Open list of cooperative games

[untonuggan]

(sorry for the posting spam today)

In regards to my earlier post about difficulty with competition and competitive games (tw: evil bees/dysfunctional families), just wanted to say that I do really enjoy collaborative games.

Herein be an open list of collaborative games. Feel free to add more in the comments!

Polaris (a GM-less RPG about being a doomed knight in the Northlands; my first session lasted 9 hours; I don't do tabletop much). Tao games also has a lot of other promising-looking RPGs, including Hot Guys Making Out.

Crap Scrabble looks amazing but I have not had a chance to play it yet (example from the rules: "If the cat lays down on your tiles they are no longer yours and you must play around the cat until she leaves.")

Improv games (honestly probably where I first learned cooperative gameplay). Simple ones include the kind where someone starts a story and then passes it on to another person, etc. Can also be facilitated by Story Cubes.

Obviously harder to plan, but those things where you have a murder mystery party at your house or wherever. I assume a lot of LARPing also falls somewhere in this category, but some does not.

(For definition's sake, I am non-scientifically definining a collaborative game as one in which no one person "wins", and/or the point is just to have fun or create something together and points are not emphasized.)

Comments

[untonuggan]

Sandbox video games such as:

Animal Crossing (all flavors really)

Harvest Moon

[untonuggan]

I also like to "hack" existing games. So, for example, "Apples to Apples" where the point is not to play for points but to make the most bizarre/dark/humorous (but still sense-making) leaps between cards. So for example, "Elvis" and "Bathroom" (because I am apparently a horrible person) or something of that nature.

Also note that the link to Crap Scrabble (above in post) also includes "rules" to Surrealist Poker, which sounds awesome. (You can bet anything in the universe; betting is of course not for keepsies.)

[alee_grrl]

Zombies! is a board game that can be played either competively or cooperatively. We played it cooperatively (where everyone had to get to the evacuation zone of the game was lost) and it was a lot of fun.

One cooperative board game that I haven't played but sounds fun is Pandemic, which involves trying to stop the spread of new disease outbreaks.

One of the reasons I always enjoyed tabletop role-playing games was that they are cooperative style games (unless someone in your party is being a jerk).

[sporky_rat]

And if there is someone being a jerk, one of the characters killing the jerk's character can usually jerk a knot in a tail.

[syntaxofthings]

I've also heard of Pandemic.

[sincere]

I clicked in to mention Pandemic! I haven't played it many times but I found it to be a very fun cooperative game. Each player has a role, like someone is a scientist, and someone is a dispatcher, etc, and each role has a special ability, so every player ends up valuable in a different way.

Further, players have to work together and work to work together; you have to coordinate so that you are 1) blocking the diseases where they occur, but also 2) meeting up with each other to trade assets that will help you cure the diseases, so everyone plans ahead together for what the next moves will be -- okay, the two of you go to Buenos Aires so you can trade your cards and we can cure the blue disease, I'll head to Moscow here because if someone doesn't take care of the green disease there it's going to spread throughout Asia.

"Winning" is all or nothing -- either you all succeed, or the whole planet dies. :)

[cesy]

For computer-based ones, Glitch is a brilliant no-longer-existing example, and there are a few others around that are trying to be successors.

[yvi]

Space Alert https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/38453/space-alert

[syntaxofthings]

I have Anxiety about games that are play-to-win, so I am suuuuper on board with the games my friends taught me that are cooperative board games (they exist! omg!). Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert are two obviously by the same maker. All players work together to get off the island or get off the desert with objectives reached before the island sinks or the desert blows too much sand over you and you die. I love it because it's easy to teach a new person BECAUSE you're all working together and making decisions about what to do next together - you don't have to hide your cards, etc...

[the_rck]

Me, too! I thought I was the only one.

I've had good luck with Sentinels of the Multiverse which is a superhero card game. All players are superheroes who work together and can consult each other on strategy. Each different superhero (and there are a lot, half of them female) has an individual deck with cards that represent special powers and equipment and such. The villain also has a deck of cards (and there are a lot of villains to chose from) and some sort of power. There's also a deck to represent the environment which can help or hinder one side or both sides depending on what comes up. There are also a lot of different possible environments.

We bought an elaborate game called, I think, Fortune and Glory that's about adventurers trying to retrieve magical artifacts before the bad guys get them. There's a choice of mobsters or Nazis as the bad guys (the game's set in the 1930s). It's possible to play very cooperatively or semi-competitively. Even the competitive game has the overall goal of stopping the bad guys; it's just that the players gather points for themselves as they go along.

Paperback is a word building card game with both competitive and cooperative options.

We recently tried a game in which we played firefighters trying to rescue a certain number of civilians before they died or the building collapsed. I think it was called Flash Point, but I'm not absolutely certain.

[malnpudl]

My friends and I play Cooperative Scrabble. Scrabble dictionary freely available for reference at any time. No score-counting or score-keeping. If you get three of any letter you can swap one for free (no losing a turn). We show our letter trays to each other and kibbitz or sympathize. It's cool to ask for a spot on the board to be left open if you can make a great play on it; others are not obligated, but will nearly always do as asked. Everyone celebrates anyone making cool words. We have a mascot, a wee turtle figurine named Steve McQueen, who does a lap around the board whenever anyone plays all the tiles. Wine is often involved. Basically it's all about the words -- great for real word-lovers where celebrating and playing with language is the real reward -- and laughing a lot and enjoying good company.

This was actually inspired by a gathering back when I was 18 or so. A bunch of friends and extended family members of all ages (from 7 to 90), sizes, and physical abilities gathered for a picnic and outdoor fun. Softball was proposed, but lots of us who weren't athletically inclined suggested alterations to the rules, and Supportive Softball was born. Everybody got to bat until they hit the ball, with the pitcher doing their best to make it easy to hit. When the batter got a hit, everyone would clap and cheer while the batter ran (or walked, or hobbled, or wheelchaired, or crutched) around the bases. Every single person played, and every single person had a blast. Nobody felt left out or like a failure. It was absolutely grand.

[jesse_the_k]

Thank you for creating a reference for these lovely coop games!

[altamira16]

snoot.org has some cooperative board games. One is cooperative boggle where you play a boggle game, and then it tells you how many words were there in all. If multiple people play a game, you can have a higher percentage right. I can never tell if other people want me to play with them or not, but if they have a board with a lot of words, I will play with them.

They also have a cooperative Scrabble, but some of the cooperative scrabble folks take it too seriously and cheat. And sometimes you end up with a board of Qs and Zs because everyone was saving those letters so someone else could use all the triple letter scores just right, and it never did work out.

[wolby]

Found your post via http://signalboost.dreamwidth.org/

I recommend "Hanabi" (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/98778/hanabi). It's sort of a collaborative solitaire that requires strong logic and memory skills. In short: you hold your cards so everyone except you can see them, and the other players have to give you hints about what they are.

Going to be looking into these others!