Cooperative Games Rankings

So just be aware I’m going to talk less about these games because there are a grand total of 52 that I ranked. Expect a sentence or two on each one of them.

52. FUSE

Fast paced game of rolling dice and then using them to try and complete enough cards to diffuse the bomb. I don’t love games that are only real time, and FUSE is only real time. It plays fast, but the game isn’t that interesting the more you play it.

51. Magic Maze

Another real time game, this time taking adventurers through a shopping mall. This one is more interesting because you need to work together more. But it’s going really fast without talking and sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t.

50. Forbidden Island

This one is a great introduction to cooperative gaming and gaming in general. It follows the standard, do something and then something bad happens. My issue is that the game is too easy and generally just an okay game.

49. Arkham Horror: Final Hour

Now, on the flip side of Forbidden Island, this game is hard as you try and guess some ruins to be able to stop ritual from happening. It basically takes Arkham Horror and tries to make it shorter. It succeeds on that, but it also just isn’t interesting. The couple clever things it tries to do are just misses.

48. God of War: The Card Game

And another game that was too easy when I played it. I wonder about playing a whole game if that would make it more challenging, but what I played was fairly boring. I also feel like the decisions weren’t that interesting in the game. Most of the time it was do the obvious thing.

47. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

I talked about this yesterday. It’s a fine deck building game. It is just too slow to get to the table and too slow to get to feeling powerful. If they were to come out with a second edition and make the game play ramp up faster, I’d probably like it a lot. But right now, the ramp is just too slow.

46. Forbidden Desert

I like this a fair amount better than Forbidden Island, it offers more to do and a more clever mechanism of figuring out where to get things. It follows that Pandemic formula for things of do good things and then bad things happen. Played it a few times, enjoyed it, and have moved on.

45. The Mind

This one is an interesting one. You try and play cards down in numerical order without talking. The concept is cool, and the game works, but only sometimes. This is one where it really depends on who is in the group. And I had some good times with it but moved on again.

44. Sword Art Online Board Game: Sword of Fellow

I need to try this one again, it’s been a little while. The concept isn’t bad, you are basically playing the boss battles from Sword Art Online the show, and it has the main characters. The downside is that the rules aren’t that great, and it’s pretty simple and lucky. That said, it is tiny, so I don’t mind luck as much.

43. Exit Games

Exit Games are fun, but any escape room game is always hard to rank. I’ve played less Exit Games, and I don’t love that you can’t pass it on. Granted, I did see it kind of work with them at Fantasy Flight Game Center (now GameZenter), but I don’t want to buy something I need to then replace.

42. Flash Point: Fire Rescue

This is basically Pandemic but with fires. You haven’t seen Pandemic yet on the list so you know it’s higher. I think that Flash Point: Fire Rescue might end up being one that I get. And that’s because it might replace base Pandemic for me, but we’ll talk about why later. Very standard cooperative game.

41. Legendary Encounters: A Firefly Deck Building Game

On yesterday’s list, it is one that I like the theme of. Firefly was a great show, and the game is playing through the episodes. The game isn’t that easy and the artwork is just okay. Again, the ramp speed doesn’t seem right for the type of game it is, but it’s better than Marvel Legendary.

40. Stuffed Fables

This is one that I had a good time when I played it, but ended up being one that I never wanted to come back to. The game has a cool story about a kid who has a blanket, I believe, stolen, and you play as animals going under the bed with all the broken toys to get it back for her. But the mechanics were not that well taught and things that changed up on each different storybook page were worse taught.

39. Legacy of Dragonholt

Another one that was in my collection and left. When I heard about an RPG in a box, I thought it was going to be great. And in all fairness, it is a fun game with a lot of story in the box. But the story and writing was just okay. The best I can compare it is that it was written like a YA novel, but not one of the great ones. I think the system was very good, but I wanted writing.

38. Marvel Battleworld

This is dumb little game. I know it shouldn’t be this high on my list, though we’re not even half way yet. It is just a game where you roll a die and advance a track. The fun of the game is buying blind packs and getting little Funko figures. So I have it this high because it’s a fun toy with a little game attached to it.

37. Ghostbusters: The Board Game

We’re still in the area of games that are just okay, but we’re soon to games that are still in my collection. I loved the minis in the game, and the translucent ones look cool. But the game play was just okay. While there were different scenarios, they weren’t bad, but it wasn’t all that interesting. I just wished there was more.

36. Elder Sign

Another one that left my collection, some of that was just because I had only the base game. I have heard that the expansions help improve the game, and add more to the story of what you are doing. The base game is basically a Yahtzee type game, and I wish that it played a little bit faster for what it is.

35. Legends of Andor

Story driven puzzle game, Legends of Andor is good. The reason that it left my collection is that I never wanted to just sit down and play through all of it. So when I did want to play it, I’d play through the introductory scenario again and I did that a few times. But I like the story and the mechanics are pretty cool.

34. Sword & Sorcery

I played this one a lot, I got through the base game and one expansion. And I do like this game. Once I played that, though, I got rid of it. Even though I had more characters to play with, I wasn’t interested in going back through. The story doesn’t branch enough for that. And I wish that you could retire characters like in Gloomhaven.

33. Castle Panic

I almost culled this game, and I might, the board is a bit dinged so the FLGS didn’t take it. But the game is still playable. We’re not here to talk about that, though. The game is fun, and it’s a very light tower defense game. I like that I can play it with almost anyone, and while you rarely lose, it feels like you might. If I don’t lose a cooperative game fairly often, though, I will move on from it.

32. Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

This is a fun silly little game. I would say that it’s pretty much a solo game. Because you all play as one character and basically just do a choose your own adventure. You can make decisions as a group and pass around who is reading and rolling a die, but that’s how it’s cooperative. It is fun for that, though, because it’s so silly that everyone is laughing together.

31. Mysterium

Mysterium bounces all over for me. I think it was in my Top 100 games this past year and now with this ranking it wouldn’t be. If and when I play it again, it likely will move up. This is about figuring out who the murderer is. And there are rules about how that all works, but really it’s about giving clues as a ghost to everyone so they can figure theirs out. It’s cool concept that can get in it’s way with how it tries to be a game.

30. Unlock Games

The better escape room style board game. Unlock Games you don’t destroy anything, unless in a fit of rage. And I like how it counts down building up pressure versus Exit which is just see how long it takes you. And there are a lot of these with a lot of different themes. I want to play more, but it’s kind of a lot of a game night and works better with 3-4 people not 6.

29. Arkham Horror

This is the 2nd Edition, I haven’t played my 3rd Edition yet, but I need to. This is a grand epic game that takes forever to play. But it is a lot of fun. I felt like when I’ve played it that I get into what is going on in the game. The story is light, but the longer you play, the more story develops just from what you are doing.

28. Dead Men Tell No Tales

I like pirates, so that helps this game. And the supernatural twist on it is good. It again falls into that category of do some things and then bad things happen. What ended up causing this one to leave my collection is that it is that bit more. There are so many things to keep track of and the game isn’t as familiar, I didn’t pull it out over Pandemic.

27. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

Another deck builder on the list, and one that I just got rid of as well. Why, because I own a lot of deck building games. This one I like the theme of it, and the mechanics are fun. The game gets a bit longer as you go, and I wish there were more characters in the base box. It’d be one I’d gladly get back when I have a group to play it.

26. Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

It’s odd how many leave my collection, and this is another. And I actually just realized that I forgot to rank Star Wars: Imperial Assault which also just left. So this counts for both. They are great games, The apps work really well, and you can pick your preferred theme. These are campaign games with a nice sense of adventure, but because they are campaign games, that’s why they left.

25. First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet

This one is still in my collection, huzzah. And it’s probably surprising because when it came out people didn’t love it. But I really enjoy this game. It is a tough cooperative game where you can play all sorts of one off missions with different focuses. Or you can do a mini campaign. And it has an app, not a great one, to handle a lot of the bad things that happen, which I like.

24. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

I really should buy a copy of this game. I played a few times at Fantasy Flight Game Center and really liked it. But never picked it up, and then played a bunch on the app. There is story, campaign, deck construction, and a lot of cool card play. I prefer the game that this is based off of, but I’d gladly have both in my collection.

23. The Lord of the Rings

While some might argue this game is fairly abstract, where you are pushing up on tracks as you go through the story of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I really enjoy this game. It is a very hard cooperative game, but it gives you rewards at just the right time. It’s one I haven’t played in ages, but now that I’m thinking about it, I want to play it again.

22. Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

My favorite book series in a board game. When talking about this one, I always want to to point out that it is abstracted. And while the theme is there, it is mainly there if you know the books. I love picking out one of the books to play and then characters from that book and trying to beat the game. I like it best, I think at two, though three isn’t bad either.

21. Just One

Party game on the list, Just One is a great game. And I really like that we are getting a number of cooperative party games. Here one person is trying to guess a word, and everyone else gives them a one word clue. But any duplicate words cancel. Simple game, clever idea, don’t need to play for points, and always a blast.

20. Cross Clues

Another party game, I told you there are a few, Cross Clues I like just a little bit better. Though, last time I played it I was so tired that I messed up a few times. Here you are giving a one word clue to get people to guess the intersection of two words. So it might be day and octopus, what word is between those two? Eight might be a good option. Simple and a lot of fun again. You can play real time, 5 minutes, see how well you do, we never do that.

19. Pandemic

Here are all the Pandemic games. And I have to say, I don’t know that I need to play base Pandemic again. Pandemic Legacy games just kind of ruined it for me. Still in my collection, but like I said, I might get Flash Point and replace it. If I want to play Pandemic again, I’ll play legacy, I think.

18. Village Attacks

A bigger tower defense game, I am still waiting for my Kickstarter to come in. It funded in 2019. But I am excited for it when it does. Village Attacks has you playing as the bad guys with the villagers coming with pitch forks and torches. You might be grotesque or horrifying, but the theme is just funny to me, so while it’s a dark game, it doesn’t come across.

17. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

I really need to play more of this game, it’s another one that I just really love. Arkham Horror: The Card Game, is the living card game (LCG) from Fantasy Flight, and it’s so cool how they can do so many different things with the game. Great card play and fun deck construction that I want to do more of. I prefer it two player, I think, but it’s good solo as well.

16. Similo

Final party game on the list, but not final light game. Similo is game where one person is it. That person is giving clues of either a card being like or not like the secret card. Then the rest of the players eliminate cards. Simple concept for a game and a ton of fun, especially to mix decks. How do you tell players that a chicken is or isn’t like a vampire or medusa?

15. Apocrypha Adventure Card Game

This is the game that the Pathfinder Card Game was based on, though the Pathfinder one came out first, it’s confusing. But I like the dark theme of this one, there is warfare going on between supernatural forces, and not everyone can see it, but you can. So how can you stop it in the different scenarios. Good game, great art, and my sort of them. Horrible rule book.

14. Say Bye to the Villains

Definitely the hardest game on the list, at least in terms of winning. The play is simple, spend time to improve your stats, look at what a villain is doing, and hope that you can win when you run out of time. And there isn’t enough time to do everything in the game. I’ve come so close to winning so many times, I’m sure eventually I will.

13. The Reckoners

Pretty high on the list for limited plays, but I love the theme of the game. The Reckoners by Brandon Sanderson is a great series. And I love the game play, it’s tough, even on easy, but it has a lot of good choices. And you feel like you can do a lot on your turn as you roll dice and every face on the die is probably something you need.

12. Marvel United

Marvel United is a pretty easy game, but I love it a lot. In the game you are playing down cards to stop a super villain. As superheroes you all work together. So the last card you played, if I’m next to go, I’ll get to use as well. The villains also feel so different in this game, and while I have everything for it, the grab and go get it to the table is great.

11. Letter Jam

A game that just made me realize I forgot to rank Hanabi, I play a lot of cooperative games, Letter Jam is a game where you are trying to guess your word. But you can’t see the letters that make up your word. Only through clues and words given by other players can you infer what your letters are. There is some good strategy in figuring out what are good clues. Loads of fun and one that I think a lot of people will like.

10. TIME Stories

The highest escape room style game on my list, though this one has more going on than that. I really like TIME Stories for the puzzles that it gives. I haven’t played all of them yet, and I have heard that some are weaker than others. But every one that I’ve played thus far I really enjoy.

9. Roll Player Adventures

I’m really excited, I get to play into a campaign of this in February. Roll Player Adventures is my highlight from GenCon in 2019. Getting to playtest it was great. In the Roll Player universe, this takes characters you might have rolled up, or pre-made ones, and lets you take them on adventures. The adventures are fun, and the combat is interesting. It’s a lot of choose your own adventure and so good at that.

8. Mansions of Madness: 2nd Edition

Another Lovecraftian game, and another cooperative one. All of Fantasy Flights games in their Arkham Files line are cooperative. Mansions of Madness is app assisted and so much fun. Like Arkham Horror The Card Game, the game can be so different depending upon scenario. Some might have you stopping a ritual in a mansion, others exploring a town. One that I want to play more of to see what else they can do with it.

7. Sleeping Gods

You can watch me play this tonight, Jan 26th, on Malts and Meeples. Sleeping Gods is a big adventure game that I’m playing solo right now where you are the Manticore, a ship, and sailing around with crew that go on adventures. The game has an amazing aesthetic and story. Even though the story isn’t linear, it works well. And the world it’s set in is really cool.

6. Marvel Champions

I like Marvel a lot, and for me Marvel Champions is the best Marvel game. The different heroes feel like that hero, and you can take them up against any bad guy. While Marvel United you play as one hero they are a bit more generic. And Marvel Champions gives you that alter ego side, so you push and pull to keep the villain at bay. And there are so many heroes and villains already and there can be so many more.

5. Aeon’s End

Another one I talked about yesterday. Aeon’s End is a cooperative deck building game where you try and stop a nemesis. A great solo and two player game. There are so many set-ups and so many cards for it. Now this does include Legacy as well, which is a great introduction to the game. And I like that the randomness in the game isn’t shuffling your deck, it is turn order and what the monster does.

4. Xenoshyft: Onslaught

Another deck building game, this one is Starship Troopers and tower defense. I like how collaborative the game is. I build my deck, but if I have an extra troop and you need one, I can give it to you to defend your part of the base and it goes into your deck. It allows everyone to really balance out what is going on and have a chance, which is good, because it’s a tough game.

3. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

I feel like this one I talk about and always describe it in a way that doesn’t sound that fun. But in this game, I feel like I am a detective. It’s a bit like a detective TV show, but fun is how I put it. You get into the case and the theme and if you allow yourself to be immersed in figuring out the story going on it is a great time.

2. Tainted Grail

Another one from yesterday, Tainted Grail is an amazing story adventure game. You take these characters and build them up through a grim dark storyline. And the writing on the game is just so well done. In terms of thematic games, I feel like this one might top my list, though, not my favorite cooperative game.

1. Gloomhaven

For my favorite cooperative game, no shock, it’s Gloomhaven. I love this game. I love the leveling in this game and the card play in this game. And I love that you retire characters and get new ones. I think that the mechanics are amazing and the story is interesting. But overall it leads to a great cooperative experience.

Final Thoughts

I’m guessing since I missed Hanabi and Imperial Assault that I likely missed others. And I also found it interesting how many I’ve gotten rid of. I think a lot of that has to do with me having so many I’ve played. It means that they are fighting for playing time. So only the top ones stick around. Especially when you get down to campaign games, for those it’s even a tighter field because of Kickstarter games coming in and time.

What is your favorite cooperative game?

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Fae

Fae was a game that I picked up out in San Diego, I believe. It was one that I played at a game store out there and I enjoyed it quite well. Since getting it, I’ve played twice maybe three times. The game is good and interesting. In it you are getting circles of druids together to complete rituals. The color of the druid relates to a specific spirit or fae. Each player has a fae but it’s secret, so each ritual pushes scores higher for every color. You want to push yours high but without it being too obvious so other players try and tank it.

The game was a lot of fun when I played it. For me, though, the game play was just a little bit less than I’d have wanted and the set-up time was a little bit more than what the game was. I think for a High School group, though, it offers something different in terms of game play. The hidden aspect is going to be a twist that they might not have seen before.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

Dead Men Tell No Tales is another game that I have enjoyed a lot. The game play is pretty straight forward and it is a completely cooperative game. You are pirates boarding a ghost ship. You have guardians to fight, treasures to get, and skeletal deck hands to keep in check. All while the ship is on fire and rooms are burning up. It seems like a lot going on, but it really isn’t and it works well.

This is a gateway plus game, I’d say. It’s kind of like Pandemic but just some more going on. I’d say that it’s more thematic than Pandemic as well. However, I find that I’d pull them both out in the same situation most of the time and Pandemic is faster for me to get to the table. Dead Men Tell No Tales will be more thematically interesting than Pandemic and probably better right now.

Munchkin Zombie

This one I was surprised that I kept in my collection as long as I did. Munchkin is an amazing gateway game. It’s something that very familiar with because it is a bit of a take that game. In it you are kicking down doors and fighting monsters. If you beat them you get rewards and possibly level up. You play down armor and weapons to be able to defeat them as well as boosts, but other players can play cards to make you weaker or the monster stronger.

It’s a game that helped me get into the hobby in some ways. Catan and Ticket to Ride are the biggest reasons I started board gaming, but Munchkin Zombie is more in your face. So it’ll be one that a lot of people will get it because it is simple and it’s goofy. I don’t want to play that many take that games anymore, especially Munchkin Zombie, but a good one for new gamers.

Lanterns

This is the only that I haven’t played. It was part of a Target Buy 2 get 1 Free sale, or something along those lines. I’ve see the game played, I forget if it was on Wil Wheaton’s TableTop or some other show. And the concept is interesting, you are completing a firework display by laying down tiles into a big communal grid. Depending on what color is pointed at you, that gives you a card and you are building out sets that give you points. Game play seems nice and easy and colorful.

I’ve just never gotten it to the table. is there a good reason as to why I haven’t, not really. I think it is a situation where I have other gateway style games that I like a lot, so when I consider pulling it off the shelf, I just go with one of those instead. I’d probably like it if I played it. It’s just one of those games that I can look on my shelf and know I can get it again pretty cheap if I really want to play it. So might as well let it go somewhere to get played more.

So I’m sad to see these games leave, but I love that I can help someone else out with getting some games played. I want more and younger generation of gamers. I think there are lots of younger gamers, but the more the better because that means in the long run the hobby stays strong and more interesting games are made.

What games would you give to a High School for gaming?

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Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s

D’s

Dead Men Tell No Tales

This one I was sold on because it is a cooperative game that has a bit more going on than Pandemic and a pirate theme. Zee Garcia sold it well on the Dice Tower, and I have to say that I’ve been pleased with it. The use of the dice in the game to track how badly the ship is burning, and everything you are trying to do works for me. From dealing with ghosts, skeleton deckhands, fires, and trying to get back with the treasure the game is a good challenge. It definitely does end up feeling like it has more going on than Pandemic but in a good way, and I like the ship that you build as you go a an added variety to the game.

Status: Played

Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game

Part of me, as a completionist, feels like I should pick up the Warring Colonies expansion and the Rodney Smith Promo card for it, but I also don’t play it a ton right now. This is a big zombie survival game that no matter what length of mission you play it always takes a while. Add in a possible traitor to the mix, you need to spend more time decided what everyone is doing. I do have the Dead of Winter: The Long Night expansion that adds in some new modules that you can play with, and I haven’t even played with all of those. This is a tough game but one that I really do enjoy quite a lot for the theme and game play.

Status: Played

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Let me start off by saying, I don’t like most social deduction games. There are some that I find as just fine, but Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is a great game. There is a social deduction aspect to it as you talk about the reports that the forensic scientist is putting out to help you figuring out who the murderer is, but there is also just a deduction aspect as you try and interpret what the forensic scientist is getting at. The game is very well done and while some people don’t love the artwork/design on it, I do because it’s very simple for a simple game. If you pull this game out, I would play it every time, other social deduction games, I might pass on those, but this gives the players something to do from the very start.

Status: Played

Deep Madness

This is one that I bought used at my local game store because I saw it played on the Rolling Solo YouTube channel. In this game you are going down into the depths of the ocean to try and figure out what has happened to the station that is down there. As normal, they dug too deep and something has been released, or maybe it was there all along. You need to fight off monsters, and complete objectives in this mission based game that can also be a campaign game, I believe, but not as progressing a one or indepth a one as some. I also got the Endless Nightmares expansion and the Uncounted Horrors expansion for it as my FLGS, All Systems Go, was selling it all as a bundle.

Status: To Be Played

Deranged

This almost wasn’t on the list. I have been waiting on this game for months at this point. It was announced probably around May that UltraPro was going to be doing the distribution and production here in the United States, so I pre-ordered it when I could in June or July, and it showed up with three other games, yesterday. So looking back at the C’s, there’s a game that could have been in there now. Deranged is a game that I love the aesthetic of, and I really enjoyed the game play of at GenCon in 2019. It is a horror themed game, but a bit less so than some out there, where you are trying to escape a cursed village however, there are monsters, and there’s a chance that you might become Deranged which turns you into a monster, but you can get back if you kill someone else, which doesn’t turn them into a deranged, but gives them another curse. Definitely a very competitive game but a lot of fun.

Status: Played (GenCon Demo only)

Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2nd Edition)

So Descent has been on my radar as a one versus all dungeon crawl sort of game. I don’t have many/any other dungeon crawls like that, most are fully cooperative that I own, but this one I had looked at but I mainly picked it up for one thing. It has a ton of minis in the game, of okay quality, and I wanted over Covid to pick up mini painting. I got a base layer down on one dragon, that’s it so far. I do want to get back to it still and really start to dive into it, I need to set aside an evening to watch something in my office and paint them. Eventually I do want to play the game as well because I think it looks interesting and Fantasy Flight generally impresses me with their games, but might not get to the table for a bit and was really gotten for the minis.

Status: To Be Played

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game (LA Crimes & Dig Deeper)

This was a game that I was really excited about when it came out, and I ordered the base game immediately. I held off on ordering the expansions until later this year after playing the base game and loving it. In the base game you are using your own Detective skills to follow leads through an impressive and really interesting story that loops in bits of real history to create an immersive gaming experience. In some ways it’s like a procedural cop show, NCIS being a fairly closish example, but you are playing it yourself and are the detectives yourself and decide what leads to follow. Game play is really interesting and it’s so much about the experience, I highly highly highly recommend it for a deeply thematic time, and it plays really well via Zoom.

Status: Played

Detective: City of Angels

Have I said that I like deduction games, because I really do, as much as I don’t love social deduction games, deduction games are amazing. This one blends a little of both as one player, the Chisel, is kind of running the game, and they can give people the best answer or a not so good answer when they are questioning someone. If the investigator things they didn’t get the best answer, they can pressure the Chisel to give them the better answer, but do that too much or at the wrong time, it can not work out for you. This one is also different because while you are trying to solve cases, you aren’t doing it as a group like in Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, instead you’re trying to get all of the glory for yourself.

Status: To Be Played

Dice Throne (Season 1 and Season 2)

Dice Throne is on of my most played games out there. It’s a fun Yahtzee inspired dice chucking battling game done in a duel kind of Mortal Kombat style. In this game you are using the dice and combat points to attack, upgrade attacks, and try and get your opponent to 0 health before they knock you down. The game is simple enough to play, and it seems like it could be boring just because you’re rolling dice, but it is a ton of fun as each character plays differently and thematically. The Artificer has attacks that they can do, but also building up your bots to help you do more damage throughout the game or heal up, that’s super useful, where as the Barbarian has all of it’s offensive rolls just be attack attack attack. It’s just a blast always and plays well at 2, but even plays well with a bigger number.

Status: Played

Dicecapades

This one is on my shelf still because it’s just a silly and fun party game. It has you stacking dice, rolling dice, doing a lot of things with dice. My one major knock on this game is that it has a lot of fun things with it and then it has trivia. You roll a die and that determines what trivial question you get, that’s not fun. And that part can just turn into a slog if you just aren’t great at trivia. If you’re interested in the game, or looking for that goofy family/holiday party style game, it’s better than some.

Status: Played

Draftosaurus

This game is basically a roll and write, but instead of rolling and writing, you are drafting dinosaurs and placing them on your board. It works well, and the dinosaur meeples are super cute. The game also has a really nice mechanic where the person whose turn it is to lead rolls a die and that determines where everyone else has to place their dinosaur that they will draft, but the person who is rolling the die can place anywhere. You are trying to get as many of different types as you can, or sets of dinosaurs, or as many of one type as you can and more and that’ll determine how you score. Overall, just a fun filler game that has some thought that goes into it.

Status: Played

Dragonfire

You’ll see a similar game show up later in another letter, but Dragonfire is a deck building, monster fighting game with a Dungeons and Dragons theme on it. I like that you get your class, you can play through what looks like some pretty big stories or smaller stories to make up a larger campaign and level up your characters. I also like that you can play solo in this game. I’ve played it a couple of times with the copy that Fantasy Flight had and then I picked up my own because it was enjoyable and challenging. I feel like I need to nail down a better strategy still, but overall, a lot of fun.

Status: Played

The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

This is a game based off of my favorite book series, and while it is a pretty mechanical game if you don’t know the books, it is something that we’ve made feel more thematic when I’ve played it, and I’ve played it a lot. In this game you take a team of characters, from 3 to 5 I believe, into the game. You can play solo, but you’re playing 3 characters, or you can play 2 player, but you each mix together two characters, and it works well. I like how each game is you playing through a one of the books as well, and I think that works so incredibly well.

Status: Played

Dutch Blitz

This is a classic game that I grew up playing. It’s a pretty fast and fun card game where you are putting down cards in a stack and seeing how many cards you can get out. I keep it around more because of nostalgia than anything, but it’s also one that I wouldn’t be opposed to pulling out once in a while.

Status: Played

That’s the letter D, I think compared to all the previous ones, this one has the fewest in it that I haven’t played, though, Deep Madness is a pretty big game that I haven’t played. And it has some that I’ve played a lot. I’m guessing that I’ve played over 20 games of The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game and Dice Throne each. What is your favorite game to start with the letter D, and what one do you think i should add?

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Dead of Winter

So the first one isn’t actually even a cooperative game, but I wanted to put it on here, because in terms of semi-cooperative games, it is one of the best ones out there. In this game you are trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. But, there might be a traitor in your midst. You have to try and figure out how the traitor might be, as well as complete the overall objective, plus feed your survivors, deal with zombies, build up defenses, and deal with daily issues that pop up. It’s a really fun game, fairly long, but one that has a ton of theme about zombie survival. It also has this amazing thing known as Crossroad Cards. These are cards that offer story and tough decisions that can happen when certain actions are taken or when certain locations are gone to. It helps keep the game very immersive and interesting. This won’t be for all players who want to work together, but if you want to sow that seed of doubt, Dead of Winter is a great option.

Mansions of Madness

Maybe they are fans of horror, Mansions of Madness takes a horror element from HP Lovecraft’s work and gets turned into an investigation and survival game as the players take on the roll of paranormal investigators in Arkham Massachusetts during the 1920’s. You’ve been called in to deal with a strange situation at a Mansion, or maybe into the sea side town of Innsmouth to investigate the creatures coming out of the water. This game is app assisted as it helps you with fighting the bad guys and monsters, figuring out the secret plans of the cultists and trying to stop them, and solving puzzles along the way. The app does a good job of helping with some of the book keeping in the game and keeping the scenarios different when you play them, because the game can change it up based off of what you have, so the mansion might not look quite the same between scenarios. This is a really fun game with a ton of story in it. However, if the Lovecraftian theme doesn’t work for you, Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth is kind of the next iteration of Mansions of Madness in using an app, just a fantasy setting we all know well.

Say Bye to the Villains

Maybe you want a small game, Say Bye to the Villains is a very challenging game where you are Samurai who know of some villains that you’ll be facing off against. You have 10 days to research them, prepare your skills, and do anything else you need to, to get ready. The days are basically point values on your cards. The higher the point value, the more time it might be. I have probably played this game 15 to 20 times and I have yet to win. This is an extremely hard game, because like most cooperative games, there are a lot of things you need to do and not enough time to do them. Each villain has face down cards modifying their attacks, and you won’t have time to figure out all of those and get yourself ready to fight them. The game is almost a tiny bit too tight that way, but if someone is up for a challenge, it’s a really good game.

Gloomhaven

One type of game I haven’t put on the list is campaign games. Gloomhaven isn’t the original campaign game, but it’s probably the most popular. Currently it is the highest ranked game on Board Game Geek, now that is hobby gamers, so don’t let that fool you into thinking that this game is going ot be something that you can pick up easily. In fact, for most people, I’d recommend start with Jaws of the Lions. Jaws of the Lion is Gloomhaven, just in a smaller box. But if you want an epic dungeon crawl game with story, adventuring, leveling up and unlocking new characters, this game is amazing. I just finished it up a week ago, and it was a great time and probably over 250 hours into the base game and the expansion and we didn’t even do all of the side quests. There’s a lot to learn, but it’s definitely worth it, and a game that will give you so much value compared to a lot of other games just with how much you can play it, and once you’re into it, how much you want to play it.

Pandemic

Finally, the game that is fitting for this year, but also is for that person who is interesting in board games if they are cooperative, but hasn’t played a ton of board games. Pandemic is a modern classic when it comes to board games. It’s a game where you are fighting back and trying to find cures for four diseases around the board. Like I was talking about with Say Bye to the Villains, this game has you feeling like there’s always a little bit more that you want to do. You want to be able to get over to one area to treat diseases while also getting to another area to hand off a card to another player to help find one of the cures, plus use a card to build another research base to make things easier to get around. The game starts off as challenging, but the more you play the easier it’ll get. If the person is already familiar with this game and you want to take the next step, I highly recommend Pandemic Legacy Season 1, 2, and most recently 0. Those will give you the same feel, but have a story that evolves.

There are so many cooperative games out there, for really challenging ones like Robinson Crusoe, comic based ones like Marvel Champions and Marvel United, pirates in Dead Men Tell No Tales and Forgotten Waters, so I lot to choose from. I mentioned dungeon crawl games with Gloomhaven, and there are a ton of fully cooperative ones out there. If you want it as a theme for a cooperative game, you can probably find it. But these are some that I really enjoy, shouldn’t be too hard to find, minus maybe Say Bye to the Villains, and offer a lot of fun and interesting challenge.

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• These are my favorite, you want what people consider best, see the Board Game Geek Top 100
• If a game you love isn’t on the list, it might be be coming, I might not have played it, and if I have, it’s 101
• If a game looks cool, I have links to buy it from CoolStuffInc or Amazon, or you can grab most at your FLGS
• There are a few games, Destiny 2 Player versus regular Destiny where if they are basically the same thing, I only do one of them

80. Lift Off! Get me off this Planet!

This game has the honor of being the first game that I backed on Kickstarter. When I backed it, I did so without really having the gaming collection that I have no or the experience gaming, I just thought that the game looked fun, and, well, I was right. This game is pretty simple, you move around aliens to get them off the planet, but there is some challenge, because you need the right stuff to get them off the planet, and you need the moon to be in the right phase to get them off the planet at certain locations. So while the game is simple and very cute, there is some strategy, there is some timing, because if you don’t have enough resources placed at the right time for the launch, you might have to wait for the moon to travel around again. The game looks great on the table, and while it’s not one that I pull out and play a ton, it is a fun one to play.

Last Year: Not Ranked

79. Codenames: Pictures

Now, you will not see Codenames on the list, I’ve come around on it a little bit, but I don’t enjoy Codenames that much. Linking the words can be done, but there are some issues with it, people need to know all the words and all the possible meanings/slang for the words to really make it work. With Codenames: Pictures, there are just a whole lot more interesting ways to connect the pictures. It makes the game faster, a bit easier, but also has more memorable moments and memorable clues where you can get a lot of answers. Codenames: Pictures just has more of the party feel to the game for the weight that it’s at and I like it for that.

Last Year: 75

78. Dead Men Tell No Tales

I’m a big fan of cooperative games, and Dead Men Tell No Tales is a fun pirate themed one where you are going onto a cursed and burning pirate ship to try and grab all the treasure and leave before the ship burns and you get cut off from either the treasure or your escape. The game can get to you in a lot of ways with the fire, the guardians, the skeletal crew and just a nice challenging feel that has a bit more going on than base Pandemic, so is a bit less of a gateway game. But if you have someone in your life who likes games and pirates, and is even just familiar with modern gaming, this is a really enjoyable game. Not one of the cooperative games that gets played most often, but one I like quite well.

Last Year: 81

77. King of Tokyo

When we talk about gateway games, King of Tokyo has to be one of them that comes up. It uses a Yahtzee style dice rolling in a fun way as you all take on the roll of monsters who are battling it out over Tokyo. The game plays fast and you can either win by knocking out all the other monsters (the most fun way), or by getting points (also fun, but less punching). You can improve what you do by getting power and buying cards. And you can go into Tokyo where you can punch everyone, but the issue is everyone can then punch you. The game is fast, it’s pretty silly, and while there is player elimination, that rarely happens and then the game continues for a long time. Overall, just a fun gateway game that works best at the higher player counts.

Last Year: 37

76. Sword & Sorcery

I promise you this isn’t the only dungeon crawler on the list. It’s the first just because compared to some of the others on the list, the story isn’t as interesting. But there are some parts of the game that I really like. I like the leveling up mechanic and I like that you have two sides to each character. It makes the game feel like I could play it again with the same characters and it would play differently. And this is a true Amerithrash game where you have a big handful of dice for an attack or defense and you better roll well or you might be in trouble. And while the game has a massive rulebook and a few trickier rule things, like who a boss monster might target and how that changes, the game is actually pretty easy, you just move, explore, and fight basically, and fighting is done with the dice. I wish the story felt like it had more choices to it, but that’s about my only knock on it.

Last Year: 25

75. Skull

A very different type of game than most on my list, this is a push your luck bluffing game. Each player has a hand full of cards, a bunch of roses and a skull. Players take turns putting down a card in their own stack, face down, until someone bids on how many cards they can flip over without hitting a skull. The trick to it is that you have to flip over all of your own cards first. So if you’ve placed your skull in your stack, can you bid, just to push someone else’s bid higher so that they’ll hit yours and bust, or will you bust yourself because you’ll be stuck flipping over your own skull. There’s some interesting strategy in how you play and how you bid, but really it’s about reading the other players at the table to figure out what they’ve done.

Last Year: 99

74. Risk Legacy

First Legacy game on the list and just first overall legacy game in the hobby. While this game doesn’t have the story that the more modern ones do or try to have, the game play is still a lot of fun. It’s risk, but there’s more, you aren’t just fighting over the world, you’re fighting over bases and you’re trying to complete missions and if you can pull them off, you get victory points and the first person to hit the victory point threshold wins. Plus, all of the factions are different. And you get to decide how they are different as you add stickers to them, so you can make them better at attacking or better at defending, or maybe you get more troops to start. There’s all sorts of different strategies that you can take, but it still feels like classic Risk for the most part, it just goes much faster. Overall a fun time especially if you like Risk but can’t play it too often because it lasts too long.

Last Year: 79

73. Pandemic Legacy Season 2

Back to back legacy games, Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 is a bit further down on my list than Pandemic Legacy Season 1. I think that it tries to do a lot of new and different things, and while I think it does most of them well, it bogs down a little bit with all the new things you need to learn. That said, for being quite different than Season 1 and base Pandemic in what you’re trying to do, the mechanics seem really familiar and can get going on the base game quickly, there’s just a twist on to everything. So if you haven’t just gone from one type of Pandemic to the other, you’ll probably be able to pick up on those changes quickly. The story is very interesting, and there is a lot of legacy content in the game.

Last Year: 84

72. Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate

I like all of the Betrayal games, this one is just a bit further down on the list, because while I like the D&D theme to the game, it just doesn’t seem as epic and as good a thematic fit as horror does. This one does have some cool features though, class powers are awesome. I like that about 1/5 of the scenarios have no betrayer, there is just some monster or something that you have to do as a group, that makes it easier to keep track off since some of the haunts (betrayals) can be a bit tricky to understand and if you’re the betrayer you don’t have anyone to ask. They also fix an issue that can arise in the regular game where the haunt happens too fast. It’s still swingy and tricky to understand all the haunts, but I like it a lot and I like the silly random moments that you can have in the game, and the great rolls or the horrible rolls you can have.

Last Year: 35

71. Magic: The Gathering

By far the biggest game on the list, and actually a game that I have sold most of what I have for it, because I don’t have a consistent group to play with for the past few years. But I still really like the game. I especially like playing EDH (Commander). I never got into the competitive magic scene, but for more casual play and people not busting the bank buying stuff, I think it’s a lot of fun. I really can get into the deck building because you can come up with all sorts of odd and interesting combos and for me coming up with something odd and seeing if it can work is a blast. I like to try strange strategies and see if they’ll work or build a whole deck off of the concept of flipping and coin and see what happens with that and how well that’ll work. A few years ago this would have been higher, it’s just not one that I’m sure I’ll get to play that often anymore.

Last Year: 60

A whole lot of moving and shaking on my list. I think some of that is because, or the ones that are dropping, I like another game that does something similar that much better so it takes a bit of a hit. At least that is what I’m guessing. Still, I was a bit surprised to see a few of the games having dropped as far as they did from the 20’s and 30’s. Still really enjoy those games, just might not be the ones I pull off the shelf to scratch that game playing itch.

What is your favorite from this part of the list?

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And I’ve been picking up games, I got a bunch of games at GenCon on August, I’ve gotten Lords of Hellas, Blood Rage, and Deep Madness from a local game store, used, to add to my collection. How can you keep a collection under control to have what you really want in it? And not to have games that are just going to sit around and never be played?

There are a few different factors that I look at when I consider what board games I want to keep or what games I want to get rid of. I think the mindset has to be there that you are looking for games to get rid of, not just games to keep, because I could make an argument to keep all of the games. Instead, look for the games that you can remove, not just to keep the collection smaller, but also to open up more room in your collection.

The first thing that I look at, and even though I find the extreme version of this dumb, is, does it give me joy. A lot of people take that to the extreme and end up getting rid of so much that they actually do miss it and realize it was and has given you joy. But, for a board game, I look at it this way, if I didn’t play it again, would I care that much? With the batch of culling that I’m doing right now, I considered the game Krosmaster Arena. While that game has adorable little figures, and I do enjoy the game, I won’t miss playing it. So, it doesn’t really bring me that much joy, but looking at another game I considered, Dead Men Tell No Tales. That game I’ve had more fun times with, and I would still pull it off the shelf and play it, even though I haven’t in a long time.

Next, when considering getting rid of a game, I also look at how much I have that is like it. Now, I have a number of deck builders, Xenoshyft: Onslaught, Clank! In! Space!, Ascension, and more, so I got rid of one of them? No, because I like all of those games and they give me joy, but when I considered the game Unspeakable Words, which the little chibi Cthulhu in it still entertain me, I realized that I have other word games, Quiddler and soon Letter Jam and I don’t think, when I want to play a word game, that I’d ever pull Unspeakable Words off of the shelf again. So there are times when a game might bring you some joy, but if you’re never going to play it again, it might be time to take it off of the shelf. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, because there will be times where you have some games that you just want to keep because of the memories that you have with those games.

I also consider if there is a new edition, and this ties into the previous point, but in some ways it’s a little bit different. For example, I am getting rid of Arkham Horror because I have the newest edition of Arkham Horror, and while I’ve had fun with the 5-6 hour game that the Arkham Horror was, I’m not going to get that to the table over a 3 hour or slightly less Arkham Horror 3rd Edition, or even a game like Arkham Horror The Card Game or Mansions of Madness. Or I’m getting rid of Machi Koro: Bright Lights Big City. Now, I don’t have another version or edition of that on my shelf, but I know that Machi Koro Legacy is out, and when you are done with Machi Koro Legacy, you still have a playable game of Machi Koro. So I’m not going to need both versions of the game in my collection, because they would fill the same need, and I can simply pull out the completed Legacy version.

I also ask myself if a game is still my taste or if I need a game like it still in my collection. Your collection can have only games that you love in it, and maybe only one type of game, but I personally think that you can have a breath of games and find some things out of your comfort zone that you kind of like, you should keep that in your collection or add it to your collection. Now, these games might not give you joy, but there are times and occasions to pull them out. I’m not a huge of Splendor, I think the game works decently, but it doesn’t excite me to play it. But that game came off the shelf a few weeks ago, because we needed a short game that is easy to teach. So sometimes you keep a game that you don’t love and you maybe have other versions of it that you like better, Century: Golem Edition scratches the same itch that Splendor does for me, but you keep the game because it is easy to get to the table in certain situations.

Finally, it might be a game that you’ve never played and never will play. Maybe there is a game so important to keep in your collection just to have collected it, that isn’t a thing for me, but sometimes, if a game has sat around long enough, it’s time to move on from it, because you won’t be able to play it. This is especially the case if you’ve tried to play it or tried to learn it and it just doesn’t look interesting or you can’t find the group. If you’ve tried to play it and you can’t find people to play it with, you have to decide if it’s worth keeping in your collection and if it’s stopping you from adding something you can play to your collection. Now, it might be that it is worth having it, and that is cool, because there will probably be a time, sometime in the future, where you find the right group to play it with, but if you don’t care that much, it might be time to move on from it instead of letting it eat up space.

So, let’s talk a little bit about what I’m getting rid of and why:
KrosMaster Arena: I think this game is the hardest to explain why. I enjoy the game, but I just know that I’m not going to consistently get it to the table again. And I think when it comes down to it, I have other dice chucking fighting games that I like better.
Rise of Queensdale: I was looking forward to playing this legacy game, because it’s a legacy game. With that said, the group I was going to play this with fell apart and I haven’t even removed it from the shrink, and that was about a year ago. So I don’t think I’ll find a group to play it and I have other legacy games, Betrayal Legacy, and probably in the future Clank! Legacy, Machi Koro Legacy, and Pandemic Legacy Season 3 that I’m going to prefer to play.
Unspeakable Words: This game was mainly kept around because the Cthulhu minis were cute. I have other word games that I’d pull out before it, and for me, the game is too random with it’s dice.
Forbidden Desert: A lot of people would keep this game as an introductory coop game in their collection. And I considered it for that reason, especially since I got rid of Forbidden Island before, but I have Pandemic, and I can teach and play that game as an introductory coop game.
Machi Koro: Bright Lights, Big City: Machi Koro Legacy is a thing that I’m going to want to play.
Albion’s Legacy: An interesting one to get rid of, because I haven’t played it, nor have I tried to play it. I got it for free at GenCon, and I wasn’t really that interested in it, but free things. So might as well get rid of it instead of having it take up space on my shelf.
Arkham Horror 2nd Edition: I have the 3rd Edition, and it just takes too long. I’m not going to get it to the table again over the 3rd edition because of the amount of time. I’d prefer to open up room for expansions for 3rd Edition.

That’s all of the games that are leaving this time. I could have maybe found a couple more small box games, but the small box game area still had room, so I didn’t look too hard at it.

Now, what I didn’t talk about was where to get rid of these games. I think that’ll be a separate post, but I sell mine for store credit, you know, to get more games.

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5. Dead Men Tell No Tales
A cooperative game on the list, this one you are trying to rescue treasure from a pirate ship, dealing with ghosts, skeleton crew (all puns intended), and fires breaking out on the ship. If you have three players you have a nice range of powers, and the ship expands fast enough that you feel like your running around and it’s less contained. This is a tough cooperative game, but it’s a lot of fun, and you get that kind of Pirates of the Caribbean feeling with it. Definitely a game to check out for cooperative game fans, and it has some interesting mechanics with it that I’ve talked about on the action point list.

4. Lord of the Rings
Now, this isn’t the LCG (Living Card Game), this is the old board game. I do think it plays well with four as well as three. But I like it for it’s fast turns, and with three players you feel like you have enough players to have a shot, but it isn’t too long between turns. You’re going to see this come up later as well, the amount of times between turns. Keeping it moving fast is important in games because no one gets distracted or forgets what they are trying to do. I know it’s an older game so it isn’t always the easiest to find, but for someone who is a huge fan of Lord of the Rings, the game does have that travelling feel, and I guess the advantage of playing with five is someone can play as Fatty Bolger.

3. Ticket to Ride
Now, this one is good at any player count, but at three players the board is going to be the most open. So that is going to be the friendliest way to introduce someone to a game that can end up being a little cut throat with routes being blocked. Ticket to Ride, the North American map, is going to play very open and free flowing with three players and is likely going to get another non-gamer to like the train game if played that way. If played with five, or two, the map becomes quite tight and they couldn’t have fun if they get routes stolen before they can get to them just because of card draws. There might still end up being some of that, but it’s going to be less.

2. Dead of Winter
Now, this game can be played with a higher number, but I like it around that 3-4 player range. With two players, I don’t feel like you should play with the betrayer, with four players, the game can drag out a little bit long. With three players there is only one turn out of the three players turns you don’t have something to do. Either your taking your turn, or you at least get to check to see if the player triggers a Crossroads card. Even if you know immediately that the Crossroads card won’t be triggered, sitting through two turns while waiting for yours isn’t too long. Also, the more people there are, the harder it is to coordinate and actually win tough scenarios even if there isn’t a betrayer trying to screw you over.

1.Gloomhaven
I think I’ve said this before, but as my favorite game, I have to say I like it at my favorite player count. The reason I like it at three is that with Gloomhaven if it’s only two, you can probably spend more time figuring out the logic of what is going to happen when and really plan it out. With three players, you have to plan what you want to do and try and puzzle it out, but you also need a contingency so that your whole turn isn’t a waste. It forces you to not always do the best move but instead what might be the most versatile move. I also think that with four, it’s going to push that randomness too far out and you are going to have a number of wasted turns, especially if you have a character who isn’t that fast. For that reason Gloomhaven takes the top spot on my 3 player list.

Now, these are my person opinions, you’ll see on Board Game Geek that they disagree with me some (the community there), but these should all be enjoyable at the three player count.

What are some of your favorite games that you think really work the best at three players?

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But we finish off with action points. What are action points, they are points or tokens that tell you how much you can do on a single turn. Maybe you can take five actions, and then you allocate those points to specific actions you can take, like moving or attacking.

5. Dead Men Tell  No Tales
A cooperative game, in this one you are spending actions to try and find treasure on a pirate ship that is haunted and currently on fire. You have to contain the fire, try and find the treasures, deal with skeletal deck hands, and you have a certain number of actions you can take to do all of that. This game is like a lot of cooperative games in that you feel like you can never do enough. The interesting thing this game adds in with action points is that you can pass on your unused action points to the next player. So it might be that you are limited in what you can do, but the next person has a lot of useful things that they can do. You can move closer into position to set-up what for your next turn and then pass any unused action points to the next player so that they can do more. In a lot of cooperative games the action points are static but you can act upon other characters, in this one, you can’t do that, but you can pass out action points.

4. Dead of Winter
Dead of Winter is an interesting game on this list as it uses dice as your action points in the round. The dice don’t encompass every action you can take in the game, but the strongest actions, the ones that help you complete objectives are going to spend a die. Not only that, but the number you roll on the dice makes a difference as well. Some characters aren’t able to search or kill zombies with a low die roll. So in that case your die, which is supposed to be your strongest action is now made weaker and it looks like you are hurting the colony and people are starting to suspect you are the traitor more, but at the same time, they can see the roll, so they know it wasn’t great. And then you get more dice and actions when you have more survivors, but you are also responsible for more zombies showing up and more mouths to feed and making the game harder that way.

3. Arkham Horror LCG
This game doesn’t use the points as a physical token, but a lot of the games with action points don’t. Action allowance might be a good way of describing it as well, because you have a certain total number of actions you can take on a turn. Arkham Horror does this well, limiting you to two actions, and while you can do the same actions multiple times, you always feel the crush of not being able to do enough. Arkham Horror LCG is a placeholder on this list for all of Fantasy Flights Lovecraftian games as you feel the crunch Arkham Horror, Elder Signs, and Mansions of Madness as well. It’s a system that works well for them as it keep the tension high when you don’t have enough actions to do everything that you’d want.

2. Blood Rage
Action points are huge in Blood Rage as you try and get into territories, move troops around, and be able to hang in the round long enough to stop your opponent from doing what they are trying to do. What I like about the action point system in Blood Rage is that certain actions cost a certain number of action points. And the monsters, who are possibly more powerful or useful in some other way, also have action point costs. So you’re trying to balance using your action points so that you don’t run out much before anyone else, because once you are out of action points, you are out of the round at least in being able to take the large actions that are going to be most useful long term.

1. Pandemic Legacy
This game does great with action points, basically each turn the active player spends up to four action points, moving around, curing diseases, trading cards, and finding cures. Then as the game continues, you gain more and more actions that you can take. At the end of the game, you’re trying to balance out these actions in hopes that you’ll be able to survive. Pandemic does a really good job with these actions, because it evolves over time. A lot of games have more of a static action pool with maybe unique characters have special player power actions that they can take, but Pandemic Legacy, both seasons one and two, give more options as you play and unlock more of the game.

There are a ton of games that use this action point/action selection mechanic. It’s a strong mechanic for adding tension to decisions, because you’re almost always short of the action points you want to use in a round. This mechanic, however, isn’t always an ideal for players who might have AP, because it makes your choice really matter. But let’s talk about some honorable mentions:

Forbidden Desert/Forbidden Island – Cooperative exploration games that feel like Pandemic light.
Flash Point: Fire Rescue – Another Pandemic like game that also has a bit of a Dead Men Tell No Tales feel to it as well, this time you’re being fire fighters though.
KrosMaster Arena – Plan your movement and attacks in this Chibi MOBA style game. A little bit simple at times, and almost ways a best way to use your action points.
The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game – This game is all about the Fate Points, as the action points are called. It’s a pool of action points which is a very different feel from a lot of the games as you as a team have to replenish and manage that pool of points.

What are some of your favorite games with action points? Is action points/action selection a mechanic that you enjoy?

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In this game, you take on the roles of different pirate crew members as you are trying to get treasure off of a burning pirate ship that is infested with skeletal pirates and deck hands. You spend you turn dealing with fires, so that the ship doesn’t burn down around you, fighting skeletal pirates and guardians to get items and treasures, keeping too many deckhands from appearing and trying not to die from exhaustion. This game has a similar feel to Pandemic where you have a ton of ways to die, but only one way to win, and it’s also cooperative.

Probably the coolest part of this game, though I do like the whole game, is the action point idea. So, with action points, it’s how many of the six of seven various actions you can do per turn. However, sometimes, it doesn’t make sense for a person to do all of their actions or maybe they can’t even do all of their actions. So what do you do with those extra actions? If you don’t use them, it makes the game harder for everyone. In Dead Men Tell No Tales, however, you have tokens for your actions, so you flip them over, but if you can’t flip them all over and use them, you pass your extra actions to the next player. So instead of having 5 actions on their next turn, they could have up to seven or eight, assuming you used a couple of actions on your turn.

So, how does this game play, it’s a pretty fast game with very well defined steps. To start each of your turns you draw a tile and add it to the ship. This is yet another way that you can lose. If you aren’t careful, you might not be able to place the tile. Each tile has a certain number of doors, and if you can’t properly connect the doors or at least not have a door connect to not a door (they can connect to nothing as long as it’s legally connected to a door), then you lose the game yet another way. Then you draw a token to put on it, it might be trap door which is where the deckhands come from, it might be a skeletal pirate who you can get grog or a cutlass off of if you can beat them in battle, or it might be a skeletal guardian who is keeping the treasure from you. Then you spend your actions to fight the fires, fight either the guardians or pirates, maybe you want to rest and recover from how you are hurt, or you are going to pick up and item that someone has dropped. But once you’ve taken as many actions as you want, then you flip over a card and something bad happens (I’ll talk about this other cool mechanic now).

When you flip a card where something bad happens, there’s always a die with a color and number on it. So, I flip a card and it has a red three on it. It tells you what fires are going to grow stronger. Each fire is a die on the room it’s in. There are two different colors, yellow and red dice, so I’ve flipped a red three, that means that any fire that is currently a red three becomes a red four meaning that the room is burning more. Now, if it gets all the way up to a six, then the room is burned and gone. If enough of these happen, then you lose the game or maybe it happens and you can no longer get to a couple of the treasures and you can’t get enough, well, that also ends the game and you lose. But wait, there is more, sometimes you don’t need the die to get to a six, there are rooms that have gunpowder next to the door. If the die gets high enough, that gunpowder explodes and you take another hit to the ship, not only that, but it raises the room that the gunpowder is sitting by to a higher die total as well. This makes all of the actions that you can take extremely important.

What I like about this game is that while it start out slow, soon you are thinking about a dozen different things. You have rooms all over the place that are getting ready to explode, you are trying to deal with the deckhands so that they don’t overrun the ship, and you’re still worried about getting the treasure that you need. The turns got quite fast, you can ask for advice, because it’s cooperative, and each pirate has a special power that is really cool to them. The games theme comes through pretty well, but you do have to lean into it a little bit, drinking a piratey rum with the sound track for a Pirates of the Caribbean movie on in the background would really help drive in the theme, but the theme is definitely there. It’s a good game where it seems like it’s going to scale well, and while the easy level if quite easy, the medium difficulty of the game is really tough, and I’d be curious to know how hard the game can end up being.

Overall Grade: B+

Casual Grade: B

Gamer Grade: B

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