As the name of the mechanic suggests, real time games are about doing stuff in real time. That can be moving pieces, rolling dice, solving puzzles, really anything, but you have a time limit that you are working against. Now, it can be that one person needs to do something, then the next, then, the next and you are trying to get it done as quickly as possible while still taking turns. Other times it might be that everyone is doing stuff at once.

Let’s give an example of a game like this, I actually talked about one in my Board Game Mechanics for Variable Player Powers, which you can find here, Magic Maze. In this game you have a group of fantasy heroes who are going shopping at the mall. A silly premise, but each player has a direction that the character can move, north, south, east, west, up some stairs, into new rooms, etc. The game has a timer that is running and you can move to spots which allow you to flip the sand timer, plus you need to move to spots where you can get the items, plus you need to get out as well. This is all done in real time with players moving the pawns, and it’s done cooperatively. The trick is that no one can speak, the only form of communication that you can do is put a pawn in front of someone to let them know you need them to move one of the characters. So it’s very tricky to coordinate because everyone is having to keep track of 4 heroes and where they are moving.

Probably the biggest thing that real time adds to games is tension. There is a clock, a timer, something that is counting down. And it isn’t like in something like Scattergories where you have a limited amount of time to come up with as many answers as possible and then compare the answers, in that, the comparing the answers is really part of the game. In most real time games, when you hit the end, the game is over and you either in or lose. There is no tallying up points, there is no checking to see if you did well enough, and while that can show up in some games that offer some real time, for the most part, it’s pretty obvious how well you did in the game. So it’s a constant pressure to make sure you are getting the right thing.

For that reason, I think that these games are going to generally be fairly polarizing. Even for myself, real time games are not something I want to pull out all that often because they can be stressful. And it requires people to make split second decisions, and for a lot of people, that can be too much pressure to work on. There are some games that help with that a little bit, but even those, because there is a real time element are going to be more stressful than your average game. These types of games are definitely not ideal games for people with analysis paralysis.

So, if these games sound interesting to you, what are some that work well?

Gateway Game

Fuse – In this game it’s a race against time as you try and defuse as many bombs as possible. The trick to this is that you are trying to roll dice to do that. Each player will take a turn as fast as possible to roll some dice, and then each player takes one and adds it to a bomb they need to defuse. But, there are rules as to what dice are needed to defuse a bomb. One might need to dice that add up to the value of a third die. So you need to pick numbers that work for that, or it might be that the numbers need to increase. If you can’t take a die to help defuse a bomb, you have to take one off of your current bombs and put it back into the bag of dice. So you need the luck to work out in your favor. All of this while an app counts down time and everyone is trying to make sure everyone can get a die but also not take too much time discussing.

Medium Weight

Captain Sonar – This one is interesting because it’s actually one that has less tension, which is odd considering you are on two teams of subs who are trying to figure out where the other is and sink them. Each player has a different role on the submarine. One person is the Captain who is giving orders, telling players what direction to move, conferring with the First Officer who is readying systems like mines and torpedoes, the Radar Technician who is listening to the other teams Captain and trying to figure out by mapping their path where the other team is, and working with the Engineer to keep systems up that the Officer will want to use. Now, that seems like there is a lot going on, and there is, it’s a fairly lengthy game to teach, but what each role does is quite simple. The reason that this game is less stressful is that while it is real time, there is no complete this before time runs out. It’s just tracking down the other ship, that means as the Captain I can announce which direction we’re moving as quickly or slowly as I’d want. This is definitely a different feel than a lot of other real time games.

Heavy Weight

Galaxy Trucker – Now this almost falls into the Scattergories category of “real time” games. The reason I say that is because about half the game isn’t in real time. Instead you are dealing with complications that are coming your way. This can be pirates or asteroids, or picking up supplies for your ship. But where it is real time is the building of the ship. You are fighting with your opponents over tiles that are all face down to start. So you are frantically trying to get the ship put together with enough engines, cannons, crew, cargo room, and power so that can make the best run possible and have as little of your ship blow up as possible. The issue is you need to connect the pieces right. If there’s a two prong connector keeping it together, it better connect to a two prong and more things like that. And some parts just deadend, so it might be a nice cargo area, but do you want it if you can’t protect it with space cannons or shields? I’m not sure how much more complex this is than Captain Sonar, but there are more decisions that need to be made in this game about building your ship and more things to keep track of when doing that.

I will say that out of all of the games I’ve mentioned, Magic Maze, Fuse, Captain Sonar, and Galaxy Trucker, I’m fans of two of them, the other two I’d play but they’re just okay. Magic Maze and Fuse have a much higher stress level and I like playing board games to relax so stressful board games won’t cause me to freeze up, but they aren’t high on my list. With Captain Sonar, it is real time but it’s not as rushed feeling. And with Galaxy Trucker, the game is goofy, you poorly put together space truck will fall apart some and that’s fine, because it’s supposed to, you’re just hoping it’s better than everyone else’s. One final real time type of game I want to mention are Unlock and Exit, both of those score you against how long it took you to solve them. These are good gateway style real time games, I just didn’t mention them because I just talked about them with Escape Room games.

Do you like the tension of real time games or are they too stressful? What are some of your favorites?

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Part 1

Part 2

Zombie Dice is one of the simplest games on the list, but it works well because you can be gaming while you are talking. There’s every little involvement by people in the game when it’s not your turn and that works out just fine. Even when it is your turn you don’t have to pay that much attention as you are just grabbing dice, rolling them, and then deciding when to stop and cash your brains in. It’s a simple die rolling game of push your luck where you are trying to be the first player to 13 or 15 or whatever number people pick, by collecting brains, because that’s what zombies do. But you got to be careful, because if you get shot three times,  you don’t cash any brains for the round. Once someone has passed the end game total, then everyone has one turn to try and beat them. It’s very much Farkle like, but simpler and less math.

Tsuro is another game that falls into the simple and fast games. You can plan out your turn in advance, but normally that’s a pretty simple process. Tsuro, the game of the path, is about staying on the board the longest and can play up to eight people. You play a tile in front of your pawn and move it each round and you can only use the tiles you have in your hand. It’s not a highly interactive game between players until later in the game when you have to put your pawns fate into someone else hands. A nice thing about this game too is that you have a limited number of tiles, so if you have two people or if you have eight people, the game is going to take basically the same length. Just with more people the game is more interactive earlier on in the game. It’s also a game where when you get knocked out, you know you aren’t going to be sitting there long. This can be an issue with some of the social deduction games that eliminate players.

We Didn’t Playtest This At All! Legacy also falls into the category of very simple games. It’s a draw a card play a card game and be the last one standing. There are several versions of this game, but I prefer the legacy version. It adds to fun of the game which is extremely simple otherwise. We just got rid of our non-legacy version, so just We Didn’t Playtest This At All!, because it’s a little too simple.  However, I do think for some groups there is a good spot for this on their shelves. It’s a good game for when people are showing up, because a single game lasts only a few minutes before everyone is eliminated. It’s also a goofy game, so it’s a good ice breaking game as well for people to interact a little bit.

Sushi Go! Party falls into a different category of game with the card drafting mechanic and is a bit more complex. It also lasts longer than most of the others that I’ve mentioned in social deduction and in this post (the party games can last a long time if you want). As players you are drafting a card in three rounds, each round is a full hand of cards, and then passing the cards to the next person. It’s a fun game with a lot of variability in it if you have the party edition. I highly recommend that. It’s also a game that is a bit thinkier, and people can form strategies, but because the artwork is very cute, people who haven’t gotten all the strategy with a particular set of scoring food items will still enjoy it because of the artwork. It’s a game that is quite aesthetically pleasing, and for all the cards and options you get for the game, it’s quite cheap as well. This is the first game where I’d say there’s less luck involved with it than a lot of others.

Say Bye to the Villains is one of my favorite resent purchase games that I think works well on this list. It has a maximum of eight players and is a cooperative game. You play a group of samurai who all have their own powers trying to defeat a bunch of villains. You have ten days per character to get your samurai ready to fight. You can do this by increasing your stats, speed, health, and power, or by finding out information on the villains. It’s a very tricky game to win, I think in three games I haven’t won, though it’s been close a couple of times. But it’s cooperative, so even if one person finishes up their days sooner, they can still be part of the strategizing. This game plays as a puzzle but you never know if you’ve cracked it, because you don’t know if you have all the information that you need, which inevitably you won’t.

Magic Maze and Captain Sonar are two games that fall into the same category in some ways. They are both real time games that can handle a large number of players. I’m not sure what the max is for Magic Maze, but Captain Sonar can play eight, and I think Magic Maze is similar. In Magic Maze you, as a group, are trying to get an adventuring party through a mall and out after they have stolen the adventuring goods that they need. Yes, it’s actually that and actually that silly. Each player has a specific action or two that they can do which is moving the adventurer meeples (small wooden pieces representing the characters) on the board. So someone can only move them north, someone can only move them east, and so on. There is some overlap on things, but not that much. It’s a timed game and everyone is in there, trying to work together to get them on the gear and  then get them out.

Captain Sonar is also real time, though can be done turn by turn, where there are two teams out trying to sink the others submarine. The captains are barking out orders, the first mate is trying to keep the systems prepped and ready to go, the engineer is trying to keep systems in working order, and the radar operator is listening to the opposing teams captain trying to figure out where they are on the board. This game is stressful and hectic, as is Magic Maze, but a ton of fun. There’s some strategy that can be employed and there’s some luck that goes into it as well. There’s also an expansion for this game, but I don’t know what it adds.

Both of these games are a lot of fun as they get the blood pumping for people, however, because they are stressful for some people, you have to know your group. In the case of Captain Sonar, there is also fairly high lower bound limit as while the Captain and First Mates jobs can be combined, you are going to want to have at least six people to really get the full experience of the game without it becoming too confusing. There’s also the issue with these two games that they are a bit more complex than some of the others on the list. They have good themes for the games so good ways to explain what is going on without it seeming like too much, but be careful not to over explain it.

This isn’t a comprehensive list of all the games that you could play with larger groups and each group is going to have their own sweet spot for games. Try and branch out and try a number of these games and see what works the best for your group. With these games it also helps keep you from getting stale. And if you want to play something heavier, like I said before, split into smaller groups, but a lot of these games are great for kicking off a game night before jumping into heavier games, or closing down a game night as people slowly leave.

One game or type of game you’ll see that I left off of the list is Escape Room Games. While these games can technically have an infinite number of players, they say that six is the max. I would say that is a pretty good maximum otherwise people won’t be able to see the cards being played. Id’ recommend splitting into groups if you have more than six for games like Unlock and Exit.

What are some larger player count games that I haven’t mentioned that you enjoy?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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