Co-operative Board Games - Everyone's a winner!

Co-operating with other players to beat a board game can be tough. You and the other players need to work together to win.

What is a co-operative board game? In a co-operative game, instead of competing against each other to determine the winner, players work together to beat the game. They win or fail as a group. The game is the ‘player’ the group is competing against. Players usually draw cards or roll dice on behalf of the game to see what it does.

Working together to beat a game might sound kind of lame and a bit dull. Where’s the competition? Isn’t the point of a game to have a winner? How is the game itself going to have a strategy?

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pawns coop — Pawns ready to co-operate. Go team!

Board game designers ask themselves all these questions and more to make some awesome games. Games that get stronger with every turn, games where players make your group do what they want for their own selfish ends, and games where there are traitors amongst you…

Playing the game

Taking the game’s turn

Co-operative board games don’t work in the same way as a traditional board game. There is no one winner. Instead, you all work together to beat the game.

Usually, the game’s turn will be controlled by any one of the players. They will draw the cards, roll the dice and move the pieces on behalf of the game.

It would be easy to break the rules in a solo co-operative board game.
The game will never know, right?
Who’s watching?

Well, the whole group is. The group keeps each other accountable and makes sure that the game’s turn is taken fairly.

What is the point of playing a game if you’re just going to break the rules? It’ll be a hollow victory.

Making it challenging and interesting enough

Getting the level of challenge right is important in any board game. If a game is too difficult, players will never win and won’t want to play the game again. But if it’s too easy the game will be boring.

When you play a regular board game, who you’re playing against massively affects the level of difficulty. If you’re playing against someone who plays the game really well, that makes the game harder.

In co-operative board games, you’re playing against the same game every time so getting that level of challenge just right is very important.

Another thing board game designers need to keep in mind is replayability. If every time you play the game it feels exactly the same and it’s too predictable, it’s boring. You just do the same things every time to win.

Thankfully, board game designers have some pretty neat ways to keep co-operative games interesting and keep you coming back for more.

Purely co-operative board games

A group of players forms a team to take on the game and try to beat it. One huge perk of this kind of game is that one person can play them on their own because they are competing against the game, not other people.

Magic Maze

In Magic Maze players need to work together to move four pawns around the board to collect magic items and then get to the exit. Each player can move all the pawns but they can only move in certain directions as they are told on their card or take certain actions like using portals or escalators.

Two rules make this game really intense:

No one is allowed to talk
The game is timed

Every game of Magic Maze is a lot of fun!

Hanabi

In Hanabi, each player has five different colors of cards numbered 1 to 5. Players must work together to create a row of each color in sequential order. But, players hold their cards facing away from them so the other players need to provide hints as to which cards to play.

Arkham Horror

An advanced co-operative game set in the H.P. Lovecraft Cthulhu setting, players must stop the Ancient Ones from invading the world. Players win either by sealing gates to other dimensions or by defeating the Ancient One.

Each player is an investigator and each has unique abilities. As they explore the streets of Arkham, players acquire items and skills which make them more powerful.

But there are monsters on the streets and new portals opening all the time. Players must keep on top of closing the portals. If too many portals are opened the Ancient One comes through and the only way to win is to defeat it!

Personal win conditions

Sometimes co-operative board games have the team working together against the game, but as they do, players have their own secret objectives to complete too. This means that players might not always make the best decision for the group but instead, make the best decision for themselves.

‘Why did you do that?!’ the other players may cry! But the player cannot tell them why, because it’s a secret. It makes for an interesting dynamic.

Castle Panic

Players take on the role of knights defending their castle from monsters.
Pressure builds every turn as more monsters arrive on the board, and get closer to the castle and the knights have to get rid of them before they get too close!

Players trade cards with each other and work together to defend the castle. But, the overall winner of the game is the player who defeats the most monsters. So players need to work together to defend the castle because if it falls everyone loses, but they also want to win the game.

Players may not want to trade some of the cards they have to help another player, instead choosing to save them for their turn.

Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven is a co-operative role-playing game. But players are not allowed to discuss strategies with each other. Instead, they must draw their cards for their next turn not knowing what the others will do. It places a lot more emphasis on watching other players to learn how they play and predicting what they will do.

Before each scenario players are given two Personal Quest cards and choose one that they are going to try and complete in the scenario. They keep this quest secret from the other players. If they complete it, they get to tick a perk box or two on their character sheet which makes them stronger over time.

Board games with a hidden role

In some games, the group knows that some players aren’t on their side from the beginning of the game. In others, they know that someone will turn on them during the game. In other games, the players don’t know if there is or isn’t a player who isn’t on their side throughout the entire game.

The player with the hidden role will generally win the game if the other players lose.

Didn’t trust you from the start

Werewolf

Players are given roles at the beginning of the game. Some players will be werewolves and some will be villagers of various types.

Every night the werewolves bite villagers. It’s up to the players to figure out who the werewolves are and eliminate them from the game before they bite all the villagers!

Find out more about Werewolf on Amazon.

A Fake Artist Goes to New York

In this game, one person writes a word on several boards and puts an ‘X’ on another board. They randomly hand out the boards to the players. Without any discussion, the players then take turns adding a line to a drawing to create a picture.

But one player doesn’t know what they’re supposed to draw! Their card says ‘X’. This player has to draw a line making it look like they know what is being drawn so people don’t suspect them of being the fake artist. However, the other players don’t make it easy for them.

If the fake artist guesses what the drawing is at the end of the game, they have won. So, the players need to draw lines that show the other players they are not the fake artist, but without being so obvious with what they are drawing that the fake artist guesses correctly!

I knew it!

Betrayal at House on the Hill

This game is like playing a game based on a B movie. Players explore a haunted house. As they do, they uncover items called omens. Whenever an omen is found players roll dice to see if discovering that omen triggers the haunt to start.

If the haunt starts, the players use the omen item and the room it was discovered in to work out which 1 of 50 haunt scenarios now starts.

Not always, but quite often the player that triggered the haunt becomes the player who leads the haunt.

That player is handed the Traitor Tome and sent away to read the rules for the haunt scenario and come up with their plan. The remaining players read the corresponding scenario in The Secrets of Survival to see what they need to do to defeat the traitor and win.

Every scenario is different, we’ve had to burn a magic book before the traitor got their hands on it and even escape before the traitor alien flies the house into another dimension.

Find out more about Betrayal at House on the Hill on Amazon.

Is there a traitor amongst us?

Shadows over Camelot

In this game, players are Knights of the Round Table in the court of King Arthur. They help each other to complete quests like finding the holy grail or getting Excalibur. They need to complete the quests before Camelot falls.

Each turn, players take a heroic action that helps themselves or the group, but they must also choose one of 3 actions that are bad for Camelot.

This sounds pretty straightforward, but an interesting addition is that lurking in the game there may or may not be a traitor.

Is that player taking the best bad action for Camelot? Have they put Camelot in a terrible position? Is there no traitor at all?

Accusations fly throughout the game because the traitor will only reveal themselves at the most opportune moment!

Conclusion – Co-operative Board Games

Co-op games are a nice contrast to typical competitive games. They encourage social interaction and collective strategic thinking which means there’s loads of interaction! And if there’s a traitor involved it adds some tension into the mix!

As well as co-op games, I love board games with a spooky theme. I curated my favorites in 13 Best Spooky Board Games!

Co-operative Board Games – Everyone’s a winner!