidity! FUN!

To be honest, cooperative games are a lot of fun and there is a great sense of accomplishment at beating one. What you do need to avoid in some of co-op games is the phenomenon of the "Alpha Player." This is a player (usually the most familiar with the game) who tries to direct every other player on what they should do for their turn. In the event this happens, you need only tell them "shut the fuck up and let me take my turn."

Here are three of our favorite co-op games:

Hanabi

Number of players: 2-5
Time to play: 25 minutes
How do you win?: Arrange stacks of cards by color and number
Difficulty to learn/teach: Easy

Hanabi is a very accessible card game and is great fun. Every player starts with a hand of cards (cards come in five colors and are numbered 1-5). The object is to create five stacks of cards, one color for each stack, each stack in order from #1-5.
Simple!
Except everybody holds their hands with their cards facing AWAY from themselves. You can see every other players' cards EXCEPT your own. Each turn you can do one of three things:

1. Lay down a card. If the card will go on one of the stacks, excellent. If not, that's a strike. Three strikes and everybody loses.
2. Give another player a hint. This costs a token. The group has a finite amount of tokens to use. You can then tell another player how many of a color OR number they have, but not both. You are allowed to point to the cards.
3. Discard a card to regain a token.

That's it. The game is deceptively difficult but a lot of fun. You're not allowed to give any sort of clue that a player is about to play/discard something they shouldn't. You have to sit there stonefaced as they either succeed to fail. Great game and fairly inexpensive.

Pandemic

Number of players: 2-4

Time to play: 45 minutes
How do you win?: Find cures for four different diseases
Difficulty to learn/teach: Medium

Pandemic is one of the most well known cooperative games and generally the game against which other cooperative games are measured. It is also extremely topical right now. Four different diseases have broken out at once, and the players are a group of scientists/professionals who are charged with controlling the outbreak and finding cures before the diseases overtake the board or time runs out. Each turn a player can take several actions such as moving, building facilities, controlling outbreaks, or curing the diseases. The game is extremely tense and it is very possible to lose the game quickly. Each player takes a specific role with special abilities no other player will have. There are several expansions to this game which you certainly do not need right away. There is also a Legacy version of this game. Probably avoid this version first. The Legacy game has a finite amount of plays and the game gets permanently altered as you play. This is arguably a must own game for any collection.

Space Alert

Number of players: 1-5
Time to play: 30 minutes
How do you win?: Survive for 10 minutes as everything goes to shit
Difficulty to learn/teach: medium/difficult (the game includes a great system that slowly eases you into the game, adding new mechanics each play)

This game has a fairly steep learning curve, but is totally worth the effort. The players are the crew of a survey ship. The ship simply has to sit for 10 minutes. However, during that 10 minutes, literally everything that ever went wrong in Star Trek occurs during that 10 minutes. IN REAL TIME. There is a CD (also an App) that will play announcements from the ship. The crew must then respond to those threats by playing cards to move their crew members around, charging shields/weapons, firing weapons, etc. All as the ship relentlessly gives more and more alerts of things going wrong. These things can be meteor swarms, attacking ships, boarding parties, aliens, etc.

At the end of 10 minutes. You basically rewind time and then go turn by turn and see if your planning actually worked. Generally it does not. You end up with people fighting for the elevator, trying to fire weapons that haven't been charged, or standing there helplessly as large portions of the ship are exposed to the screaming void of space.

The game has been best described as "imagine putting five people into a giant hamster ball. Give them all meth, then have them try to navigate a Super G downhill ski course." There will be an amusing amount of screaming, then everyone dies. Repeatedly.  That being said, the game is extremely good and a great game if you can get four other willing people.

Next time we'll take a look at games for two players!

My Other Hobby: Table Top Gaming. Gateway Games

As many of you know, my other hobby is table top gaming. Board, card, miniatures, you name it. I love games. And as we are stuck at home for an extended period of time, gaming is a great way to pass the time. Every now and then I'll put up a post suggesting games for certain situations. Today, I have three suggestion for those who may be new to the hobby, or don't want anything to deep. I've tried to keep the price point reasonable, between $25-35. Most of these games can be found on Amazon or Walmart, but do consider helping out your Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS), and ordering from them instead. Brick and mortar game stores are taking a huge beating during the shutdown. Many are more than happy to ship directly to you. If needed, contact me and I will be happy to suggest some great FLGS's to contact.

Gateway Games

Tsuro

Number of players: 2-8
Time to play: 15 minutes
How do you win?: Last man standing
Difficulty to learn/teach: Easy

Tsuro is as simple as it gets. Every turn you'll choose one of three tiles and lay it in front of your piece, then follow the path you have created until you reach the end of the path. If the path takes you to an empty space, your turn ends. If the path sends you off the board, you lose. If the path sends you into another player, you both lose. HOWEVER, you can never intentionally send yourself off the board or into another player unless you have no other options. Last person on the board wins. It is also possible for everyone to lose or in rare cases, have a tie. This is a super easy game to learn with a fair bit of strategy. The theme is simple and accessible.
Problem: The game is currently unavailable on Amazon, so you may have to look around. The other option is to get Tsuro of the Seas, which has the base mechanics of the original, but adds a couple new things.

Carcassonne

Number of Players: 2-5
Time to Play: 45 minutes
How do you win?: Most points
Difficulty to learn/teach: simple/moderate

Carcassonne is a tile-laying strategy game. Each turn you will draw a tile from a bag and lay it in a way that it matches up with another tile. You will create roads, cities, farms, and abbeys along these tiles to score points. Points are scored by playing "meeples" (your pieces) on these features. You have a limited amount of meeples to use during the game, so you must carefully consider your strategy. Most points wins the game. This is a nice game because there is not much direct competition. You can certainly try to lay tiles to mess up someone's strategy, or claim features before another player, but nothing that makes you want to choke a bitch out.

King of Tokyo

Number of Players: 2-6 (best with 3 or more)
Time to Play: 30 minutes
How do you win?: Last man standing
Difficulty to learn/teach: simple/moderate

King of Tokyo is best described as Combat Yahtzee. Each player takes the role of a giant monster attempting to take over Tokyo. Each turn you will roll dice, Yahtzee style, to attack, heal, or gain energy. Energy is used to buy cards to add powers to your monster. The combat is high risk, as only one monster can stand in Tokyo city. If that monster attacks, he damages ALL players outside the city. Conversely, all players outside the city can only attack the monster IN the city. This game is absolutely about direct competition, and trash talk and wild gesticulating is encouraged. Highly thematic and lots of fun for all ages.

Next time, we'll look at cooperative games, where you're all on the same team, playing against the game itself!