Despite being an ultra-competitive, always wanting to win (but always losing) kind of board gamer, I have got a great affinity for cooperative board games.
After years in the doldrums of Monopoly, Cluedo and Scrabble, one of my first truly transformative board game experiences was playing Pandemic with my family one birthday, working together, not against each other, as we tried to save the world from a deadly virus.
I understood not only what board games could achieve, but what playing one co-operatively can do. While I can’t get the joy of beating my fellow players, I can instead work with them to defeat the game itself, mastering its tricky puzzle to achieve a different kind of victory.
And it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me how amazing co-op games are. It’s what I had done my whole life with video games, defeating bosses and conquering challenges, sometimes with someone sat right next to me on the sofa experiencing it together.
I would say to anyone looking to get into the board game hobby, especially someone who might need to convince their friends and families to join them in their new hobby, that a great way to start is with co-op games.
They can be big box affairs with lots of rules and mechanics to learn and master together, small little pocket games that can be played multiple times of an evening, and anywhere in between with a huge amount of variety on offer for you to sink your teeth into with your partner, sibling or best friend.
In this board game starter guide I am going to discuss why co-op games wash away the uber competitive person within me, why they can be perfect as a gateway into the hobby, and which one I would recommend to get you and your loved ones playing a lovely board game together.
Better Together
Co-Op gaming has been a part of board games for a long time. While traditionally when we think of board games we might think of beating your fellow players at a game like Chess, there has for a long time been a sense that working together to beat the game is as enjoyable as defeating an opponent sat across from you.
While not always strictly co-operative in the sense we might think of it today, older games such as The Landlords Game or Scotland Yard featured co-op elements, and in the video game world couch co-op games were a big part of my childhood, such as Streets of Rage or even the amazing Lord of the Ring video games of the PS2 era.
In the board gaming sphere though, when I think of co-op games I think of the phenomenon that is Pandemic from 2008. As I mentioned in my intro, it can be credited to giving me a taste of what co-op games and board gaming more generally can do, and I think a lot of tabletop enthusiasts would point to it as the Granddaddy of the cooperative genre.
It features all the things that makes co-op games so enjoyable. Group decisions that need to be made every turn, discussion where every person’s input is valuable, strategic but fairly simple rules for everyone to understand, and most importantly tense gameplay that means when you and your group achieve victory it feels amazing, or even in defeat the amazing camaraderie you feel being bested by the amazing game you have just played.
One or two people aren’t left annoyed they got beat by their friends, or feeling silly they didn’t fully understand the game. You can’t get one person whose more experienced just wiping the floor of everyone else like co-op games can be guilty of.
No you are all in it together, working out how to beat this Pandemic. If you do have an experienced player, they can teach everyone else the rules by playing, guiding them along which means the rules teach is a lot more simple and engaging than in other games where you’re head to head.
It’s why Pandemic, and co-op games specifically, are often one of the first go I turn to when showing someone a new game. There isn’t that awkwardness trying to teach someone a game and then handily defeating them to leave them feeling bad. You simply say this is what we’ll be playing, let’s work together to beat this thing and these are the ways we can go about it.
They’re newbie friendly, spark discussions so there’s nothing solitary about any of the gameplay, and always among my favourite experiences. With my wife in particular, two player co-op games are the ones we most turn to of an evening, and Pandemic is one of our favourites to try and master and defeat together with all the tense twists and turns that come in every play of it.
So will I be recommending Pandemic then as the perfect first co-op game? Surprisingly, while it was my first, it wouldn’t be my recommendation. In fact there are many amazing cooperative games that I think you should definitely buy at some point, but perhaps are not one to start with.
Where shall we begin?
Pandemic is a fantastic game, and I will always have a lot of love for it due to how its helped shape my experience with the hobby, but I don’t think its one I would recommend generally for new board gamers.
Firstly, let’s face it, since 2020 playing a game about a global pandemic infecting society might not be to everyone’s taste.
Secondly while I loved my first experiences of Pandemic and had the kind of patience to learn a new game like it, I did find that other family members who aren’t as keen on board games and learning slightly more complicated rules did kind of lose their way with it as the game progressed, to the point where I was essentially taking their turns for them. A kind of example of the old Quarterback issue with co-op games that was more forced upon me than purposefully acted upon.
As co-op games take the bulk of room in my board game collection, I then found it hard to narrow it down to just one game I would recommend if I was moving away from the 2008 classic.
Sky Team is quite possibly my favourite game of all time, an amazing two player co-op where you play as pilot and co-pilot trying to land a plane in tricky conditions. It’s the one game that gets multiple plays every year with my wife, and we’ve never had a bad game of it. The only reason its not my recommendation is I tried to think of a co-op experience that caters for more than two people, but if you are in the market for your collection for two player experiences, please try Sky Team.
Games such as Forbidden Island or The Crew are really good co-op options, but I don’t think provide that amazing experience and theme that will get you and your fellow players hooked.
Some big box games offer these wonderous experiences with themes that they nail like Spirit Island, Earthborne Rangers and Jaws of the Lion, but these certainly aren’t nice small gateway games that you could introduce to just anyone.
There’s even titles such as The Mind, Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective or The EXIT series, which I would describe less as a standard board game and more as an activity, which are really fun to play and puzzle out together, but I wanted to recommend something I felt offered the proper board game experience.
So something easy to learn and follow, for more than two players, with an amazing theme that can cater for board gamers of any experience level. Well I don’t want to have to deal with another pandemic, but maybe defeating a vampire, a mummy and a horrific sea monster will be more palpable…
THE HORROR!
My board game starter guide recommendation for co-op games is the wondrously ghoulish Horrified, released in 2019 designed by Prospero Hall and published by Ravensburger.
Specifically, I am recommending the original Horrified Universal Monsters as that is the game I am most familiar with, but you could probably replace it with any of the amazing games in the Horrified series to suit your taste and theme, like American Monsters or even Dungeons and Dragons.
I will start by saying I absolutely adore Horrified. Every play of it feels really difficult with defeat just around the corner, yet somehow the most fun I will have with any board game.
In Horrified, you and up to three other players will be playing as characters trying to defeat some monsters of legend, moving around a board representing a village straight out of a Hammer Horror picture. Simultaneously, you will also be trying to rescue a fun collection of villagers before they get gobbled up in the night.
In the 2019 release you can face Dracula, Frankenstein and The Bride, The Invisible Man, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, with difficulty scaling depending on who you face and how many of them during one game.
Each of them have different ways to be defeated using items you pick up along the way, but unsurprisingly these creatures of the darkness won’t let you beat them so easily, as they can attack you and the villagers based on a variety of cards drawn during the Monster phase of a round. If your terror level reaches the top before you can defeat each creature you’re battling, you and your team lose.
On the surface there appears to be quite a lot going on, and might face the issue I mentioned earlier in regard to Pandemic for very inexperienced players. But actually I find Horrified a much simpler teach, with really straightforward turn structures that means even people less familiar with games will soon be able to easily make their own decisions without the support of someone teaching them the game or needing to essentially control their actions.
Because the game scales so well, you can easily tailor the experience to players of different familiarities with modern board games. Newer players simply add less monsters to face, and choose the creatures with the simplest ruleset, which is clearly outlined in your box. Once you’ve mastered this facet of the game, scale it up.
I even worried people might say well I am not into horror so the theme doesn’t appeal to me. I would say I have never watched a horror movie that wasn’t through my fingers, yet still I loved the theme.
Horrified does an amazing job of embracing its theme so much that I am fully along for the ride with it. Its pulpy and camp rather than actually scary. Dracula you’re tyring to drive stakes through, The Mummy you’re solving a fun puzzle to entomb him, Frankenstein and the Bride you’re lovingly trying to reunite them to save their humanity.
Christmas over Halloween every day for me, yet Horrified has me wanting to play it every October. But also every January, February, March, you get the picture.
An instant recommendation for any board gamers, I love Horrified and with the host of options available like I mentioned earlier, I am sure there’s a version of this game out there for you.
But if still not convinced, some of the other games I have mentioned on this feature might be more up your street, so please check them out as perhaps they are the starter co-op game for you and your fellow board gamer.
So stop trying to defeat one another and start teaming together, and go defeat your new co-op game whatever that might be.
About the author:
Paul Websell is a freelance contributor for Zatu who spends his time either playing board and video games or talking about them. While he’s not on social media, you can view his other blogs right here on Zatu!
