3041

(My list includes complexity and time ratings for the games)

Pandemic (Simple complexity, short games (30-60 min))
Arkham Horror (Very complex and theme heavy, Long game (2h - 4h)
Space Hulk: Death Angel (Medium Complexity, Short game (30-60min))
Lord of the Rings LCG (Medium Complexity, Short or medium game (30-2h)

If you don’t mind one player being the bad guy:

Doom (Not bad, but the players need to know it is tough.)
Descent: Journeys in the Dark (aka the medieval SWAT simulation)

(Yes, I am a fan of Fantasy Flight’s games, though I will admit that there are faults with some. You can prolly find a good geeklist on boardgamegeek to see a more complete list.)

3042

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is nice, but the base set is really just a two player game although it would work fine in the first scenario with up to 4. You really need multiple sets to work well with more than 2.

Pandemic, Defenders of the Realm, and Forbidden Island all use similar mechanics and are purely coop. They all have enough subtle differences that you can pick one to suit your preference.

Ghost Stories, and the D&D boards games (Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon; I like these, but many people don’t) might also be worth a look.

If you don’t mine one player playing as the DM/Game Master then there are a few good options. Mansions of Madness, Descent, Last Night on Earth and many more.

3043

It depends on what kind of co-op your group is looking for. Ghost Stories is one of my favorite co-ops, easy to play and setup, very hard to master.

On the opposite side of the spectrum sits Arkham Horror. Couldn’t recommend it unless your group is really into that theme and doesn’t mind all of the rules.

If your group is into card games, you might check out Lord of the Rings. Amazing game, just not much in the way of deck building since it just came out.

Space Hulk: Death Angel is another great co-op that’s also very cheap (under $20).

Beyond that, I’ve heard good things said about Defenders of the Realm (aside from the artwork).

3044

But there are games that handle theme integration better than other. IIRC, Knizia is pretty well known for coming up with interesting mechanical systems, then just slapping an arbitrary theme on them. Generally, it’s more true of European designers (esp. German), whereas a lot of American games are more narratively or thematically based.

I mean, you probably could re-skin Arkham Horror to be about Ancient Chinese repelling barbarian invaders…but you’d be stretching the theme pretty thin. Whereas something like Knizia’s Great Wall of China would be entirely unchanged by swapping out soldiers and dragons for cultists and elder gods.

3045

That’s why I said “most” instead of “all.” Obviously there are some games with a terrific sense of theme, but SW’s standard fantasy trappings are pretty easy to divine just by looking at the faction names so if that’s a huge turn off I don’t know why anyone would play it in the first place.

My main beef was with the original description of the cards, where he used lines like, “the quality of being a sneak thief goblin will be such that you get to reroll 3 of 5 dice on an attack, or move twice or something.” As if this is somehow a bad thing, when in fact the units have interesting abilities that integrate neatly with their faction in both theme and mechanisms.

Even something with a superbly integrated theme like Arkham Horror is just a collection of modifiers obscured in a fog of flavor text if you want to reduce it to that level of abstraction, so if you want to criticize a game in a meaningful way you have to move higher up in the design to see if those underlying elements interact in elegant, balanced, and interesting ways. SW succeeds in all those aspects.

3046

I disagree with this. Games like Citadels or Agricola, for example, hide much better the notion that everything is “just a collection of modifiers.” There are abilities that fundamentally affect the flow of the game in different ways, not just in a “add more dice to the attack” sort of way.

Summoner Wars is much more, “You get an extra die. You get +1 on a die.”

That’s fine, and I like it in some games. But Summoner Wars doesn’t have enough other things going on (e.g. real theme) for me to want to play with that type of naked system there.

To be fair, Summoner Wars does have some powers that are more special or unique. But having purchased Dwarves and Goblins, I didn’t see enough there to make me want to go out and get more.

3047

I enjoy the mechanics of the LotR LCG, but I wouldn’t say its a great example of a co-op board game. It feels more like a solitaire game thats been split into 2 decks. It plays just as well with 1 player as 2.

Its like some computer games are really designed from the ground up to be a co-op experience, while others are just a couple of guys fighting in the same area.

Still a fun game though.

Tony

3048

They only hide it better because you want them to. I’ve had some particularly joyless games of Agricola, keeping track of a bunch of modifiers to incrementally build up and not being enthralled whatsoever by the farm theme. I’ve had some great ones, too, where the farm theme is fully realized. You get out of most games what you put into them in most regards.

The unit abilities and event cards in SW fundamentally affect the flow of the game. They make each faction distinct without getting incredibly fiddly. I’m guessing you haven’t played much because this …

Summoner Wars is much more, “You get an extra die. You get +1 on a die.”

… is wrong. Look at the base set you have. The dwarves look a bit dull at first glance, but they play like dwarves. They have engineering abilities that kill walls, which improve dramatically with the Ballistas in the reinforcement pack. Their common Spearmen are among the best in the game because they can ping units at range or skewer them up close. They have cheap, stout Defenders that pin other units to blunt charges or stop summoned units in their tracks (place them diagonal to an enemy wall for that). They take a beating and then surge ahead with powerful come-from-behind abilities like Magic Drain, and Reinforcements. Gror, one of their champions, goes frickin’ berserk and can level half the board when used in conjunction with a well-timed Heroic Feat. In fact, all their champions are awesome.

Sure, those could be Space Marines or whatever, but they play a hell of a lot like dwarves. The abilities and unit integrate with the fantasy theme without breaking the balance of the game. And they certainly aren’t just a bunch of “+1” or “roll another die” abilities, either. I don’t know why you keep repeating that when it simply isn’t true.

That’s fine, and I like it in some games. But Summoner Wars doesn’t have enough other things going on (e.g. real theme) for me to want to play with that type of naked system there.

To be fair, Summoner Wars does have some powers that are more special or unique. But having purchased Dwarves and Goblins, I didn’t see enough there to make me want to go out and get more.

Again, the system is only “naked” because you don’t like the game. That’s fine, but your assessment of the abilities isn’t.

3049

Nooooooooooo!

That’s sad news for Nexus. Plus, now I have to sell my car back to buy the War of the Ring collector’s edition.

3050

Of the (many) such games I’ve tried, I would primarily recommend three games:

Ghost Stories is fairly simple mechanically but tough and strategically rewarding. It does have a serious reliance on icons and rules that could be better written, if those things bother you or your players.

Death Angel is cheap, quick to set up, and also mechanically simple but elegant and strategically rich. The big flaw here is that unlucky players may get eliminated well before the game itself ends.

Arkham Horror is possibly my favorite boardgame ever made. It has so many swappable elements that it can play differently for each of many sessions just with the base game, much less with the (oodles of) expansions. The mechanics are very thematically rich and story-intensive. It’s almost pseudoRPGish. It’s very much a love-it-or-hate-it sort of game, though. It can take a long, long time to play, has a long setup and breakdown time, tons of fiddly bits, and while I would argue that it’s nowhere near as complicated or hard to learn as it appears at first glance, it’s certainly far more so than either of the above games.

Commonly recommended coop games that I personally would steer clear of:

Pandemic; Forbidden Island: mechanically simple but also tactically simple. Rarely forced particularly tough decisions when I played them, and the theme is little more than skin deep.

Coop games that could be intriguing but I have played either not at all or very little:

LOTR LCG; Yggdrasil; Space Alert.

On traitor-coop games:
Never, ever play Shadows over Camelot. If you must play this subgenre (and I’m not a huge fan, personally), the Battlestar Galactica boardgame is much better.

3051

Anyone have any advice for a first play through of Android?

The game has been floating about for ages, and we’ve never gotten around to it. But we’ve booked an entire afternoon, evening and night next weekend to play it. I have heard that the game is somewhat, unique. Which was a big part of deciding to play it.

Edit: Just saw the co-op games request.

One game we’ve been getting good play out of is Red November. It’s part of FFG’s Silver Line games, small box, simple to set up and play. It’s an enjoyable game, not too deep, and mainly about putting out fires (figuratively and literally(as in within the game, literally)), plugging leaks and repairing the oxygen machine in a submarine. It has an interesting timing mechanic, you spend time on doing each action, the longer you spend the more chance of success. This then advances you along the turn track which is divided into 60 minutes. The person furthest back on the track is the next to act, so the person who spent the least amount of time on an action. The goal is to survive 60 minutes, when you’ll be rescued. There is a mechanic that allows for betrayal, but in about five play throughs none of us have used it, and it can be ignored if you’re against that kind of thing. We’ve haven’t played with more than four people, but it’s meant to scale to six quite well (getting more difficult.) If you’re looking for a game to play in a pub, this would be a big recommendation from me. The only problem is I think it’s getting reprinted in a bigger box format, as FFG obviously see potential in it, so that might mean it’s going to be more expensive.

Another game I’d recommend for co-op (but with betrayal) is Sabateur. It’s light and quick, so they betrayal isn’t in any way emotionally charged like it can be in the more epic games. In general I would say the game could be played in about 30 minutes, but we played multiple times for a total of about 2 hours the first time we got our hands on it. The premise is simple, you’re a miner and you’re trying to get to a lode of minerals/jewels. To do this you have a hand of cards, which progress the tunnel, some go up, some down, some forward, and some a mixture of all three. The jewels are 8 card lengths away, and you have to build a path by laying the cards, with the directions on them determining what route is available. The betrayal mechanic is that one miner (or more) could be working against you, laying cards that take you in the wrong direction. You need to counter this, but are aware that sometimes people just get a crappy hand to play with, so there’s doubt. All in all, a really fun game. And there’s a new edition coming out which is supposed to have improved it.

3052

IMHO, Android is an unrecognized masterpiece, but that’s beside the point.

I would recommend having your group choose characters before playing, to read the strategy inserts, and go through their character’s light, dark, and story cards to build at least some semblance of strategy beforehand (otherwise everybody will feel like they’re doing things randomly and/or having too many choices, and not knowing what to do). The more you can counter this initial bout of ignorance, the better the game will play.

I would also highly advice each player to look at their opponent’s characters. Have them ask questions and/or browse over their opponent’s strategy inserts. This is key because knowing your enemy is just as important as knowing yourself. And again, not knowing your enemy will make it feel like you had no control over the horrible cards that will inevitably get played on you in a given game. That can be incredibly frustrating to newbies.

The first several games can be brutal, especially when you have so many choices and haven’t a clue what you’re doing is actually helping you win. But, stick in there and you’ll begin to grasp the many intricacies the game has to offer. Enjoy!

3053

I’ve been playing Ghost Stories on the iPad the last few days and I have yet to win a solo game. I haven’t even seen the Big Bad after a half dozen games. I like it quite a bit, especially now that I know what all the icons mean, but I’m not sure I’m ever going to be good at it.

Last night I watched the movie Strange Days, a fairly bad movie with Ralph Fiennes from 1995, and it made me want to try Android again. I’ve only slogged through it once, but I think there is an interesting experience in playing the game if you can master the mechanics and come to grips with what the game simulates. It isn’t a murder you solve, but more of a movie, like Strange Days, that you help direct/write. There is a cast of characters, some of them are players and some of them are suspects, and as you play the game the script is written and the movie unfolds. If you can get away from focusing on trying to solve the mystery faster than the other players, which I think is a natural reaction to a game like this, and instead focus on all the character back stories (not just your own, you have a heavy hand in pushing the other player stories using dark cards) and figuring out the conspiracy, then you can both enjoy it and possibly win the game.

There are some nice threads about how to play/enjoy the game on BGG, like this one:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/438119/a-treatise-on-android-in-10-parts

There are a lot of moving bits and pieces to deal with at first though, so don’t set your expectations high on your first play through.

3054

No, I don’t like the game because the system is naked.

Do you really think this is going anywhere? Plenty of people like the game. I don’t have a need to suggest they are wrong, or that their assessment is somehow fundamentally incorrect. They just judge the system differently than I do, and believe that there is more theme and substance than I do.

3055

I’m just trying to point out to others who may read what you wrote and not give this game a chance that your description of it misrepresents and belittles its careful design. I don’t care if you don’t like the game, but what you describe sounds more akin to Dungeon Twister than to SW.

3056

Ok. I get that. I’ll even add to that - from what I can tell, my opinion is definitely in the minority. A lot of people seem to really love the game.

3057

Tanga (www.tanga.com) is having a two-day game-a-thon, kicking off at 7 pm PST. They usually have some decent deals, especially if you can find someone to split shipping, but the stuff often sells out fast.

3058

Here’s a longer look at A Few Acres of Snow. I really want to try that one out now.

Also, rules for Elder Sign have been posted.

3059

I just finished playing A Few Acres of Snow. It seemed a little sluggish and slow developing, but that’s probably because I’m more used to euro strategy games than war games. I will play it again with better knowledge and maybe then it will move along faster.

3060

SHAZBOT!!

I sold my unopened main game and expansion on eBay a couple of months ago. Even though they sold for ~$270 I sure feel bad now. :(

We never got to play it and I was looking forward to the reprint.