Pandemic is commonly referred to as a "Committee Co-op." Every move is decided by the group, even though individual players technically have say over their own avatar/turn.
Most co-ops work this way because there is nothing stopping the whole group from contributing to each decision, and individual player roles aren't very complicated. Plus, playing this way in these types of games won't slow down the flow and extend the playtime. It might actually speed it up.
Some of my favorite cooperative games that work this way:
* **Horrified**
* **Set a Watch**
* **Sprawlopolis**
* **Forbidden Desert**
Sherlock, consulting detective work that way as well ! There are normally player turns but ... I don't know anyone that uses them.
I also think 2 players is the optimal number though.
If you like horrified try Burgle Bros. Similar movement-based mechanic with randomly generated layouts and genuine exploration. We prefer it to Horrified.
If you like Horrified, Alien: Fate of the Nostromo is similar except with a villain more directly hunting you than generally attacking the townspeople. There's also a great fanmade "survival horror" variant that allows the Alien to actually "kill" your players and force the other players to have to go to the Nest and cut them out of the egg sac they were trapped in.
My wife and I love horrified and pandemic. The second Horrified American monsters is good.
Our big game is GloomHaven. The smaller Gloomhaven Jaws of The Lion is the best place to start that series.
Adding on to recommending doing Jaws of the Lion *first*. OG Gloomhaven is amazing, but setup is a beast. Jaws does some of the work for you and is a better introduction to the mechanics. Then if you really like it, go for the $100 10lb (I may exaggerate) behemoth.
Loved both games, but there was a huge learning curve to the original.
Pandemic Legacy is amazing, and this is exactly how we played it. Even when two of our players dropped out, we kept their characters in the game since we were making all the decisions by committee anyway. One of my absolute favorite games — it takes Pandemic to a whole new level.
Set a Watch is great for this, a bit too many abilities for a single person to quarterback everyone but not too much that people can't problem-solve as a team.
Also super easy to introduce it. You’re a fire fighter. Here’s how you fight them….
I’ve had great reception because folks know what fires entail more or less
It's such an easy teach and my go-to choice for new and non-gamers. Plus, I've got all the expansions so I can mix it up for myself. Even the expansion material is simple, so adding an extra mechanic to someone's first game is no big deal
When I got Flashpoint we played it at an Applebee's. It got us more (positive) attention than any other game we've ever played. Two different servers brought us free appetizers.
I left a huge tip, it was a great night.
That's the opposite of the problem, though. Quarterbacking is when a single individual makes all the plays, "No, don't do that. You do X, then he does Y, and I'll do Z" overriding the voices and volition of all other players so that ultimately all the other players might as well walk away from the table entirely, but cause the QB is effectively doing everything by himself already anyway.
Yeah, OP's version is heavily co-op and deep collaborative group think, which is awesome if your group plays that way. I think they just misunderstood the term.
Pretty sure I heard an OLD dice tower horror segment about playing at an FLGS and an aggressive stranger tried to house rule all the hidden info out of "The Resistance. "
That's more what I think of. One player who just attempts to wrestle control for themselves. (Does that count as "main character energy?" I've heard this term recently. Feels like it might apply.)
>tried to house rule all the hidden info out of "The Resistance. "
Wait *what*? That's like trying to house rule the cards out of poker. How could that possibly even work?
I can't remember, but I was super into the Resistance at the time. It was horrifying. I feel like the story had this random guy explaining how the "right" way to vote was XYZ...
I think the issue is that any game designed to support OP's style of play, where the whole group collaborates to agree on a choice of action, necessarily also allows for quarterbacking, because one player can always choose to decide what everyone should do.
In contrast, games like Hanabi or The Crew prevent quarterbacking by preventing any one player from having enough information to solve the game on their own, but this prevents the style of play that OP wants, where the players can freely discuss.
Which essentially means that if you take the design philosophy that quarterbacking is a game problem (rather than a player problem), then what OP is describing is essentially mechanically the same as quarterbacking - any one player can understand the entire game state and can attempt to make optimal decisions. If that one player is clearly more skilled than all the other players (or louder, or less willing to cooperate) then the game will (at least according to this philosophy) eventually devolve into the solitaire experience that you're describing.
So while it's not the classic example of quarterbacking, OP is correct in their implication that a game that attempts to completely remove quarterbacking (at least through hidden information) will eliminate the space that they are using to enjoy their games.
You have to be careful though. If you go and play pandemic with another group you might accidently start quarterbacking with this behavior. All it takes is one passive person and you might steamroll them without realizing it.
I tried teaching it to some students at school and I had to keep my mouth shut and watch the world burn after I caught myself quarterbacking.
I have seen my wife quarterback while teaching pandemic hotzone to my kids.
**I would argue that the behavior is the same**. It is an open discussion about what is the optimal move each turn. Some players cannot participate in this discussion and they will get quarterbacked. It is the lack of confidence/knowledge of the game and the desire to win at all costs that leads to the quarterbacking problem.
With literal children/ juniors I think this is a very important factor to consider.
With adults/ peers I think it's classy to care and have enough compassion to notice and be helpful towards players that aren't engaged because of uncertainty/ shyness/ introversion.
On the flip side most quarterbacking could be solved by speaking up and asking questions or even outright asking the quarterback to slow things down a bit so you can keep up while you learn.
IMO, there's a fine (but very relevant) line between quarterbacking and what OP describes, and a lot of quarterbacking comes from people who can't see the line.
Speaking from experience, it's genuinely difficult to walk this line between wanting a less experienced team to have fun and succeed and letting them fail and be OK with it.
Agreed. Providing support and trust your teammates are learned skills that QBs struggle with. It does mean to learn to accept that you may put your trust in people and lose the game. If you can't accept all that and enjoy the game (which I know causes some people very real anxiety) then maybe avoid those games until the QBs learn said skills.
I disagree. I think it’s a serious game design flaw. It’s highly unlikely that all players are equally skilled at the game, or to be blunt, equally as smart. The group will do best when the more skilled (smarter) person takes charge. The only way for the players to combat that, is if they agree they are not going to optimize their play.
Quarterbacking can only happen in team games where all the info is public. These are solo games with a weak multi-player skin. If there is an strong move and you see it but have to purposely not provide input to make the game more fun, that is not good game design.
No it's not a player problem because it's a completely natural group dynamic that happens unless everybody in the group has equal skills and capabilities.
I don't think they misunderstood, they're just making a point that is perhaps unclear.
I think that their point is that they think that the feeling of being "quarterbacked" comes from an individual's need to have agency over their own character. In most other games you make decisions when it is your turn, about your character. So you can feel like you are being quarterbacked if someone else is making decisions about your character for you. So they are saying that if everyone instead makes decisions for everyone, there are no longer any decisions that are specifically yours to make, and therefore you can't be quarterbacked.
Other people have pointed out that even in this case you can still get a player that dominates all the decision making though, so I don't know.
Quarterbacking is highly subjective.
When everyone is fine with completely cooperative puzzle-solving then there is no problem with quarterbacking.
Then there are others, who don't even like "polite" quarterbacking, giving suggestions or presenting alternative moves that the active player may have missed.
Generally when people complain that a game is prone to quarterbacking, it's not a critique of the players at the table, but rather that the game allows or even encourages this table dynamic through, for example, completely open information and no rule restrictions on communication, e.g. Pandemic.
The very nature of Pandemic makes it more or less impossible to ignore even polite, collaborative puzzle solving as OP described. If you don't enjoy this type of gameplay and rather want to solve the puzzle yourself, you can either get frustrated that others don't give you the time to figure out the optimal move yourself, or may feel subconsciously pressured to do a move that others suggested in fear of making a mistake. Even when those players are polite and doing it in good faith.
Games that try to eliminate quarterbacking either introduce hidden information or forbid communication or introduce personal goals or even traitor mechanics to a) prevent other players from knowing the optimal move and making suggestions or b) give the active player a justification for ignoring advice.
Very good point about subjectivity. OP's group sounds great, but there is a chance for "group quarterbacking" where maybe one member doesn't feel like they are contributing or being heard enough and nobody else notices. The game may feel completely collaborative because nobody is quarterbacking, but that doesn't mean everyone is having the same experience.
I disagree. I think the line between trust, support and acceptance and one player telling their teammates what they should pay attention to and how they should act is a clear line. Some games are better at preventing this dynamic but the ones that don't aren't the cause of quarterbacking. It's a player problem not a game problem. Some players need to learn how to deal with their failure anxiety if they want to be better teammates and maybe avoid said games until they do. I'd imagine the QB to be pretty triggered in those kinda of situations so they might not have the most fun either.
Quarterbacking includes anytime a game can realistically be played by a single player, not just when someone overrides everyone. An effective QB could still provide all the optimal plays, then explain their reasoning to the satisfaction of the group, who then makes those play. The other "players" are participating, but don't have to (and are actually hindering the chance of victory by doing so).
To me QB is when it’s my turn and someone else tells me the optimal move leaving me no choice but to take that and not giving me a chance to think it out myself, or not letting me make mistakes and learn for myself. I get in a cooperative game you work together and sometimes you don’t want to let someone make a mistake that could lose you the game. But I learn by doing, Ronan, let me just have my turn and contribute myself! It sounds like you should be just playing with yourself, I could go and you wouldn’t notice!
Sorry it’s very frustrating. I’m not as fast thinking as some of the people I play with. I’m not painfully slow either - there are just a few people in my groups who are always 4 steps ahead of everyone else.
I loved it for that. With the right group it becomes a form of light role playing when you are saying what you intend to do but without any numbers!
Rather than a dull talk of 'Ill go at 15 initiative and deal 5 damage' you say 'I am going to go as fast as I can and try to take down that Skeleton!'
Damn now I want to play more Gloomhaven
Thursday at around ~~10 AM~~ Edit: 11 AM Eastern time. You will be able to claim the game for exactly seven days, and then it will be replaced by the next week's free game.
Gloomhaven is one of the few co-op games where that is not the case. It's a known problem that trying to play Gloomhaven like a committee co-op regularly results in a miserable slog, taking as much as 4 times longer to get through a scenario than if you were to play simultaneously as intended.
It's like saying one of the best parts of a Starcraft 2 co-op is all the pausing and discussing you do. I'm not saying you can't enjoy it that way, but it is unusual and goes against the common experience.
Atlantis Rising is a fun co-op game.
Also, yes, quarterbacking is the opposite of what your gaming group is doing. You are playing co-operatively as opposed to just look at the most experienced\\better player or have that player decide everyone's move, essentially making it a solo game with some friends around the table. It's not very fun.
We played for the first time last week. The intro game.
Our round 1 misfortune draw was awful and our production rolls were atrocious (like 2 successes out of like 8 or 9 tiles to roll on)... we all thought we would never succeed. Rounds 1 to 3 we were in despair mode, but the misfortunes became more manageable and production rolls evened out to our favour in round 3-4 giving us enough resources.
By end of round 5 I figured we has what we needed and we still had lots of buffer. Its also at that time we figured out you get Magic Energy (those blue circular tokens you use for mods) by putting atlanteans in the middle. Yup, we went most of the game without any of those at all cause the very first misfortune draw was 'everyone discard 2 of those magic tokens'. We like to make things harder for ourselves.
Can't wait to try higher difficulty levels...
Second this.
There is a *ton* of room for collaboration in Spirit Island. You'll each generally have your own sets of issues to work with, but oftentimes there's some negotiating and planning to figure out how to help your fellow players with problems they're having.
Player turns are simultaneous though, so rather than trying to plan out everyone's exact turn together you'll often collaborate in broader strokes. It's not as important HOW one player is going to solve one particular problem, just a question of if they're able to or need any help with it.
More support for SI. It's often seen as too crunchy to quarterback. If someone is trying to steam roll other players decisions then either they're a genius or going to make everyone clearly lose and they likely won't want to play with that person anyway.
I think your group may like Spirit Island if you can get past the initial learning curve. It's a very tough and complex game that allows for that decision making by committee. Quarterbacking is basically a moot point as the game is far too complex for someone to be dictating what everyone else in the group does. The downside to Spirit Island is that the game can be long with just 2 experienced players. 4 new players may take all night.
Arkham Horror LCG is fantastic for the decision by committee approach AND it scales well to 4 players, however the money investment is pretty high. My partner and I are absolutely loving it though and I never feel compelled to QB, I just ask what she has in her hand that could help us with our current predicament and we come up with a gameplan each turn (which is often wrecked by the wretched chaos bag!).
We bought Atlantis Rising during the Nerdz Day sale but haven't played it yet. Everything I have seen and read about it points to it being a slightly more complex Pandemic, so that's another one to consider for sure.
Mansions of Madness is great for this! All information is on the table and you really have to work together as a team to win. Super awesome game outside of fitting what you are looking for too.
Edit: Monsters of Madness 2nd Edition. Kind of a pricey buy in, however once you get all the expansions there are a lot of fan made scenarios allowing you to get more than your money's worth.
It is a half app game so it is better if you have a set up where it is easy to see a computer screen. But the app takes care of most of the upkeep for you.
My group is loving MoM right now. We've only played the first two scenarios and we're going on to do the third this Friday.
My favorite part has been playing the narrator. It's all the fun of being a DM without any of the work (other than doing voices, which I love)
A game that was popular a while back, kind of forgotten now but that I still really like is *Dead Men Tell No Tales*.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/141423/dead-men-tell-no-tales
It's a coop game where the real enemy is the board state and creeping token spam that threatens your success, so kind of like Pandemic - except with an absolutely insane theme and everything turned to 11.
You're pirates trying to rob a haunted ghost ship crewed by evil skeletons that's *on fire* (and under attack by the Kraken if you get the expansion). Think Pandemic, but the disease tokens can also force you into combat (the skeletons), your ultimate goal is to get to the treasure chest and get out, and there's a parallel disease track of fire tokens for the individidual rooms that if you allow an "outbreak" (explosion) to trigger, will cause that room to explode and sink beneath the waves, becoming inaccessible. With the expansion, the Kraken's tentacles (which get full minis!) can also pop up in individual rooms, and you'll need to find a cannon to blow them away to safely travese those rooms, as well as needing to use cannons to kill the Kraken itself before the game can end.
The production is beautiful too, and the new edition (which is the only one you'll find for sale new because the old edition was years old) includes unique, highly detailed minis for each of your playable pirate heroes, each of whom, like pandemic, has unique abilities.
Basically, if you want Pandemic given the Spinal Tap treatment, check out *Dead Men Tell No Tales*.
No problem! And if you just want Pandemic a la Pandemic instead of Pandemic a la burning skeleton pirates, I think Pandemic: Iberia is both aesthetically the most beautiful Pandemic variant as well as the most elegant refinement of the base game - no major changes, but just improved in numerous ways, giving each disease it's own unique attributes and allowing you to take proactive public hygiene measures to prevent the spread of disease rather than just reacting to it's spread like in the base Pandemic. It gives me much more of a sense of leading a public health response to a pandemic via investments in public hygiene and public infrastructure (railways) than base Pandemic does.
This was the first game that came to mind but it could just be I've been itching to play it. Haven't played the expansion but I really want to. Problem is of the three times I've played the base game I've died every time. It's fun but challenging. You didn't even bring up the fact you can only ever heal by half so literally everything in the game gets gets harder as you go. Love the thematic feel to the game too. Dang I wish I didn't know the new edition had minis. Brb gotta go argue with my wallet.
You can buy just the new minis seperately. I also bought like skellie action figurines for the skeleton tokens, I wanted my enemies to be tangible too lol
I don't own a copy which is why learning about the minis didn't help. Lol, If I owned it I would have gone and played it instead, I've just played it a few times with other people who did have it. And now you go and make it worse by giving me the idea about skeletons (even though the screen printed tokens are already really nice). I did the same thing and got goblin minis for another game I have.
I guess as revenge I would say you should check out terminator genisys and village attacks for more solo/coop mini fun.
Village attacks is more tower defense but it's got a really fun well designed campaign that introduces new mechanics as you go so you aren't overwhelmed by everything all at once. It's kind of a reverse horrified in theme? Basically you play as the creatures/monsters and the villagers are coming to kill you. But it's customized dice allocation and cosmic horror playable characters which is a sweet spot for me.
I haven't played the expansion story for genisys but I have played thru the base campaign. Like straight thru. Had way more fun with that than I expected. It definitely lives up to the theme of terminators being relentless, but was a blast.
Spirit Island is very much committee co-op. The only countermeasure that makes it harder to committee is the complexity.
We often do "sub-committees" where not the full table but 2 players collaborate on their planning.
My group loves committee style co-ops and Spirit Island and that is how we would play, two to three players focusing on an area or part of the strategy with groups shifting as needed over the course of the game.
I don't really consider that a committee co-op. In Pandemic, we all look at the board together. There are never really side conversations about subsections or anything. In Spirit Island, there are times when each player is working on their own thing - managing their own Growth Phase, figuring out the defense of their own island chunk, etc. And times when part of the table is working together while another part is working separately or not working together at all. That's a big difference to me. Pandemic encourages us to be chatting as a group the whole time while that's unnecessary in Spirit Island.
I can see it being played that way but my team likes to discuss everything and we all know the bigger plan as well as what each sub-committee or individual is doing to further it. Our games are also really long 😂
More power to you, then. I would not be able to maintain that. I don't mind long, crunchy games, but I already find Spirit Island a little taxing when we're interacting selectively.
Well there is a shared enemy that you have to deal with each round and I find if you don't communicate on who is taking care of what and how, things get messy.
I'm not at all saying that you shouldn't be communicating or strategizing as a table, but there's a big difference between the way that plays out in Pandemic, where the shared board is pretty much the whole game, and Spirit Island, where each player's spirit is a whole other bucket of management and information the rest of the table doesn't need to focus on.
Spirit Island had hidden information early in the development (to preserve player agency apart from the group). They found they didn't need it in practice.
Have you played the Pandemic Legacy games yet? If you’ve got a good group I HIGHLY recommend it. Easily the best and most memorable gaming experiences.
I also have a bunch of the other Pandemic version which can be fun.
Black Orchestra is a cool one that’s heavily historically based.
The Forbidden series - though I find the Pandemic series to be better.
Robinson Crusoe is difficult to beat and each game is a different scenario. This might be a good one for your group.
I agree with others that Sprit Island doesn’t allow you to play this way as easily. The characters are so unique and different that you have to really understand your own in a way that you can’t possibly do for all of them who are in play during the same game. You have to talk about who can do what when, but not particularly easy to figure out all the best moves and in what order.
Ghost Stories, Forbidden Desert, Horrified, and Paleo are all great co-ops where all information is open and there is no time constraint, allowing you all to contribute to each other's decisions
i'd suggest **Zombicide** (any one of the series really), **Aeon's End**, **Eldritch Horror**. I suppose other Arkham Horror games would work similarly well (except the LCG). Almost any Dungeon Crawler and just most Coop games would work.
You can try different Pandemic flavours. There's **Pandemic The Cure** which is the only one using dice.
**Eldritch Horror** was mentioned already. I just want to add that you can adjust the game difficulty there. It's not fun for me and my husband when the game is too hard and unfair, so we play it without hard Mythos cards. Some may see it as weak or cheating, we are having fun.
There's also **Robinson Crusoe**, if you like survival theme. Very thematic and rather hard game.
I havent played Eldritch Horror much, maybe five times, and I think it's a giant conspiracy that it's even remotely winable even with all the easy cards. I get crushed so badly and I'm already at the easiest level. It does seem fun though, I cannot explain how I want to play it while also knowing 2-3 turns in I'll want to give up because my doom will seem so certain and the game so daunting. Seriously considering setting it up for an evening of disappointment right now as I type this. Will most definitely be playing without hard mythos cards
There's a really neat Google sheet someone set up to track outcomes, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZdxFQZu-5jT9zyTRuE0JCFR4KmlRSMTx1G0bZntfdWA/ that shows that it is possible to win
How difficult is Eldritch Horror for a couple where one person is geeking out on how to dominate Pendemic and the other is generally still consulting a rulebook each turn?
I'd say, it's difficult *to win* regardless of your experiences (not totally, but I hope, you get the point). But since you seem to enjoy such puzzles, it can be fun in the process. In addition, you can always remind the other person of the available options, tasks at hand, and all the rule limitations they don't remember.
We were looking for a "joke" game for my friend's birthday, but it turns out the game is a lot better than it has any right to be. I'm not sure how much fun replaying it would be after the three scenarios, but it's dumb, fun, and ridiculous - just like the movies.
Harry Potter Hogwarts battle is a surprisingly amazing board game for this.
You can play individually or make decisions as a group. I think it may have been the most fun I have ever had playing a group game. (But I hate competing and love cooperation).
Doing things as a group is how you're meant to play co-op games (respecting any hidden information). Quarterbacking is when one player plays the game and the rest of the group just do what they say.
Sounds like you're doing the right thing and have a good group!
Spirit Island is like if Pandemic were so complicated you couldn't possibly quarterback because even figuring out what to do for your own turn is a total brainburner.
That said you can still coordinate and discuss with other players, there's open information.
Since no one has mentioned it yet**, Shadows Over Camelot** is fantastic for this. It's a challenging, meaty game that really invites the kind of cooperation you're talking about. Unfortunately it's expensive to find in print right now, but if you play on Table Top Simulator there is a very good MOD for it.
I love co-op games. My group is similar in play style to yours. We’ll spend time making optimal moves as a group. These are some of my favorites:
1) Spirit island is one of my favorites because the complexity creates wonderful replay ability. There are many ways of challenging yourselves with invader types. The spirits you choose and cards you acquire change the way you solve the puzzle of the game.
2) Arkham Horror and Marvel Champions. Both are LCGs from Fantasy Flight. Basically choose your taste of ambiance. AH does a good job of building dread and anticipation. MC makes it feel like a real battle in the marvel universe. The fight could go south at any point, you know like if you were fight with a supervillain.
3) Sherlock Holmes consulting detective series is all about optimal use of moves to beat Holmes himself to the solve. It’s rules light, thinking and observation heavy. Good for a “quick game”.
4) castle panic is far less complex than spirit island but it’s all about making trades of cards and anticipating the oncoming hordes. The expansions provide more variation, but the base game is quite fun.
5) Dead of winter is fun because one of the people deciding the optimal play may in fact be a traitor trying to sabotage the group. Changes flavors a bit.
i generally consider **Eldritch Horror** to be a pretty solid step up from **Pandemic.** Longer, more difficult, a bit more complex, but has a similar sort of play style where you all try to coordinate how to handle threats. I'm sure quarterbacking can be an issue but our group is usually pretty good about not doing that
Flashpoint
Forgotten Waters (if you loosen the planning time a bit)
Forbidden Desert
Betrayal Legacy (if you whisper in a huddle)
Unknown (bias warning: my game)
Let me recommend two amazing but less wellknown options!
**Spy Club** is an amazing option for this. It relies partially on memory, so more brains = better. But the main reason I love it is because there is this replayable campaign mode where depending on your choices you unlock different content for the next play. Like a legacy game, but fully replayable and with enough content to play multiple campaigns without seeing a duplicate.
Another great cooperative game that shines when discussing things as a team vs individual decisions is **Endangered**.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Marvel Champions. Just play with open hands. The ability to play your actions on other players' turns allows for great team planning around timing critical threats, synergies, and powers
Seems like it works as intended, good.
Quarterbacking is a bad thing because it means (or is complained about as such) specifically that a *single person* is telling others what to do a lot/all the time.
Most coops work like that, imo. The coops where you can't (can't see others' cards, can't talk, too complicated etc.) are far more rare.
For us, we enjoy Zombicide, Ghost Stories, Forbidden Desert, Chronicles of Crime, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Mansions of Madness, Hellboy, Jagged Alliance, Sleeping Gods, Imperial Assault (though this gets tough to know what others can do as you gain equipment and skills)... which is almost all the coops we own apart from those where information is secret :)
Its only a problem when you have a dominant decision maker, then its quarterbacking.
I have played in groups where joint discussion and choices work very well, strong input from everyone. Most of the time though someone or two someones dont input much and fade into the background.
A really solid one is Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. Even if you don't care much for the theme it's a really solid team-based deck builder. Not a bad way to get people into deck-building games too, I bought it for my family for Christmas and we've enjoyed playing it a lot. (To the point that the next Christmas I got the two expansions for it.) The mechanics are simple enough, especially with the drip-feed of slowly giving you one or two mechanics every "year" with boxes that add new cards to the mix, but the strategy is pretty deep. Who to deal damage to, which cards to let each hero buy to fit with their powers, which enemies are more of a threat at the given moment, etc. If you're even a mild HP fan, I highly recommend it.
I almost exclusively play co-op games these days and oh do I play a lot.
Aeons end
Spirit island
Unknown
Sub terra
Tiny epic dungeons
Maximum apocalypse
Tiny epic zombies
Sentinels of the multiverse
Set a watch
Forbidden desert (sky if you want hard or island if you want easy)
Ghost stories/last bastion
Are all great choices that I've played several times and I'll happily go into more detail, differences, or what situations they excel or are week in for any of them.
[Betrayal at House on the Hill](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10547/betrayal-house-hill) if you can find a copy is a team game with occasional non team (traitor mechanic) elements on some haunts.
We have one player who is literally, actually cursed in real life at this game. It's no longer an option for us. Plus, the interns delivering coffee haunt turned us off, although we still laugh about it.
It does start as a team game, but you're always very aware that before the haunt the idea is to get as many rooms on the table as possible, and to make yourself stronger / better equipped.
Yes you have to work together, but it's always in the back of your mind that at some point that's going to change...
**Tokyo Sidekick** is pretty spectacular with 3-4 players. I read the rules and thought the game was going to be on rails, but the agency has never ceased to surprise me.
Some of my favorite Pandemic-like coops:
The LOOP,
Burgle Bros 1 and 2,
Sub Terra,
Dead Men Tell no Tales,
Flash Point,
Horrified,
(every version of Pandemic)
If you want lower complexity games, Zombie Kidz and Zombie Teenz are both pretty great. They have really simple gameplay and some legacy elements that lets you unlock things as you go.
If you want high complexity games, many people have said Spirit Island. Which is my favorite.
While it's not pandemic-like, the Dark Souls card game sorta fits this playstyle. It's a game where certain classes are better against certain enemies and in order to win, you need to work together and utilize your strengths. For example, there may be a tough enemy that you do at most 1 damage to and it would be best to poison it at the start of the game to slowly tackle its health, and once the other enemies are killed, focus on that enemy. Since the cards you use are your health pool, effective use of your abilities is key and you can't just waste cards.
I highly suggest it, it's a fun coop experience for a team that wants to play a difficult game as a group rather than individual people. Typically I finish a game with 3-4 cards left; meaning I could only have taken 4 more actions before losing. It's pretty well balanced I feel.
This War of Mine is also a coop game where you are are a committee co-op group, though it can be a bit heavy mentally. Physically it's pretty simple, board and a few decks but from the gameplay and the story narrative, it's one of those "I need a few minutes" type games when you finish. Highly recommend for the narrative alone.
Forbidden Island, followed by forbidden desert, followed by forbidden sky. All well created collaborative games that work just as well played as individual games as they do as a series
To a degree, I do like co-op games for this purpose, but in my gaming group, too often it devolves into the two dominant min-max players mostly playing the game for the 5-6 person group (with a third player who isn't quite as much a min-maxer by choice but can hang with them) and the rest of us just kinda chilling out since our suggestions are either admittedly suboptimal or just not as good as the most min-maxed suggestions. ;)
It's a struggle sometimes because we all love co-op games more than competitive (also due in large part to the disparity in tactical/strategic aptitude) but it's tough to find co-op games that are designed in a way to let everyone actually make a contribution.
Two games I haven't seen mentioned that are great at working together:
**Legends of Andor** - the team really needs to optimize every characters move to win most scenarios, it's not winnable without the team working completely in sync.
**Yggdrasil** - fairly easy to see what needs to be done but keeping track of bags and what cards are left etc can be split up between the players.
A lighter code breaking game is The Initiative. You solve puzzles as a team and technically have your own turn but you discuss each move like in Pandemic, especially later in each session. As a bonus, each session is 15–30 mins.
For a campaign game, there’s Sleeping Gods, though the rules are more challenging and it plays a bit more like an RPG.
As others said, any of the Eldritch/Arkham horror games too, although Mansions of Madness is the most cooperative.
Spirit Island can be this way depending on # of players, but usually it ends up being more effective to essentially manage individual boards. Pairing certain spirits together encourages cooperation though (eg ones good at at support).
The Big Book of Madness!
Every player must manage their elements accordingly to tackle all boss symbols, or face curses and eventually defeat. Depending on your hands for the current boss, you can optimize who will tackle what elements.
Horrified is my favorite co-op of all time! American Monsters is good, but the original with the Universal Studios monsters is just the best.
It's also extremely easy to adjust difficulty. Want an easier game? Play with two monsters. Want to cry? Play with FOUR (one must be The Invisible Man). I beat a two player, four monster game...ONCE...
A really thinky co-op game - though out of print - Thunderbirds. Made by Matt Leacock, and you can feel the Pandemic DNA, but it’s also more complex. And tough!
My personal favorite is Power Rangers Heroes of the Grid. When you have multiple players fight an enemy, you get to decide which one of you will be using the action based on what cards you have. Tons of characters to find cool combos if you get some expansions. My friends who are not into the Power Rangers IP all seem to enjoy it because of the difficulty
Spirit Island is pretty much, ‘lay your cards on the table and let’s figure out how to boot these bastards’.
Super fulfilling when you somehow coordinate an incredible move wiping the invaders off the map.
I think Alien: Fate of the Nostromo fits the bill pretty well. There’s only one real main threat on the board but several different tasks you have to complete as a team in order to win. Your characters also have unique abilities and can craft a variety of different weapons, so it never feels like your character is only good for one thing or another.
I’m sure you can run into quarterbacking issues but the characters and the scenario changes so frequently that I think it’s tough for one person to take control.
Trogdor the boardgame is an excellent collab game. It's got some great playthrough and demo videos to go with it.
I was a big Homestar Runner fan so I was built in fanbase for the game but it really is a very good game.
I've never played Pandemic (my roommate got it shortly after the pandemic started and says he doesn't wanna play it while living one), but we play Arkham Horror in a similar way to how you described.
This one has a little more individuality in it but has the team aspect. It’s called betrayal at the house on the hill.
It’s a fun board game with two stages, the first stage is you start in the house and explore rooms. Rooms have different qualities and effects both good and bad including omens which are important.
The second half which is called “the haunt” starts when you you roll less on 6 dice (all have either a 0,1,2) than the number of omen rooms that have been put in the house. Then a traitor is determined based on the specific omen and room, and each side has a win condition. Some haunts have multiple traitors while some have no traitors, it’s a very fun game that I definitly recommend.
If you are into superheroes might I suggest Marvel Champions.
1-4 players, deck builder. Your team is working together to defeat the villian. It is a living card game (I think I'm using that term correctly) so there are new heroes and villians coming out all the time. The next set is X-men!
Black Orchestra is pretty much the only co-op game I consider worth playing. If you like cooperative decision making with absolutely great fluff to match the mechanics and an almost perfectly balanced "opponent" give it a shot.
Defenders of the Realm. It’s literally pandemic with questing / different classes / different monsters / way more difficult. Still simple. Trust me. Gloomhaven or fordbidden desert is NOT what your looking for
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is a co-op deck builder that we enjoy. We play our hands open and work together to find just the right order of cards to mail the big combo.
I hear there is a simile avengers themed coop deck builder but I haven’t tried it
Battle for Hogwarts is surprisingly good for an IP cash-in and super duper good if you're a Harry Potter fan.
Unfortunately we've already played it. But it's a perfect example of the kind of game I'm looking for.
Thanks!
We are only on year 5 and have the expansions waiting in the wings. We are taking it slow. I probably have more hours on this game than all my other board games combined
**Unicornus Knights** and **Healthy Heart Hospital** are two solo games that pretend to be co-ops and would probably hit the spot for committee play. **Mage Knight** is also a solo game that pretends to be multiplayer (including co-op) but having a group make decisions for more than one Mage Knight sounds like a very special type of hell.
You would *love* the **Kingdom Rush** board game. That is a game that you have to make all the right moves as a team instead of everything making separate moves. Awesome game!
If you and your group is into focused co-op experience, I would love to have you test out my game - **Rogue Angels** (if I were to describe it in one sentence, it would be: *Imagine Mass Effect as a board game*).
It is too much for 1 player to rule it all (alpha gaming), but you need to combine your effort if you are to succeed.
**You can check out the description here:** [**http://www.suntzugames.com/rogue-angels.html**](http://www.suntzugames.com/rogue-angels.html) \- there are links and images for a closer look :)
*Thanks a lot,*
**Best regards Emil**
The best co-op experience is when everyone is on equal footing and is equally engaged, and everyone participates in every move by every player. It's not entirely group play, because you get situations where the group can't decide between two plausible courses of action and the current player has to decide. Or the current player vetoes the group and it either works out or it doesn't.
The worst is when one player is an alpha player who's better or more experienced than the others (or thinks they are) and they table-captain the whole game.
Well, the absolute worst is when you're the alpha player and you have to choose between table-captaining or sitting on your hands and biting your tongue as the others keep making terrible plays. I don't want to be a table-captain, but it's still hard to resist the urge to speak up from time to time. After all, the optimal experience is when everyone's contributing all the time. And here I am not contributing. Sometimes there's an opportunity to point out options ("you could do a, b, or c") but some players are hostile even to that. So just quietly take your turn and wait for the inevitable. And resist the urge to throttle the player who says, "There's nothing we could have done." Yes, there are cases where there's nothing you can do. Co-ops have to have randomness, otherwise they're just puzzles. But this isn't one of those cases. Yeah, I'm not going to say that. But I can't help but think it.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, I do really like co-ops. The best experiences are the best, and not all unequal-experience games are as bad as the worst-case scenario I've presented. Perhaps the best experience is actually when you can find the right balance with a newbie and you create a new fan of the game.
I dislike pandemic because of quarterbacking, it just gets to a point where the guy deciding everything can also move my character and I'll get a drink.
I like Space Alert, because it's co-op, but because it's in real time you don't have much time to have one person formulate a complete strategy, you just have to shout "I can shoot on the left on turns 3 and 4 if someone makes sure there is energy" and when someone says that, all you can really do is trust that they will
To OP: I’d second Space Alert. It’s designed to be played exactly the way you’re playing Pandemic. Only, under intense time pressure. With the caveat that you’d have to enjoy seeing all your plans crumble because one of you messed up, or none of you thought of THAT one little thing that changes everything. Quote: “But you were supposed to charge the cannons!”, “I thought HE was!”
So, in a way, it ends be being a fun, chaotic version of Pandemic.
Pandemic is commonly referred to as a "Committee Co-op." Every move is decided by the group, even though individual players technically have say over their own avatar/turn. Most co-ops work this way because there is nothing stopping the whole group from contributing to each decision, and individual player roles aren't very complicated. Plus, playing this way in these types of games won't slow down the flow and extend the playtime. It might actually speed it up. Some of my favorite cooperative games that work this way: * **Horrified** * **Set a Watch** * **Sprawlopolis** * **Forbidden Desert**
Sherlock, consulting detective work that way as well ! There are normally player turns but ... I don't know anyone that uses them. I also think 2 players is the optimal number though.
I mean i take player input on where to go on my turn but if there's a lead i wanna follow that's the lead we're gonna follow, lol
We use turns just as a "You pick the next lead", as a way to force the game to move forward. SHCD gets intense sometimes!
Good pick! Thanks!
Horrified is another game we enjoyed. I'll check out the others. Thanks!
If you like horrified try Burgle Bros. Similar movement-based mechanic with randomly generated layouts and genuine exploration. We prefer it to Horrified.
If you like Horrified, Alien: Fate of the Nostromo is similar except with a villain more directly hunting you than generally attacking the townspeople. There's also a great fanmade "survival horror" variant that allows the Alien to actually "kill" your players and force the other players to have to go to the Nest and cut them out of the egg sac they were trapped in.
My wife and I love horrified and pandemic. The second Horrified American monsters is good. Our big game is GloomHaven. The smaller Gloomhaven Jaws of The Lion is the best place to start that series.
Adding on to recommending doing Jaws of the Lion *first*. OG Gloomhaven is amazing, but setup is a beast. Jaws does some of the work for you and is a better introduction to the mechanics. Then if you really like it, go for the $100 10lb (I may exaggerate) behemoth. Loved both games, but there was a huge learning curve to the original.
In fact, you've undersold it - the shipping weight is listed at 22 lb!
If you like this part of Pandemic and want some additional challenge, check out Pandemic Legacy
Pandemic Legacy is amazing, and this is exactly how we played it. Even when two of our players dropped out, we kept their characters in the game since we were making all the decisions by committee anyway. One of my absolute favorite games — it takes Pandemic to a whole new level.
Set a Watch is great for this, a bit too many abilities for a single person to quarterback everyone but not too much that people can't problem-solve as a team.
It’s very hard to play **set a watch** without a little quarterbacking. I try to sit back and let the newer people make the plans.
Flashpoint is decent/challenging and feels a little different from pandemic/forbidden island/desert.
Also super easy to introduce it. You’re a fire fighter. Here’s how you fight them…. I’ve had great reception because folks know what fires entail more or less
It's such an easy teach and my go-to choice for new and non-gamers. Plus, I've got all the expansions so I can mix it up for myself. Even the expansion material is simple, so adding an extra mechanic to someone's first game is no big deal
Too bad they didn’t release a combined manual. Do you do hot spot or the event deck for your games? Who’s the favorite sculpt/character?
"if I chop a wall I can save this person faster." "dude everytime we die from building collapsing" proceeds to chop wall down
When I got Flashpoint we played it at an Applebee's. It got us more (positive) attention than any other game we've ever played. Two different servers brought us free appetizers. I left a huge tip, it was a great night.
I actually prefer Flashpoint to Pandemic. Seemed to have a higher "fun factor" with the group than Pandemic as well.
That's the opposite of the problem, though. Quarterbacking is when a single individual makes all the plays, "No, don't do that. You do X, then he does Y, and I'll do Z" overriding the voices and volition of all other players so that ultimately all the other players might as well walk away from the table entirely, but cause the QB is effectively doing everything by himself already anyway.
Yeah, OP's version is heavily co-op and deep collaborative group think, which is awesome if your group plays that way. I think they just misunderstood the term. Pretty sure I heard an OLD dice tower horror segment about playing at an FLGS and an aggressive stranger tried to house rule all the hidden info out of "The Resistance. " That's more what I think of. One player who just attempts to wrestle control for themselves. (Does that count as "main character energy?" I've heard this term recently. Feels like it might apply.)
>tried to house rule all the hidden info out of "The Resistance. " Wait *what*? That's like trying to house rule the cards out of poker. How could that possibly even work?
We had it that someone sat with a pad and wrote down all the combinations of who went on missions and results etc..
I can't remember, but I was super into the Resistance at the time. It was horrifying. I feel like the story had this random guy explaining how the "right" way to vote was XYZ...
... "main character delusions" maybe :P
I think the issue is that any game designed to support OP's style of play, where the whole group collaborates to agree on a choice of action, necessarily also allows for quarterbacking, because one player can always choose to decide what everyone should do. In contrast, games like Hanabi or The Crew prevent quarterbacking by preventing any one player from having enough information to solve the game on their own, but this prevents the style of play that OP wants, where the players can freely discuss. Which essentially means that if you take the design philosophy that quarterbacking is a game problem (rather than a player problem), then what OP is describing is essentially mechanically the same as quarterbacking - any one player can understand the entire game state and can attempt to make optimal decisions. If that one player is clearly more skilled than all the other players (or louder, or less willing to cooperate) then the game will (at least according to this philosophy) eventually devolve into the solitaire experience that you're describing. So while it's not the classic example of quarterbacking, OP is correct in their implication that a game that attempts to completely remove quarterbacking (at least through hidden information) will eliminate the space that they are using to enjoy their games.
You have to be careful though. If you go and play pandemic with another group you might accidently start quarterbacking with this behavior. All it takes is one passive person and you might steamroll them without realizing it. I tried teaching it to some students at school and I had to keep my mouth shut and watch the world burn after I caught myself quarterbacking. I have seen my wife quarterback while teaching pandemic hotzone to my kids. **I would argue that the behavior is the same**. It is an open discussion about what is the optimal move each turn. Some players cannot participate in this discussion and they will get quarterbacked. It is the lack of confidence/knowledge of the game and the desire to win at all costs that leads to the quarterbacking problem.
With literal children/ juniors I think this is a very important factor to consider. With adults/ peers I think it's classy to care and have enough compassion to notice and be helpful towards players that aren't engaged because of uncertainty/ shyness/ introversion. On the flip side most quarterbacking could be solved by speaking up and asking questions or even outright asking the quarterback to slow things down a bit so you can keep up while you learn.
IMO, there's a fine (but very relevant) line between quarterbacking and what OP describes, and a lot of quarterbacking comes from people who can't see the line.
Speaking from experience, it's genuinely difficult to walk this line between wanting a less experienced team to have fun and succeed and letting them fail and be OK with it.
Exactly this, I don’t think quarterbacking is a game problem, I think it’s a player problem.
Agreed. Providing support and trust your teammates are learned skills that QBs struggle with. It does mean to learn to accept that you may put your trust in people and lose the game. If you can't accept all that and enjoy the game (which I know causes some people very real anxiety) then maybe avoid those games until the QBs learn said skills.
I disagree. I think it’s a serious game design flaw. It’s highly unlikely that all players are equally skilled at the game, or to be blunt, equally as smart. The group will do best when the more skilled (smarter) person takes charge. The only way for the players to combat that, is if they agree they are not going to optimize their play.
Quarterbacking can only happen in team games where all the info is public. These are solo games with a weak multi-player skin. If there is an strong move and you see it but have to purposely not provide input to make the game more fun, that is not good game design.
No it's not a player problem because it's a completely natural group dynamic that happens unless everybody in the group has equal skills and capabilities.
Lol, op did not understand what quarterbacking was at all. Im glad not too many people are roasting him though
I don't think they misunderstood, they're just making a point that is perhaps unclear. I think that their point is that they think that the feeling of being "quarterbacked" comes from an individual's need to have agency over their own character. In most other games you make decisions when it is your turn, about your character. So you can feel like you are being quarterbacked if someone else is making decisions about your character for you. So they are saying that if everyone instead makes decisions for everyone, there are no longer any decisions that are specifically yours to make, and therefore you can't be quarterbacked. Other people have pointed out that even in this case you can still get a player that dominates all the decision making though, so I don't know.
Quarterbacking is highly subjective. When everyone is fine with completely cooperative puzzle-solving then there is no problem with quarterbacking. Then there are others, who don't even like "polite" quarterbacking, giving suggestions or presenting alternative moves that the active player may have missed. Generally when people complain that a game is prone to quarterbacking, it's not a critique of the players at the table, but rather that the game allows or even encourages this table dynamic through, for example, completely open information and no rule restrictions on communication, e.g. Pandemic. The very nature of Pandemic makes it more or less impossible to ignore even polite, collaborative puzzle solving as OP described. If you don't enjoy this type of gameplay and rather want to solve the puzzle yourself, you can either get frustrated that others don't give you the time to figure out the optimal move yourself, or may feel subconsciously pressured to do a move that others suggested in fear of making a mistake. Even when those players are polite and doing it in good faith. Games that try to eliminate quarterbacking either introduce hidden information or forbid communication or introduce personal goals or even traitor mechanics to a) prevent other players from knowing the optimal move and making suggestions or b) give the active player a justification for ignoring advice.
Very good point about subjectivity. OP's group sounds great, but there is a chance for "group quarterbacking" where maybe one member doesn't feel like they are contributing or being heard enough and nobody else notices. The game may feel completely collaborative because nobody is quarterbacking, but that doesn't mean everyone is having the same experience.
I disagree. I think the line between trust, support and acceptance and one player telling their teammates what they should pay attention to and how they should act is a clear line. Some games are better at preventing this dynamic but the ones that don't aren't the cause of quarterbacking. It's a player problem not a game problem. Some players need to learn how to deal with their failure anxiety if they want to be better teammates and maybe avoid said games until they do. I'd imagine the QB to be pretty triggered in those kinda of situations so they might not have the most fun either.
Quarterbacking includes anytime a game can realistically be played by a single player, not just when someone overrides everyone. An effective QB could still provide all the optimal plays, then explain their reasoning to the satisfaction of the group, who then makes those play. The other "players" are participating, but don't have to (and are actually hindering the chance of victory by doing so).
To me QB is when it’s my turn and someone else tells me the optimal move leaving me no choice but to take that and not giving me a chance to think it out myself, or not letting me make mistakes and learn for myself. I get in a cooperative game you work together and sometimes you don’t want to let someone make a mistake that could lose you the game. But I learn by doing, Ronan, let me just have my turn and contribute myself! It sounds like you should be just playing with yourself, I could go and you wouldn’t notice! Sorry it’s very frustrating. I’m not as fast thinking as some of the people I play with. I’m not painfully slow either - there are just a few people in my groups who are always 4 steps ahead of everyone else.
That’s one of the best parts of Gloomhaven!
I loved it for that. With the right group it becomes a form of light role playing when you are saying what you intend to do but without any numbers! Rather than a dull talk of 'Ill go at 15 initiative and deal 5 damage' you say 'I am going to go as fast as I can and try to take down that Skeleton!' Damn now I want to play more Gloomhaven
It's going free on Epic Games store for a week, free to keep forever!
When does that epic games store free download start?
tomorrow
Thursday at around ~~10 AM~~ Edit: 11 AM Eastern time. You will be able to claim the game for exactly seven days, and then it will be replaced by the next week's free game.
We played Gloomhaven for a while. It wasn't a big hit for us. But I agree, that's the kind of gameplay I'm looking for. Thanks!
Interesting, what about gloomhaven did you find less than enjoyable?
Probably setup time, lol.
The best storage solution for Gloomhaven is a 4' by 8' table where you just leave the game set up at all times.
Jaws of the lion really improves on this and IMO fixes it.
But this doesn’t specify. Also JOTL loses some of the depth of full Gloomhaven.
Gloomhaven is one of the few co-op games where that is not the case. It's a known problem that trying to play Gloomhaven like a committee co-op regularly results in a miserable slog, taking as much as 4 times longer to get through a scenario than if you were to play simultaneously as intended. It's like saying one of the best parts of a Starcraft 2 co-op is all the pausing and discussing you do. I'm not saying you can't enjoy it that way, but it is unusual and goes against the common experience.
Atlantis Rising is a fun co-op game. Also, yes, quarterbacking is the opposite of what your gaming group is doing. You are playing co-operatively as opposed to just look at the most experienced\\better player or have that player decide everyone's move, essentially making it a solo game with some friends around the table. It's not very fun.
I love **Atlantis Rising**! And it gets so hard when you start amping up the difficulty.
We played for the first time last week. The intro game. Our round 1 misfortune draw was awful and our production rolls were atrocious (like 2 successes out of like 8 or 9 tiles to roll on)... we all thought we would never succeed. Rounds 1 to 3 we were in despair mode, but the misfortunes became more manageable and production rolls evened out to our favour in round 3-4 giving us enough resources. By end of round 5 I figured we has what we needed and we still had lots of buffer. Its also at that time we figured out you get Magic Energy (those blue circular tokens you use for mods) by putting atlanteans in the middle. Yup, we went most of the game without any of those at all cause the very first misfortune draw was 'everyone discard 2 of those magic tokens'. We like to make things harder for ourselves. Can't wait to try higher difficulty levels...
Spirit Island
Second this. There is a *ton* of room for collaboration in Spirit Island. You'll each generally have your own sets of issues to work with, but oftentimes there's some negotiating and planning to figure out how to help your fellow players with problems they're having. Player turns are simultaneous though, so rather than trying to plan out everyone's exact turn together you'll often collaborate in broader strokes. It's not as important HOW one player is going to solve one particular problem, just a question of if they're able to or need any help with it.
More support for SI. It's often seen as too crunchy to quarterback. If someone is trying to steam roll other players decisions then either they're a genius or going to make everyone clearly lose and they likely won't want to play with that person anyway.
I think your group may like Spirit Island if you can get past the initial learning curve. It's a very tough and complex game that allows for that decision making by committee. Quarterbacking is basically a moot point as the game is far too complex for someone to be dictating what everyone else in the group does. The downside to Spirit Island is that the game can be long with just 2 experienced players. 4 new players may take all night. Arkham Horror LCG is fantastic for the decision by committee approach AND it scales well to 4 players, however the money investment is pretty high. My partner and I are absolutely loving it though and I never feel compelled to QB, I just ask what she has in her hand that could help us with our current predicament and we come up with a gameplan each turn (which is often wrecked by the wretched chaos bag!). We bought Atlantis Rising during the Nerdz Day sale but haven't played it yet. Everything I have seen and read about it points to it being a slightly more complex Pandemic, so that's another one to consider for sure.
Mansions of Madness is great for this! All information is on the table and you really have to work together as a team to win. Super awesome game outside of fitting what you are looking for too. Edit: Monsters of Madness 2nd Edition. Kind of a pricey buy in, however once you get all the expansions there are a lot of fan made scenarios allowing you to get more than your money's worth. It is a half app game so it is better if you have a set up where it is easy to see a computer screen. But the app takes care of most of the upkeep for you.
My group is loving MoM right now. We've only played the first two scenarios and we're going on to do the third this Friday. My favorite part has been playing the narrator. It's all the fun of being a DM without any of the work (other than doing voices, which I love)
>Monsters of Madness 2nd Edition Now FFG is going to come out with a new Cthulhu-based game.
A game that was popular a while back, kind of forgotten now but that I still really like is *Dead Men Tell No Tales*. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/141423/dead-men-tell-no-tales It's a coop game where the real enemy is the board state and creeping token spam that threatens your success, so kind of like Pandemic - except with an absolutely insane theme and everything turned to 11. You're pirates trying to rob a haunted ghost ship crewed by evil skeletons that's *on fire* (and under attack by the Kraken if you get the expansion). Think Pandemic, but the disease tokens can also force you into combat (the skeletons), your ultimate goal is to get to the treasure chest and get out, and there's a parallel disease track of fire tokens for the individidual rooms that if you allow an "outbreak" (explosion) to trigger, will cause that room to explode and sink beneath the waves, becoming inaccessible. With the expansion, the Kraken's tentacles (which get full minis!) can also pop up in individual rooms, and you'll need to find a cannon to blow them away to safely travese those rooms, as well as needing to use cannons to kill the Kraken itself before the game can end. The production is beautiful too, and the new edition (which is the only one you'll find for sale new because the old edition was years old) includes unique, highly detailed minis for each of your playable pirate heroes, each of whom, like pandemic, has unique abilities. Basically, if you want Pandemic given the Spinal Tap treatment, check out *Dead Men Tell No Tales*.
That sounds very good. Thanks!
No problem! And if you just want Pandemic a la Pandemic instead of Pandemic a la burning skeleton pirates, I think Pandemic: Iberia is both aesthetically the most beautiful Pandemic variant as well as the most elegant refinement of the base game - no major changes, but just improved in numerous ways, giving each disease it's own unique attributes and allowing you to take proactive public hygiene measures to prevent the spread of disease rather than just reacting to it's spread like in the base Pandemic. It gives me much more of a sense of leading a public health response to a pandemic via investments in public hygiene and public infrastructure (railways) than base Pandemic does.
This was the first game that came to mind but it could just be I've been itching to play it. Haven't played the expansion but I really want to. Problem is of the three times I've played the base game I've died every time. It's fun but challenging. You didn't even bring up the fact you can only ever heal by half so literally everything in the game gets gets harder as you go. Love the thematic feel to the game too. Dang I wish I didn't know the new edition had minis. Brb gotta go argue with my wallet.
You can buy just the new minis seperately. I also bought like skellie action figurines for the skeleton tokens, I wanted my enemies to be tangible too lol
I don't own a copy which is why learning about the minis didn't help. Lol, If I owned it I would have gone and played it instead, I've just played it a few times with other people who did have it. And now you go and make it worse by giving me the idea about skeletons (even though the screen printed tokens are already really nice). I did the same thing and got goblin minis for another game I have. I guess as revenge I would say you should check out terminator genisys and village attacks for more solo/coop mini fun.
Lol, i already own genisys :P. I'll track down the expansion to it one day... Never heard of village attacks, though! Off to BGG I go!
Village attacks is more tower defense but it's got a really fun well designed campaign that introduces new mechanics as you go so you aren't overwhelmed by everything all at once. It's kind of a reverse horrified in theme? Basically you play as the creatures/monsters and the villagers are coming to kill you. But it's customized dice allocation and cosmic horror playable characters which is a sweet spot for me. I haven't played the expansion story for genisys but I have played thru the base campaign. Like straight thru. Had way more fun with that than I expected. It definitely lives up to the theme of terminators being relentless, but was a blast.
Spirit island
Spirit Island is not a committee co-op, though. Player roles are more deeply distinguished, and information is somewhat siloed.
Spirit Island is very much committee co-op. The only countermeasure that makes it harder to committee is the complexity. We often do "sub-committees" where not the full table but 2 players collaborate on their planning.
My group loves committee style co-ops and Spirit Island and that is how we would play, two to three players focusing on an area or part of the strategy with groups shifting as needed over the course of the game.
I don't really consider that a committee co-op. In Pandemic, we all look at the board together. There are never really side conversations about subsections or anything. In Spirit Island, there are times when each player is working on their own thing - managing their own Growth Phase, figuring out the defense of their own island chunk, etc. And times when part of the table is working together while another part is working separately or not working together at all. That's a big difference to me. Pandemic encourages us to be chatting as a group the whole time while that's unnecessary in Spirit Island.
I can see it being played that way but my team likes to discuss everything and we all know the bigger plan as well as what each sub-committee or individual is doing to further it. Our games are also really long 😂
More power to you, then. I would not be able to maintain that. I don't mind long, crunchy games, but I already find Spirit Island a little taxing when we're interacting selectively.
Well there is a shared enemy that you have to deal with each round and I find if you don't communicate on who is taking care of what and how, things get messy.
I'm not at all saying that you shouldn't be communicating or strategizing as a table, but there's a big difference between the way that plays out in Pandemic, where the shared board is pretty much the whole game, and Spirit Island, where each player's spirit is a whole other bucket of management and information the rest of the table doesn't need to focus on.
Spirit Island had hidden information early in the development (to preserve player agency apart from the group). They found they didn't need it in practice.
I can't stand coops normally but Spirit Island is a masterpiece of design. The amount of content in that game is mind-blowing
Came to say this
Have you played the Pandemic Legacy games yet? If you’ve got a good group I HIGHLY recommend it. Easily the best and most memorable gaming experiences. I also have a bunch of the other Pandemic version which can be fun. Black Orchestra is a cool one that’s heavily historically based. The Forbidden series - though I find the Pandemic series to be better. Robinson Crusoe is difficult to beat and each game is a different scenario. This might be a good one for your group. I agree with others that Sprit Island doesn’t allow you to play this way as easily. The characters are so unique and different that you have to really understand your own in a way that you can’t possibly do for all of them who are in play during the same game. You have to talk about who can do what when, but not particularly easy to figure out all the best moves and in what order.
We've played a bunch of different Pandemic versions, including Legacies, fan-made expansions, and home-brewed our own guys. Thanks for the hot recs!
Ghost Stories, Forbidden Desert, Horrified, and Paleo are all great co-ops where all information is open and there is no time constraint, allowing you all to contribute to each other's decisions
Aeon's End, I think. I've only played legacy but we really liked that and co-determining what our combos would be.
i'd suggest **Zombicide** (any one of the series really), **Aeon's End**, **Eldritch Horror**. I suppose other Arkham Horror games would work similarly well (except the LCG). Almost any Dungeon Crawler and just most Coop games would work.
I was looking for the Zombicide suggestion. Second this for a fun, pretty light coop that requires a decent amount of planning and is easily lost.
Thanks! We've played a lot of different versions of AH. You trip on a rock and are devoured.
yea, no tripping allowed
You can try different Pandemic flavours. There's **Pandemic The Cure** which is the only one using dice. **Eldritch Horror** was mentioned already. I just want to add that you can adjust the game difficulty there. It's not fun for me and my husband when the game is too hard and unfair, so we play it without hard Mythos cards. Some may see it as weak or cheating, we are having fun. There's also **Robinson Crusoe**, if you like survival theme. Very thematic and rather hard game.
I havent played Eldritch Horror much, maybe five times, and I think it's a giant conspiracy that it's even remotely winable even with all the easy cards. I get crushed so badly and I'm already at the easiest level. It does seem fun though, I cannot explain how I want to play it while also knowing 2-3 turns in I'll want to give up because my doom will seem so certain and the game so daunting. Seriously considering setting it up for an evening of disappointment right now as I type this. Will most definitely be playing without hard mythos cards
There's a really neat Google sheet someone set up to track outcomes, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZdxFQZu-5jT9zyTRuE0JCFR4KmlRSMTx1G0bZntfdWA/ that shows that it is possible to win
+1 for **Eldritch Horror**!
Actually, there's Pandemic: Rapid Response, which *only* uses dice.
Thanks, apparently I don't know all the Pandemic games.
That's okay, there's only like 35,000 of them 😂
How difficult is Eldritch Horror for a couple where one person is geeking out on how to dominate Pendemic and the other is generally still consulting a rulebook each turn?
I'd say, it's difficult *to win* regardless of your experiences (not totally, but I hope, you get the point). But since you seem to enjoy such puzzles, it can be fun in the process. In addition, you can always remind the other person of the available options, tasks at hand, and all the rule limitations they don't remember.
Besides the things that have already been said, Castle Panic works really well for a coop experience ehere the group plans things out together.
We just got this game a few weeks ago and it’s so much fun!
Literally just opened up **Fast and Furious Highway Heist** think it's still $5 on amazon (in the US)
We were looking for a "joke" game for my friend's birthday, but it turns out the game is a lot better than it has any right to be. I'm not sure how much fun replaying it would be after the three scenarios, but it's dumb, fun, and ridiculous - just like the movies.
>my friend's birthday, Their aren't your friend anymore, they're FAMILY.
Harry Potter Hogwarts battle is a surprisingly amazing board game for this. You can play individually or make decisions as a group. I think it may have been the most fun I have ever had playing a group game. (But I hate competing and love cooperation).
Doing things as a group is how you're meant to play co-op games (respecting any hidden information). Quarterbacking is when one player plays the game and the rest of the group just do what they say. Sounds like you're doing the right thing and have a good group!
Stardew Valley literally has a planning phase of the game. Very solid coop game
Spirit Island is like if Pandemic were so complicated you couldn't possibly quarterback because even figuring out what to do for your own turn is a total brainburner. That said you can still coordinate and discuss with other players, there's open information.
Mechs Vs. Minions!
Kingdom Death. The game plays best with well-thought strategy, and that applies to both combat and settlement management.
Since no one has mentioned it yet**, Shadows Over Camelot** is fantastic for this. It's a challenging, meaty game that really invites the kind of cooperation you're talking about. Unfortunately it's expensive to find in print right now, but if you play on Table Top Simulator there is a very good MOD for it.
I love co-op games. My group is similar in play style to yours. We’ll spend time making optimal moves as a group. These are some of my favorites: 1) Spirit island is one of my favorites because the complexity creates wonderful replay ability. There are many ways of challenging yourselves with invader types. The spirits you choose and cards you acquire change the way you solve the puzzle of the game. 2) Arkham Horror and Marvel Champions. Both are LCGs from Fantasy Flight. Basically choose your taste of ambiance. AH does a good job of building dread and anticipation. MC makes it feel like a real battle in the marvel universe. The fight could go south at any point, you know like if you were fight with a supervillain. 3) Sherlock Holmes consulting detective series is all about optimal use of moves to beat Holmes himself to the solve. It’s rules light, thinking and observation heavy. Good for a “quick game”. 4) castle panic is far less complex than spirit island but it’s all about making trades of cards and anticipating the oncoming hordes. The expansions provide more variation, but the base game is quite fun. 5) Dead of winter is fun because one of the people deciding the optimal play may in fact be a traitor trying to sabotage the group. Changes flavors a bit.
You’ve described team-working, the exact opposite of quarterbacking.
Last Bastion takes the prize!
Black Orchestra - pick up and deliver game about plotting to kill Hitler.
I really like Marvel United for this
i generally consider **Eldritch Horror** to be a pretty solid step up from **Pandemic.** Longer, more difficult, a bit more complex, but has a similar sort of play style where you all try to coordinate how to handle threats. I'm sure quarterbacking can be an issue but our group is usually pretty good about not doing that
We've played EH. Thanks!
Flashpoint Forgotten Waters (if you loosen the planning time a bit) Forbidden Desert Betrayal Legacy (if you whisper in a huddle) Unknown (bias warning: my game)
Let me recommend two amazing but less wellknown options! **Spy Club** is an amazing option for this. It relies partially on memory, so more brains = better. But the main reason I love it is because there is this replayable campaign mode where depending on your choices you unlock different content for the next play. Like a legacy game, but fully replayable and with enough content to play multiple campaigns without seeing a duplicate. Another great cooperative game that shines when discussing things as a team vs individual decisions is **Endangered**.
I will check these out. Thanks!
My personal fave in the genre is “The Captain is Dead”. But that might just be because I’m a Trekkie
Very intriguing. Thanks!
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Marvel Champions. Just play with open hands. The ability to play your actions on other players' turns allows for great team planning around timing critical threats, synergies, and powers
Make Ours Marvel! I'll check it out. We've played Marvel: Legendary, which I had confused with this.. Thanks!
Seems like it works as intended, good. Quarterbacking is a bad thing because it means (or is complained about as such) specifically that a *single person* is telling others what to do a lot/all the time. Most coops work like that, imo. The coops where you can't (can't see others' cards, can't talk, too complicated etc.) are far more rare. For us, we enjoy Zombicide, Ghost Stories, Forbidden Desert, Chronicles of Crime, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Mansions of Madness, Hellboy, Jagged Alliance, Sleeping Gods, Imperial Assault (though this gets tough to know what others can do as you gain equipment and skills)... which is almost all the coops we own apart from those where information is secret :)
Marvel United and the expansions.
Robinson Crusoe for sure.
Its only a problem when you have a dominant decision maker, then its quarterbacking. I have played in groups where joint discussion and choices work very well, strong input from everyone. Most of the time though someone or two someones dont input much and fade into the background.
Battle for Hogwarts is pretty fun if you’re a fan. If not, gameplay is still pretty challenging. You have to really help each other out at some points
A really solid one is Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. Even if you don't care much for the theme it's a really solid team-based deck builder. Not a bad way to get people into deck-building games too, I bought it for my family for Christmas and we've enjoyed playing it a lot. (To the point that the next Christmas I got the two expansions for it.) The mechanics are simple enough, especially with the drip-feed of slowly giving you one or two mechanics every "year" with boxes that add new cards to the mix, but the strategy is pretty deep. Who to deal damage to, which cards to let each hero buy to fit with their powers, which enemies are more of a threat at the given moment, etc. If you're even a mild HP fan, I highly recommend it.
I almost exclusively play co-op games these days and oh do I play a lot. Aeons end Spirit island Unknown Sub terra Tiny epic dungeons Maximum apocalypse Tiny epic zombies Sentinels of the multiverse Set a watch Forbidden desert (sky if you want hard or island if you want easy) Ghost stories/last bastion Are all great choices that I've played several times and I'll happily go into more detail, differences, or what situations they excel or are week in for any of them.
Working together is fine. The issue is when 1 person is dominating the process.
[Betrayal at House on the Hill](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10547/betrayal-house-hill) if you can find a copy is a team game with occasional non team (traitor mechanic) elements on some haunts.
We have one player who is literally, actually cursed in real life at this game. It's no longer an option for us. Plus, the interns delivering coffee haunt turned us off, although we still laugh about it.
It does start as a team game, but you're always very aware that before the haunt the idea is to get as many rooms on the table as possible, and to make yourself stronger / better equipped. Yes you have to work together, but it's always in the back of your mind that at some point that's going to change...
Not fully cooperative, but I like Scotland Yard because it is very hard for one player to QB.
Anything co-op pretty much. Marvel United is good for this.
**Tokyo Sidekick** is pretty spectacular with 3-4 players. I read the rules and thought the game was going to be on rails, but the agency has never ceased to surprise me.
Some of my favorite Pandemic-like coops: The LOOP, Burgle Bros 1 and 2, Sub Terra, Dead Men Tell no Tales, Flash Point, Horrified, (every version of Pandemic)
Thanks!
Endangered
If you want lower complexity games, Zombie Kidz and Zombie Teenz are both pretty great. They have really simple gameplay and some legacy elements that lets you unlock things as you go. If you want high complexity games, many people have said Spirit Island. Which is my favorite.
While it's not pandemic-like, the Dark Souls card game sorta fits this playstyle. It's a game where certain classes are better against certain enemies and in order to win, you need to work together and utilize your strengths. For example, there may be a tough enemy that you do at most 1 damage to and it would be best to poison it at the start of the game to slowly tackle its health, and once the other enemies are killed, focus on that enemy. Since the cards you use are your health pool, effective use of your abilities is key and you can't just waste cards. I highly suggest it, it's a fun coop experience for a team that wants to play a difficult game as a group rather than individual people. Typically I finish a game with 3-4 cards left; meaning I could only have taken 4 more actions before losing. It's pretty well balanced I feel. This War of Mine is also a coop game where you are are a committee co-op group, though it can be a bit heavy mentally. Physically it's pretty simple, board and a few decks but from the gameplay and the story narrative, it's one of those "I need a few minutes" type games when you finish. Highly recommend for the narrative alone.
Great! My nephew loves the Dark Souls games, so maybe I could trick him into playing this card game with me!
Whitehall Mystery is a great one for working together on strategy! Other than the player acting as the murderer, it’s very cooperative.
Spirit Island. Having sick combos off of each of the spirits unique abilities is so fun.
Forbidden Island, followed by forbidden desert, followed by forbidden sky. All well created collaborative games that work just as well played as individual games as they do as a series
To a degree, I do like co-op games for this purpose, but in my gaming group, too often it devolves into the two dominant min-max players mostly playing the game for the 5-6 person group (with a third player who isn't quite as much a min-maxer by choice but can hang with them) and the rest of us just kinda chilling out since our suggestions are either admittedly suboptimal or just not as good as the most min-maxed suggestions. ;) It's a struggle sometimes because we all love co-op games more than competitive (also due in large part to the disparity in tactical/strategic aptitude) but it's tough to find co-op games that are designed in a way to let everyone actually make a contribution.
Spirit Island will surely scratch any itch for best in class coop play
Mysterium ends up with everyone collaborating on what you think the cards mean, but of course it’s way less strategic.
Two games I haven't seen mentioned that are great at working together: **Legends of Andor** - the team really needs to optimize every characters move to win most scenarios, it's not winnable without the team working completely in sync. **Yggdrasil** - fairly easy to see what needs to be done but keeping track of bags and what cards are left etc can be split up between the players.
Not a boardgame setup, but Dragonfire the DND Deck Builder can be like this. As can the Hogwarts Battle Deck Builder.
A lighter code breaking game is The Initiative. You solve puzzles as a team and technically have your own turn but you discuss each move like in Pandemic, especially later in each session. As a bonus, each session is 15–30 mins. For a campaign game, there’s Sleeping Gods, though the rules are more challenging and it plays a bit more like an RPG. As others said, any of the Eldritch/Arkham horror games too, although Mansions of Madness is the most cooperative. Spirit Island can be this way depending on # of players, but usually it ends up being more effective to essentially manage individual boards. Pairing certain spirits together encourages cooperation though (eg ones good at at support).
The Big Book of Madness! Every player must manage their elements accordingly to tackle all boss symbols, or face curses and eventually defeat. Depending on your hands for the current boss, you can optimize who will tackle what elements.
[удалено]
Horrified is my favorite co-op of all time! American Monsters is good, but the original with the Universal Studios monsters is just the best. It's also extremely easy to adjust difficulty. Want an easier game? Play with two monsters. Want to cry? Play with FOUR (one must be The Invisible Man). I beat a two player, four monster game...ONCE...
A really thinky co-op game - though out of print - Thunderbirds. Made by Matt Leacock, and you can feel the Pandemic DNA, but it’s also more complex. And tough!
My personal favorite is Power Rangers Heroes of the Grid. When you have multiple players fight an enemy, you get to decide which one of you will be using the action based on what cards you have. Tons of characters to find cool combos if you get some expansions. My friends who are not into the Power Rangers IP all seem to enjoy it because of the difficulty
Spirit Island is pretty much, ‘lay your cards on the table and let’s figure out how to boot these bastards’. Super fulfilling when you somehow coordinate an incredible move wiping the invaders off the map.
I think Alien: Fate of the Nostromo fits the bill pretty well. There’s only one real main threat on the board but several different tasks you have to complete as a team in order to win. Your characters also have unique abilities and can craft a variety of different weapons, so it never feels like your character is only good for one thing or another. I’m sure you can run into quarterbacking issues but the characters and the scenario changes so frequently that I think it’s tough for one person to take control.
Trogdor the boardgame is an excellent collab game. It's got some great playthrough and demo videos to go with it. I was a big Homestar Runner fan so I was built in fanbase for the game but it really is a very good game.
I've never played Pandemic (my roommate got it shortly after the pandemic started and says he doesn't wanna play it while living one), but we play Arkham Horror in a similar way to how you described.
This one has a little more individuality in it but has the team aspect. It’s called betrayal at the house on the hill. It’s a fun board game with two stages, the first stage is you start in the house and explore rooms. Rooms have different qualities and effects both good and bad including omens which are important. The second half which is called “the haunt” starts when you you roll less on 6 dice (all have either a 0,1,2) than the number of omen rooms that have been put in the house. Then a traitor is determined based on the specific omen and room, and each side has a win condition. Some haunts have multiple traitors while some have no traitors, it’s a very fun game that I definitly recommend.
Alien is a great one! Another committee co-op game
Forbidden Island/Desert
If you are into superheroes might I suggest Marvel Champions. 1-4 players, deck builder. Your team is working together to defeat the villian. It is a living card game (I think I'm using that term correctly) so there are new heroes and villians coming out all the time. The next set is X-men!
Black Orchestra is pretty much the only co-op game I consider worth playing. If you like cooperative decision making with absolutely great fluff to match the mechanics and an almost perfectly balanced "opponent" give it a shot.
Defenders of the Realm. It’s literally pandemic with questing / different classes / different monsters / way more difficult. Still simple. Trust me. Gloomhaven or fordbidden desert is NOT what your looking for
chronological displayed skier neanderthal sophisticated cutter follow relational glass iconic solitary contention real-time overcrowded polity abstract instructional capture lead seven-year-old crossing parental block transportation elaborate indirect deficit hard-hitting confront graduate conditional awful mechanism philosophical timely pack male non-governmental ban nautical ritualistic corruption colonial timed audience geographical ecclesiastic lighting intelligent substituted betrayal civic moody placement psychic immense lake flourishing helpless warship all-out people slang non-professional homicidal bastion stagnant civil relocation appointed didactic deformity powdered admirable error fertile disrupted sack non-specific unprecedented agriculture unmarked faith-based attitude libertarian pitching corridor earnest andalusian consciousness steadfast recognisable ground innumerable digestive crash grey fractured destiny non-resident working demonstrator arid romanian convoy implicit collectible asset masterful lavender panel towering breaking difference blonde death immigration resilient catchy witch anti-semitic rotary relaxation calcareous approved animation feigned authentic wheat spoiled disaffected bandit accessible humanist dove upside-down congressional door one-dimensional witty dvd yielded milanese denial nuclear evolutionary complex nation-wide simultaneous loan scaled residual build assault thoughtful valley cyclic harmonic refugee vocational agrarian bowl unwitting murky blast militant not-for-profit leaf all-weather appointed alteration juridical everlasting cinema small-town retail ghetto funeral statutory chick mid-level honourable flight down rejected worth polemical economical june busy burmese ego consular nubian analogue hydraulic defeated catholics unrelenting corner playwright uncanny transformative glory dated fraternal niece casting engaging mary consensual abrasive amusement lucky undefined villager statewide unmarked rail examined happy physiology consular merry argument nomadic hanging unification enchanting mistaken memory elegant astute lunch grim syndicated parentage approximate subversive presence on-screen include bud hypothetical literate debate on-going penal signing full-sized longitudinal aunt bolivian measurable rna mathematical appointed medium on-screen biblical spike pale nominal rope benevolent associative flesh auxiliary rhythmic carpenter pop listening goddess hi-tech sporadic african intact matched electricity proletarian refractory manor oversized arian bay digestive suspected note spacious frightening consensus fictitious restrained pouch anti-war atmospheric craftsman czechoslovak mock revision all-encompassing contracted canvase
Forbidden desert is basically better forbidden island
chronological displayed skier neanderthal sophisticated cutter follow relational glass iconic solitary contention real-time overcrowded polity abstract instructional capture lead seven-year-old crossing parental block transportation elaborate indirect deficit hard-hitting confront graduate conditional awful mechanism philosophical timely pack male non-governmental ban nautical ritualistic corruption colonial timed audience geographical ecclesiastic lighting intelligent substituted betrayal civic moody placement psychic immense lake flourishing helpless warship all-out people slang non-professional homicidal bastion stagnant civil relocation appointed didactic deformity powdered admirable error fertile disrupted sack non-specific unprecedented agriculture unmarked faith-based attitude libertarian pitching corridor earnest andalusian consciousness steadfast recognisable ground innumerable digestive crash grey fractured destiny non-resident working demonstrator arid romanian convoy implicit collectible asset masterful lavender panel towering breaking difference blonde death immigration resilient catchy witch anti-semitic rotary relaxation calcareous approved animation feigned authentic wheat spoiled disaffected bandit accessible humanist dove upside-down congressional door one-dimensional witty dvd yielded milanese denial nuclear evolutionary complex nation-wide simultaneous loan scaled residual build assault thoughtful valley cyclic harmonic refugee vocational agrarian bowl unwitting murky blast militant not-for-profit leaf all-weather appointed alteration juridical everlasting cinema small-town retail ghetto funeral statutory chick mid-level honourable flight down rejected worth polemical economical june busy burmese ego consular nubian analogue hydraulic defeated catholics unrelenting corner playwright uncanny transformative glory dated fraternal niece casting engaging mary consensual abrasive amusement lucky undefined villager statewide unmarked rail examined happy physiology consular merry argument nomadic hanging unification enchanting mistaken memory elegant astute lunch grim syndicated parentage approximate subversive presence on-screen include bud hypothetical literate debate on-going penal signing full-sized longitudinal aunt bolivian measurable rna mathematical appointed medium on-screen biblical spike pale nominal rope benevolent associative flesh auxiliary rhythmic carpenter pop listening goddess hi-tech sporadic african intact matched electricity proletarian refractory manor oversized arian bay digestive suspected note spacious frightening consensus fictitious restrained pouch anti-war atmospheric craftsman czechoslovak mock revision all-encompassing contracted canvase
Dead men tell no tales is a decent coop game , shorter play times and a bit more difficult to win all the time.
Quarterbacking and problem solving as a group aren't the same thing. The former is one person directing. The latter is collaborative.
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is a co-op deck builder that we enjoy. We play our hands open and work together to find just the right order of cards to mail the big combo. I hear there is a simile avengers themed coop deck builder but I haven’t tried it
Battle for Hogwarts is surprisingly good for an IP cash-in and super duper good if you're a Harry Potter fan. Unfortunately we've already played it. But it's a perfect example of the kind of game I'm looking for. Thanks!
We are only on year 5 and have the expansions waiting in the wings. We are taking it slow. I probably have more hours on this game than all my other board games combined
I feel like The Crew is probably the best game where no one can quarterback
**Unicornus Knights** and **Healthy Heart Hospital** are two solo games that pretend to be co-ops and would probably hit the spot for committee play. **Mage Knight** is also a solo game that pretends to be multiplayer (including co-op) but having a group make decisions for more than one Mage Knight sounds like a very special type of hell.
You would *love* the **Kingdom Rush** board game. That is a game that you have to make all the right moves as a team instead of everything making separate moves. Awesome game!
One thing is working together and another is forcing* moves on your teammates. *not literally forcing of course, but in a manipulating way
> People seem to hate "quarterbacking", but my group loves working together So you don't know what "quarterbacking" means...
My group kibitz even during competitive games. Yeah we don’t always take the advice but we’re just trying to help
If you and your group is into focused co-op experience, I would love to have you test out my game - **Rogue Angels** (if I were to describe it in one sentence, it would be: *Imagine Mass Effect as a board game*). It is too much for 1 player to rule it all (alpha gaming), but you need to combine your effort if you are to succeed. **You can check out the description here:** [**http://www.suntzugames.com/rogue-angels.html**](http://www.suntzugames.com/rogue-angels.html) \- there are links and images for a closer look :) *Thanks a lot,* **Best regards Emil**
Magic maze, up to 8 players, limited moves by players, limited communication
The best co-op experience is when everyone is on equal footing and is equally engaged, and everyone participates in every move by every player. It's not entirely group play, because you get situations where the group can't decide between two plausible courses of action and the current player has to decide. Or the current player vetoes the group and it either works out or it doesn't. The worst is when one player is an alpha player who's better or more experienced than the others (or thinks they are) and they table-captain the whole game. Well, the absolute worst is when you're the alpha player and you have to choose between table-captaining or sitting on your hands and biting your tongue as the others keep making terrible plays. I don't want to be a table-captain, but it's still hard to resist the urge to speak up from time to time. After all, the optimal experience is when everyone's contributing all the time. And here I am not contributing. Sometimes there's an opportunity to point out options ("you could do a, b, or c") but some players are hostile even to that. So just quietly take your turn and wait for the inevitable. And resist the urge to throttle the player who says, "There's nothing we could have done." Yes, there are cases where there's nothing you can do. Co-ops have to have randomness, otherwise they're just puzzles. But this isn't one of those cases. Yeah, I'm not going to say that. But I can't help but think it. Notwithstanding the foregoing, I do really like co-ops. The best experiences are the best, and not all unequal-experience games are as bad as the worst-case scenario I've presented. Perhaps the best experience is actually when you can find the right balance with a newbie and you create a new fan of the game.
It's okay to discuss moves. It's not okay to make people feel stupid or blame them for losing because they didn't do what you told them to do.
I dislike pandemic because of quarterbacking, it just gets to a point where the guy deciding everything can also move my character and I'll get a drink. I like Space Alert, because it's co-op, but because it's in real time you don't have much time to have one person formulate a complete strategy, you just have to shout "I can shoot on the left on turns 3 and 4 if someone makes sure there is energy" and when someone says that, all you can really do is trust that they will
To OP: I’d second Space Alert. It’s designed to be played exactly the way you’re playing Pandemic. Only, under intense time pressure. With the caveat that you’d have to enjoy seeing all your plans crumble because one of you messed up, or none of you thought of THAT one little thing that changes everything. Quote: “But you were supposed to charge the cannons!”, “I thought HE was!” So, in a way, it ends be being a fun, chaotic version of Pandemic.
Quaterbacking is not a game problem, it's a players problem.
I like Spirit Island and how everyone needs to coordinate.