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Slay the Spire board game and other fun co-op board games
I didn't see any mention of this board game here. I just played it with my brother and subsequently picked it up and played it with my wife, and I have to say, this is a great co-op board game. They've really nailed the fun of this where you get new things and meaningful decisions while the difficulty ratchets up nicely. It's hard for any one player to dominate because each character works differently, everyone is forced to work together.
Wondering what other fun new co-op board games people are playing these days? What have you not been able to put down?
So there are a wide variety of options, and they can vary in intensity and level of cooperation.
Pandemic is a fun relatively simple game which we, uh, mostly put on the backburner in 2020 for some reason. The idea of the game is that you and the other players are CDC people working to contain and cure a set of worldwide pandemics before they get out of control. You get a character that has a special ability, you visit places to prevent outbreaks, you research cures, and then you implement them and hopefully collectively save the planet before it is overrun. It's relatively fast to set up and play; my son is 10 and has played it with us for years, though considering the ass-whooping he just gave me at Carcassonne, he might not be the best example of a kid who plays boardgames.
There is also Pandemic Legacy (there are three different versions). Legacy style games are ones that are meant to be played in one or two dozen sessions with the same group; how you play one game affects how the next session will play, because there is an over-arching story. The gameplay is similar but more complicated, and the playtime is vastly extended.
Horrified is a fun co-operative game where you play as monster hunters intent on saving your town from monsters. Frankenstein's Monster and his Bride, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Invisible man, The creature from the black lagoon are all options, and you can play with one or multiple depending on the difficulty that you desire. You have to rescue villagers, collect clues, and fight off the monsters collectively. There are also several expansions that introduce other monsters. This one takes a bit longer to set up and play than Pandemic.
Mysterium is not really anything like the other games that I recommended here, but it is interesting. One person plays as the ghost, and the other players are psychic detectives; there has been a murder, and the ghost must give clues to the detective to help uncover whodunnit. It's a lateral thinking puzzle game; if you have played Dixit the core mechanic is somewhat similar. You have cards with art on them, and you have to use those cards as the only means of communication with the detectives to get them to guess correctly. This one takes a bit to set up and play - the site I linked says 42 minutes, but I have never had a game last less than double that amount.
Elder Sign is upping the complexity and the setup time. It is the 20s, and you are an investigator in Arkham. The return of an Ancient One is imminent and your ragtag group must prevent it. This is a dice rolling game with a lot of little bits; the setup time is 10 - 15 minutes, and the playtime is an hour and a half. This game is like the little brother to...
Arkham Horror: Third Edition. This is a big grand daddy game, where the setup takes upwards of half an hour, and the playtime is 2+ hours (I've had a game last over 5, but we were playing with very careful people). This may sound familiar, but it is the 20s, and you are an investigator in Arkham. The return of an Ancient One is imminent and your ragtag group must prevent it. You have full character cards; you fight monsters, you investigate areas, you have adventures, there's loads of card reading, the atmosphere is great. If sitting down for 3 hours and trying to fight Yog-Sothoth sounds like fun to you, this is probably the game for it. The board itself is delightful, and there are loads of different ways to play, and there's whole communities about making custom adventures within the game.
If you can find it Arkham Horror (Second edition?) is also pretty great, though quite different.
If you want to move past purely co-operative things:
Anachrony is perhaps my favourite board game, though I haven't played it recently. It is a worker placement game about time travel. The idea of the game is that years ago, the Day of Purgation happened - a huge explosion unexpectedly almost destroyed the Earth, and the remnants of people have shattered into 4 societies (the playable factions). Now a disaster is going to occur in the near future; an asteroid is going to hit, and it is full of Neutronium, which it turns out allows you to time travel. You have to prepare your faction to leave the planet. The gameplay twist is that the game is played over 7 lengthy turns; you can borrow things from future turns, but you have to not cause a time anomaly; if on Turn 2 you borrow a resource from your Turn 5 self, then when Turn 5 comes around, you have to spend that resource, or Bad Things happen. This is another beautifully constructed game, but I am being pretty loose with the term "co-operative" here; it is just not particularly confrontational, not purely co-operative.
Betrayal at House on the Hill is a game that starts out co-operative, but at a midway point, The Haunt happens, which changes the terms of the game. The most typical thing that happens is that one person will then be the Enemy, and the rest of the people have to co-operate against that person. There are some scenarios where everyone co-operates to defeat the scenario. This one is pretty great, but you all have to be willing to be "the bad guy" if you're going to play it. There's also Betrayal at Baldur's Gate which is pretty much a reskin of the same idea, but set in a Dungeons and Dragons environment.
Battlestar Galactica is another game that is mostly co-operative, but someone is a Cylon, secretly working against everyone. It's great fun, though I haven't played it in a while.
I tried not to go over games that other people mentioned, though I will also endorse Gloomhaven and Forbidden Desert / Forbidden Island (Island is the superior one, in my opnion).
I've always really really wanted to love this game, but no matter who I play with or what edition we play, we always end up in a situation where the rules are not entirely clear. And if you're alone and can't ask someone to verify the rules with you, it's hard to know for sure if you're doing something you're not supposed to be.
We also had one instance where we got an endgame where the solo was supposed to cooperate with us, but none of us believed him so we kept ignoring what he was telling us to do and then we all lost.
I love the idea of it, like I said, but it never seems to quite work right for me.
You have to be comfortable with a certain level of rules jank to really properly enjoy Betrayal, IMO, but the Legacy version is the least broken version of the game I've played, and I've played most of them at this point, besides the Scooby Doo themed one. I love Betrayal but it's definitely an acquired taste.
I think that might be dependent on the version that you're playing. The first time I played, I remember that there was something that wasn't clear in the instructions, and we had to wing it, but that was in an earlier version; the most recent time was with the 2021 version, and we had no issues. Of course, it might be luck of the draw too; I may have just played scenarios that were clear, and you played ones that weren't.
What happens for me is that half of the people get super bored reading the cards. Sometimes a lot of nothing happens.
I've never gotten people invested enough to like it.
Yes! Perfect example of great in theory but in practice I've never once had the game go as it was supposed to.
For folks that can't get past the whole "global pandemic" theming, there's a whole line of games based on the core Pandemic system but with different themes and rules tweaks. I've personally played the Star Wars: the Clone Wars (Excellent game - 9/10 highly recommended) and the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (surprisingly decent even though I don't know or care about WoW at all).
I'm a big fan of Betrayal, and I played the campaign of Betrayal Legacy with a group of friends and it was one of the best tabletop experiences I've had, it's a very good legacy game.
I haven't played the Legacy version of Betrayal - it's hard for me to get a group to do it - but I can imagine it being so good.
I've also played the WoW Wrath of the Lich King version and it is pretty good. Though it's notable that I spent a lot of time in World of Warcraft over the years, so that might have coloured my impression of the game somewhat.
If you can get a consistent group together Betrayal Legacy can be a mountaintop experience. I've actually played through the campaign 2.5-ish times, and two of those three were incredibly fun, but you're right that it's tough to get a consistent group. Technically I don't think it requires you have all of the same people in every game, but it definitely help make the experience better.
One of the times I played through it was on Tabletop Simulator and it wasn't too bad, so that's an option. Ultimately, though, I think that the experience of writing on cards, tearing up game pieces, and putting stickers (permanently) on pieces is really what makes it shine, and it's not quite the same on TTS. Plus the cool thing about Betrayal Legacy is that by the end you have what's essentially a custom game of Betrayal that you can continue playing normal games with, but the house tiles, cards, and characters will be somewhat unique to that copy which is a real strength of the way they did the legacy campaign for Betrayal as opposed to something like Pandemic which is basically done once you finish the campaign.
Oh man, that sounds super awesome. Unfortunately, my captive gaming audience (wife, Kid2, Kid3) mostly don't like a) legacy games or b) the Betrayal games, with the exception of Kid2, who loves the idea of both. It's kind of annoying, since my wife and Kid3 mostly just want to play a couple of old familiar games and not learn anything new.
After about 2 years our Frosthaven crew has just about finished. We also liked the slay the spire boardgame, so if you are up for a commitment, Gloomhaven and Frosthaven are very good. In a similar vein but with less setup there is Tales from the Red Dragon Inn, and Kinfire Chronicles.
For something not like that but fun co-op, I love Decorum, which is a puzzle game about finding a house arrangement that works for everyone at the table, but you can only be passive aggressive with each other.
Also different and great and not very new is Spirit Island. That one you play as elemental spirits trying to keep settlers from ruining your island. This one can have a little more quarterbacking than the others which is unfortunate, but I still love it.
The Stardew Valley board game is also great, and very much like the video game. If you like the video game I think you will like the board game.
I think the second version of Gloomhaven is releasing soon as well - though I kind of enjoy the unbalanced shenanigans of the first copy…
Deep Rock Galactic's board game is also pretty fun, from the times I've set it up and had players.
If you're used to StS, it has a similar footprint in terms of size but it has more miniatures available.
Similar sized box though.
The Slay the Spire (collectors edition) box is MASSIVE, honestly it's a bit of a hassle getting it to places if i want to play.
At least Slay the Spire came with a carrier for its play mat. DRG didn't, so since I've already got the hard play area in the box it's easier to just use that.
But, I've got Gloomhaven, Frosthaven, DRG, and StS on my shelves so I've clearly decided that size is okay...
I didn't even realize there was a board game version of StS! It's one of my favorite Steam Deck games for when I feel like just kicking back and chilling for a bit. My tabletop group has been looking for more co-op games to play, and this sounds like it just went to the top of the list. What is the max player count?
The max player count is 4. In the game you can play as any of the characters from the video game, so, Watcher, Defect, Ironclad or Silent.
Awesome. Thanks!
Forbidden Desert is a pretty fun co-op game. Your airship crashes in the desert and you have to find its pieces to reassemble and escape. Each player chooses a class with unique skills and has to decide the optimal way to use them.
The challenge is there is a sandstorm and a deck is shuffled and depending on the draw each turn the whole board can get re-arranged leaving players stranded or buried. You have to track water usage and lose some each time a sun card is drawn. If any player runs out of water or the map gets covered in too much sand then everyone loses.
There's a whole Forbidden trilogy! There's also Forbidden Island (you have to go around to collect the relics before the island sinks) and Forbidden Sky (you have to, uh... yeah, I played it a few times but I don't really remember what you're doing... something about connecting lightning rods, I think?).
Forbidden Island is my favorite of the three. I think it just strikes the best balance of mechanics and complexity. Forbidden Sky is a lot more complicated than the other two, from what I recall, but it's still interesting.
There's a fourth one now Forbidden Jungle, I haven't played it yet but it seems to have some themes of alien?
These are the games I came here to talk about!
Common to all the games is classed characters (healer type, explorer type, etc) and what I think of as “hard coop” in that if any one player dies, everyone loses
Island I think is the simplest of the four so far, collect the things and escape before the island sinks
Desert is the one I play the most, I think the running out of sand and sun exposure mechanics adds a fun increase in complexity
Sky is challenging, they actually stopped printing it because of this (I got a copy off eBay). The core mechanic centers around the orientation of tiles based on their pattern, but there are some subtleties that made me think I was missing pieces originally (A+ support staff). That said, it also comes with a really cool little rocket figure that lights up
Jungle I’ve played the least, I think it’s only been out a little over a year now? Yes, there are aliens and hatchlings that turn into aliens and one of the mechanics involves moving them. It’s interesting, I still haven’t quite got the hang of it yet
Having only played the first three I can't really comment on Jungle beyond what I've seen on the box/tin.
Out of those three though likewise I've definitely played Desert the most and it is probably my favourite one hitting a sweet spot of ease of play and challenge of mechanics, especially when introducing new players.
Given the parts complexity for Sky when compared to Island and Desert, I can see why it would have went out of print. As cool as the ship is, that and all the magnetic parts must be a pain in comparison to various bits of card the others use.
My most favorite co-op board game is Spirit Island. You and others play as vastly different spirits who help the local population destroy and/or scare the colonists who are trying to take over your island. It is a card-driven game but it also has pieces to represent the colonists, locals, and spirit presence. One of my favorite design aspects is that the player pieces are wooden and feel nice to the touch whereas the invader pieces are plain white and slightly flimsy plastic. I will already stop because I can gush about this game forever.
I adore this game as well, especially with all the expansions. I got a similar vibe from StS board game fwiw
How is STS board game for people that are not familiar with the videogame?
I really love the videogame. It's an incredible display of how good game design doesn't necessarily have to be complex to be successful.
Back when the board game project was in Kickstarter, I decided not to purchase it because it looked a lot like a "manual" version of StS. Meaning, you have to manage life counters, deck, potions all by yourself without being rewarded for it. I couldn't imagine wanting to play it vs the videogame, that automates all that overhead. Now, all of that is a conclusion based on an (at the time) unfinished board game, so I understand it's an unfounded opinion.
The board game review channel I saw mention it said they considered it an improvement on the videogame. Hard to gauge how much of the videogame they'd played, but presumably as a boardgame review channel they were coming at it from a point of view that not everyone who watched would have played StS, and they recommended it pretty wholeheartedly iirc.
If you just want to play with you and your wife, I'd consider games like Skyteam and Kinfire Chronicle: Delve. In a similar vein, you can also try games like Gloomhaven or Kinfire Chronicles for a bit of an RPG-Lite experience!
My friends and I recently finished Pandemic: Legacy after ~14 games. We didn't have a high score but we had fun. You play different characters trying to eradicate diseases before they spread. My favored character was the medic, who I named James Jameson. Each has different abilities.
The Legacy edition means that each game is progressive and builds on itself, you can upgrade aspects of the game. Locations and buildings can be damaged as well, making it harder for the future games.
It has a whole "year" campaign to follow that introduces new characters, objectives, gameplay elements. You also tear up cards as your characters die, you lose a gameplay elements, that sort of thing.
Games go relatively quick, our flow ended up that each turn is basically collaboration between your team on how best to utilize that character and react to the disease as it spreads each turn, really making it feel like a cooperative effort with everyone contributing.
There's a non Legacy version that plays as a traditional repeated board game, but it doesn't feature the additional characters and mechanics introduced through the campaign.
Well fudge. I hold you responsible, u/joshbuddy, if I'm out $120 because of this post. I didn't know an StS board game existed and I freaking love StS. I'm waiting to see if it'll come down in price a bit.
While you wait they do have StS officially available for Tabletop Simulator.
Oooh, thanks, I totally forgot I even had Tabletop Simulator. This will be helpful! I just have to remember how the UI works :')
Just get the board game. I'll venmo the money to you if you regret it. :)
Way to call me out. I will not take your offer, generous as it is, but I just ordered it :) I anticipate playing it in 2 or 3 weeks when I can get some of the friends together.
Me and my game group have enjoyed playing Townfolk Tussle lately. It is a co-op game, but have a (small) competitive element in that the players are all trying to become sheriff. There's an expansion to it that adds some character option and a legacy like component of unlocking new cards and combining cards etc. It has a distinct aesthetic (reminds me of the videogame Cuphead), which I puts a wimsy air to the game.
We've also played some Mechs vs Minions which is like a coop version of Robo Rally. It also has a story which unfolds with each mission becoming progressively harder. It takes a few tries to understand how to play, and I think it's hard to find a copy of it today. But, definitely worth a try if you get the chance!
Haven't played StS (board game) yet, but Dead Cells is good! And on BGA, so no fuzz with setting up and stuff.
It's only 2 players but I would highly recommend Far Away. You play as two explorers working for a corporation exploring alien worlds. Each mission takes an hour or two and they slowly increase in complexity as you unlock new equipment. It has a very fun mechanic where each person is responsible for roleplaying half of the alien creatures you encounter based on the traits on their card.
They have a great approach to handle the issue of one player taking over by forbidding you from communicating with your partner unless your characters are physically standing on the same tile. This is super fun because making a mistake the other person might have caught for you leads to fun situations to puzzle your way out of. Pairing this with the sanity mechanic they have, where each turn spent apart reduces your sanity until you are together again, encourages a really fun loop - plan something, split up, and then improvise as it all goes wrong getting back to one another because it turns out turning on the generator angered the local giraffe monsters and now the previously gentle giants are raging around the map smashing everything.
Fascinating recommendation. I'll see if I can order it, looks like a great game