In this episode Chris, from The Charity Boardgamer, joins us to talk about all things cooperative games! We break down co-op games into sub-categories and discuss examples that fit in each. It turns out there's a lot of games out there with cooperative elements and it was difficult to limit the conversation to an hour. Listen to find out who's back hurts from carrying us so much and who just loves to rain down chaos!
CBG Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCharityBoardgamer
CBG Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thecharityboardgamer
In this episode Chris, from The Charity Boardgamer, joins us to talk about all things cooperative games! We break down co-op games into sub-categories and discuss examples that fit in each. It turns out there's a lot of games out there with cooperative elements and it was difficult to limit the conversation to an hour. Listen to find out who's back hurts from carrying us so much and who just loves to rain down chaos!
CBG Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCharityBoardgamer
CBG Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/thecharityboardgamer
Hello and welcome. I'm Rachel.
Jake:I'm Jake.
Rachel:And we're so bored. The Podcast where each episode we take a close look at a tabletop game and discuss our personal experiences with said game to answer the question, Will this cure our boredom?
Jake:That's right, we looked at the mechanics complexity and replayability in a game to determine if it's the perfect alternative to well, let's say since it's tax season, searching through all the transactions on both your credit card and your debit cards history to find the charges you made improving your rental property over the last year to try to get them all accurately listed, so you can finally do your taxes. Yay, taxes.
Rachel:I hate taxes. So much fun. I hate them so much. Alright, so today we are doing a very fun and exciting episode. But before we get into that, Jake has an announcement.
Jake:Yep, I'm still streaming on Twitch, I haven't given up yet. I stream semi regularly, my schedule changes each week. So I keep that schedule tab on my Twitch account up to date. You can go there and find me at Naughty Doc 541. That's NAU gh t y D o c 541. I've been streaming a lot of Elden ring. I think once a week, I'm going to be doing a retro game as well. So something from like when I was a kid or earlier, I did some Banjo Kazooie recently, I really love that game. So come check it out.
Rachel:Jake and I have also started streaming Val Haim, which is a like survival game that we're doing together. So that's been pretty fun.
Jake:Yeah, we are also still continuing our giveaway for dune Imperium. If you would like a chance to win a copy. You can check out how to do that on our Facebook page.
Rachel:Yep. So that's going until the end of March. So check that out. If you haven't yet. I mean, it's free to enter. Might as well give it a try.
Jake:It's a great game. We did an episode on it last time, I highly recommend it. It'd be a great game to get for free because it's normally like 70 bucks, I
Rachel:think. Yeah. All right. So this episode, we're talking about cooperative games with our friend Chris from the charity board gamer. Thank you for joining us, Chris.
Chris:Thanks for having me.
Rachel:Go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit. Tell us who you are.
Chris:Well, I'm a giant nerd who is a father of three crazy kids. And I love board games. And I love doing things where we can help the community and so we kind of found a way to kind of put those two together and the charity board gamer came about. That's awesome. That's your Twitch channel. Yeah, we do. Twitch YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. Tik. Tok is a scary thing, but I'm trying. And then, of course, what's the other thing? I don't even know the other ones. There's Oh, Twitter, Twitter. It's interesting place. So yeah,
Jake:yeah, we haven't quite gotten to tick tock yet. And I don't know that we will.
Rachel:I don't know, YouTube's the next adventure for us, I think. So today, we're talking about what is a cooperative game. And Chris actually picked this genre of games, so I expect him to be a huge fan of the genre.
Chris:Oh, I hate him. They're horrible. Okay,
Rachel:this is gonna be a very interesting episode.
Jake:Oh, wonderful. Sorry.
Chris:I thought we were doing your Euro games.
Jake:Oh, no. Anyway, the Euro games.
Rachel:But we just haven't prepared for that.
Chris:It's okay. Well, I love cooperative games. I love cooperative games. cooperative games is kind of what got me back into the hobby. When I went to local church for a game night. One game that was on the table was pandemic, by I would like to refer to it as my second love. My wife is my first love pandemic is my second love. But it's one of those games that you know, I had not played games where it was more of a cooperative experience. I was so used to playing like Monopoly and risk and Stratego and you're playing against each other, and you're being hateful and spiteful. hiding money under your leg, you know, that kind of game. So that's kind of how we played. Yeah. So to play a game that's cooperative, and just kind of having fun with family and friends, was a whole new experience for me, and I have really enjoyed it. That's really
Rachel:nice. Yeah, I don't have that same kind of relationship with cooperative games, as listeners of our show will know that I'm not a huge fan. Yes, a fan. But I have managed to come up with a list of some that I like and would recommend. So but yeah, let's talk about what is a cooperative game. So we've broken this down into three different kinds of subcategories of co op. The first one on the list that we have is fully Co Op. And so this is something like pandemic or Forbidden Island or Forbidden Desert. Basically all the players are working together to achieve a goal. And either everyone wins or no one
Jake:wins. And these are the ones that Rachel is really not a fan of.
Rachel:Let's be honest, yes, this is true.
Jake:We'll talk a little bit later about why that is. The other two categories that we have those split up into our semi cooperative, where players are cooperating and competing at the same time, while trying to complete a common objective. This means that there will be some players who win, or no one wins. Usually, not everyone will win, but it's not really possible. One of the examples that I would give off the top my head of a semi cooperative game is betrayal. Betrayal is semi cooperative in the sense that in the very first half of the game, before the haunt is revealed, it's completely cooperative. And then depending on the haunt, depending on what happens, it may turn into a semi cooperative game where three players are now facing off against one player. And there's conditions that allow multiple people to win, other than just one.
Chris:And then you have the hidden traitor games, some of my favorite ones, players have personal objectives that may or may not conflict with a main objective of the game. Someone always wins. Never everyone, and never no one. But it also can be considered social deduction. But it's not always social deduction games, one of the games that I highly recommend actually fits with this is one that's called bank heist, where some people are part of a bank robber group. And then there's a hidden traitors are the cops and the other hidden traitors are the gang members, or the rivals of that group. And you're robbing a bank. And at some point, the bullets start flying. Uh huh.
Rachel:Yeah. And I wanted to go back and say, for anyone who is feeling like arguing with Jake about betrayal, being a semi Co Op versus a hidden traitor game, I feel you, and you may or may not be right, the problem is, is that it really depends on the haunt that you uncover, it's possible to actually have a hunt where you're just like treasure hunter searching for treasure, and you actually don't even have a traitors, that is a haunt. And often, there is a traitor that, you know, that fits into the hidden traitor component. But because we can't like really fully classify it in one way or the other. I think that it fairly fits into the semi Co Op.
Chris:I think one semi Co Op that some people can know about is one that's called Marvel legendary, where you have that cooperative experience where you're trying to defeat the villain, but at the end of the game, it's whoever has the most points that actually gets the win. Okay, so it's an interesting take of semi cooperative. There we go. Yeah. Okay.
Rachel:All right, we have prepared a brief history report on cooperative games, which is actually pretty interesting. You know, we were doing this research, team versus team games date back to antiquity, usually through sports, not necessarily through board games. But that kind of teamwork is the basis for cooperative gameplay. In 1903, we actually have the publication of the first or at least the first one that I could find cooperative game called the landlord's game. And this game actually had two different modes, one that was essentially a monopoly. And those rules actually went on to become the basis for the Monopoly game that we know and may or may not love today. But the other mode was a cooperative mode that was meant to demonstrate that the cooperation was morally superior to like the competitive mode of like how businesses work together and monopolize things, which I thought was super interesting. Jake, you said, like you had heard about a Kickstarter, possibly trying to bring this back?
Jake:Yes. So what's the name of that? It's your play your play, I don't know if it's a company if it's a publisher, according to the Wikipedia page for this landlords game. As of 2021, they were planning on doing a Kickstarter to reproduce a bunch of copies of this game, and I couldn't find it anywhere, couldn't find it on Kickstarter. So it's either hidden or they didn't do it. But I actually reached out to your play yesterday, while we were doing the outline for this episode, to try to find out more about that. And I have not heard back yet. I actually just checked to see if they had gotten back to us. And they have not as of today. Okay, well, if that changes, we will update you. But I thought it'd be kind of cool to see, you know what they're going to be asking for that. Because it'd be interesting to play a game that's over 100 years old, I would
Rachel:be really interested in seeing like, what that looks like and how that plays and you know, kind of look at it from that perspective of comparing competitive versus cooperative and kind of the political statement that that's trying to make. Yeah,
Jake:I'd be interested trying it. I just I don't know of any way to as of right now.
Rachel:Yeah, yeah. And that by the way that landlords game was designed as a protest against monopolists of the time and inspired by the principle and philosophy of Henry George. I'm not too familiar with Henry George. But again, it would be interesting to check that out.
Jake:The next cooperative board game was released, or that we could find at these was released in 1954. It was a board game version of the show Beat the Clock. Yeah, I'm going to assume that was a game show in the 50s. But I was not alive, then. I don't know anything about.
Rachel:Yes. Chris, are you alive back then?
Chris:No, gosh. Oh, my gosh.
Jake:Apparently, it's a game show that involves people trying to complete challenges to win prizes while facing a time limit. That seems to be it. Okay. And while these clips are old, they're in black and white. It's from the 50s. I know. So like I said, beat the clock was a game show from the 50s turned into a board game shortly thereafter, it actually ran from 1950 to 1961. So this was created during that time period. Shortly thereafter, two years later, there was another board game of a TV show of a panel show actually called I've got a secret, which I have heard of this show. I actually saw a really interesting, one of the contestants on The I've got a secret show was actually the last living person who saw Abraham Lincoln assassinated, which was crazy. Oh, wow. Yeah. Because the guy was, I mean, he was old, and he was on the show. But yeah, he actually seen Abraham Lincoln assassinated. Are we
Chris:sure about that? Was it possibly dementia that this person was suffering from?
Rachel:Oh, yeah. When was Abraham Lincoln president? That was the 18 1860s 1860s. Okay, so I mean, that makes the person 90 something. Yeah. TV show in the 50s.
Jake:He was old. Like, he looked like he should have died on the wait, who the filming of the show. Like, bad, but if he's actually telling the truth, and he said he was like four or five years old, but he remembers it. Oh, okay. So like I said, I've heard of this show, but it was turned into a board game in the 1950s as well.
Chris:In 1972, Jim D co founded family pastimes, as a board game publisher that focuses solely on cooperative games released over 100 games. Some for kids, as young as three holds a trademark for the phrase, a cooperative game. What kind of a trademark, how much is a game making? I know, right? Somebody says cooperative game. That is ridiculous.
Rachel:That's why Yeah, I included that as like, whoa. Like, I don't know if you'd be able to claim that trademark today. Because it's such a common use term these days. I feel like that would be something that you wouldn't be able to claim. But I guess back in the day, you know, it was something new enough that they were able to do that.
Chris:It's craziness that he didn't make much money out of it, though.
Rachel:Well, I don't know. I mean, I look them up. I looked at their website the other day, and they have a lot of games still on there that you can purchase. But they are all very like old looking. Like they don't look like they have modern styles or so I don't know when the last one was actually published. But you can still purchase them.
Chris:So they look like heroes is what you're trying to tell me. I'm
Rachel:older than that. Yeah.
Jake:Older than that. I'm looking at him right now. Actually.
Rachel:Yeah. I mean, it definitely looks like something from the 70s.
Jake:So I think a French Canadian, actually. Okay. They're from Ontario and half their websites in French. So that would probably make sense.
Rachel:All right. And then in the 1980s, we start seeing more cooperative games starting to get published. And I was actually really surprised to see that that's when Arkham Horror was published. So this is the first instance of a game that I actually recognize and have played. I did not know that Arkham Horror was
Jake:that old. So that's from 1987. Okay. Yeah,
Rachel:I was really surprised to find out that it settled.
Jake:Now, I know some of you are going to kind of balk at the fact that Dungeons and Dragons was first released in 1974. Yes, while that is true, this is another category that we're going to kind of steer clear of in this episode. Because while it is it's kind of a complicated mess here. It is cooperative. Yes, it is semi cooperative, depending on the scenario you're playing. But we've deemed that this was more of a role playing game than it is actually a cooperative game. Because yes, there are elements but there's no clear wind condition. It's not really like a board game or a Yeah, it's more of a role playing game and it's a story driven by the choices and actions of the players. as well as the Game Master, so we're kind of taking that and putting that on the back burner that is role playing games is something we will discuss in a future episode, but not really in this one.
Rachel:Yeah, I definitely agree that Dungeons and Dragons and those types of tabletop games are mostly cooperative, I would think. And you know, that's a classic cooperative game, we're gonna do its own deep dive into that in another episode. All right. And then lastly, we have in the 2000s, hidden traitor games start to become more popular. And so I was trying to do some data mining from Board Game Geek yesterday. And that wasn't going super well, because I need to play around with their API a little bit more. But the earliest hidden traitors game that I could find was like 2006. I'm sure that there are some before that, I just didn't see any examples of it. And so you start seeing a large increase in the number of hidden Raider games after the 2000s.
Chris:I mean, werewolf was one that came out in the 80s. And then oh, they go? Yeah, I mean, looking at BoardGameGeek. It's even as early as 1973 in the 1986. And then, during the 90s, I think it had a different name, which was mafia. And then bezzie, a picked up the werewolf name, and actually came up with their own version of Werewolf. Okay,
Rachel:I saw werewolf on the list. And that might even be the example that I saw from early 2000s. But maybe it was a like a later production version that I was looking at on the list rather than the original. So that is good to know.
Jake:Yeah, that's really good to know.
Rachel:So that's our little mini history lesson into Co Op games. Now, we've provided some background and our definitions of what Co Op games are. So what are some classic cooperative games that like anybody would be able to recognize? What do you
Jake:Well, Chris said Pandemic earlier. That's one that comes guys think? to mind immediately.
Chris:Yeah, and you'll see pandemic and any Walmart now. Yeah, Walmart and Target. It's quite common to be in there. And it's I mean, pandemic has been going since what 2008. So of course, pandemic, even though people may have not played it, they have definitely seen it in the store somewhere. And if they haven't bought it, then people you need to go buy it seriously.
Jake:We don't have pandemic.
Rachel:We don't. My sister has pandemic and I played the heck out of it. Back in the day when she first got it and I'm, I'm filled up on pandemic.
Jake:Mm hmm. I have not played pandemic. So mostly because my wife won't play it with me. I have said we try it and you're like, I don't want to try it.
Chris:I don't want to do it. Okay, see, you know, what you need to try, you need to do instead of just a base pandemic, do a Pandemic Legacy game. That way, it has a little bit of variety, and it changes up with each month that you play it, or you can play it for the course of 12 days. But I mean, that's crazy. Or like some people play in in the course of a whole weekend. I can't, I can't get my kids to sit that long enough. So for us, it's Pandemic Legacy season zero, which is all about what's the Cold War, and Cold War and viruses spreading and everything. So you're also you're trying to avoid certain secret agents from finding you out and you're kind of like a spy traveling throughout communist territory. So you got to be careful. So it changes up the whole pandemic kind of feel to it.
Rachel:That does actually make it a lot more interesting. I would be willing to check that out. So they go, Jake.
Jake:Okay. I mean, I think silver key has it.
Rachel:Okay. What about other examples that we have for classic Co Op games?
Chris:Yeah, betrayal at house on the hill, that game came out before pandemic goes 2004 has been published by about four different publishers. Now, of course, a new implementation of it is coming out this year. And then it's also created other games come about. But for some people, the old Avalon Hill days, they might know betrayal from that. So 2004 betrayal at house on the hill.
Rachel:I think those are both definitely good examples that at least people in the gaming community have probably heard of. And then if you're talking to like your grandmother who lives under a rock or something, you might also be able to mention like trades or trivial pursuit. Those are examples of semi Co Op games, which involve being on teams and working as a team and then usually one team wins over the other. All right, let's get into like what are other Co Op games and do a little bit more of a deep dive into these various things. So let's start with fully Co Op. Chris, do you have any examples of fully Co Op games that you want to talk about?
Chris:Yeah, let's go ahead and let's start with Forbidden Island, where you are working cooperatively as the water is rising and you're trying to get off the island, of course. And your goal is to basically survive and get get off. I mean, there's also of course, Forbidden Desert forbidden Sky, which are other ones in the series. But in Forbidden Desert, I think his life favorite out of the three. That would be a good one for a fully cooperative one. Other games that are out there five minute Marvel Hmm, where you are quickly slapping down cards to meet different symbols, and you're trying to do it all with him. Guess how much? Five minutes? Hey, I was gonna say half an hour. Yes. Half an hour. Yes. A half hour game that is perfect for families everywhere. Gosh, no. So yeah, you're playing basically five minutes. And then if you want to go onto face and Expo and go five minutes, and then it's got some great heroes in there. Our works cute. And it has Squirrel Girl one the best Avengers ever? Oh, yeah. Five Minute Marvel, definitely. And then you've got games like mysterious, mysterious, interesting, cooperative game, because one person is dead. And so they're trying to help you figure out who killed them. I don't know if I will consider it a fully cooperate because somebody is trying to get more points. I think we're at least trying to get ahead. And guess who murdered who?
Rachel:Well, so you either win as a whole team or you fail as a team mysterium. But there is that component of like bidding on other people and thinking if they're correct or wrong. Yeah, there is that so.
Jake:And that really just moves you up on a specific tracker that will give you an advantage at the end whether or not you're right, more than you then you are wrong. Mm hmm. And honestly, like Rachel said, you win or lose as a group. So it behooves you all to bet if somebody is right, and you think the right bet that they're right, if they're wrong, they think they're wrong, but that they're wrong. So that as a group at the end, you get this better bonus.
Chris:Yeah. And then the other one, if anybody likes the OP, which I do, there's the rising series, the rising series there is that is rising, there is Dark Side rising, there is Batman who laughs was and there's plankton rising? Yes, I'm reading these right off my shelf, because I have each and every one of them. And then I think the next one that's coming out is like Avatar, The Last Airbender fire nation rising. Hmm.
Rachel:Yeah. So those are a lots of examples of fully cooperative games. I mean, I don't know all of the ones that you talked about, but I feel like, you know, something that they have in common is that, like I said, you either win as a team or you lose as a team. Everyone wins, or everyone loses. And that's kind of the reason that I'm not a huge fan of fully cooperative games. I really, really hate the idea of nobody winning. Like, at least in a competitive game, it's like somebody did the best, somebody can walk away with a win, the feeling of everyone losing is just so depressing. Like,
Jake:I'm gonna go ahead and say this, when you're the one who's always winning, it's okay to lose as a group.
Rachel:No, no, how about you bring us up to win as a group. Like,
Jake:I can't carry the whole team, I can only do my part, as we will talk about in the hidden traitor section or my experience as traitors.
Rachel:But I think my one exception to like not really liking fully cooperative games seems to be campaign games. And etherfields is really my first kind of experience with campaign games,
Jake:the spoiler alert, we will do a full deep dive series on either fields. When we finish it. We're like two thirds the way through pretty much of the first chapter.
Rachel:Well, no, we're at the end of the first chapter, but two thirds of the way through maybe the whole thing. I don't Yeah. But then they're sending us more stuff. I bought all the expansions, and they're sending the second wave stuff. So
Jake:definitely aware of this fact.
Rachel:But yeah, so either feels this this game, you know, I don't want to go into too much detail. But it's this game where as a team, you are kind of exploring these dreams and coming up with solutions to various problems that are happening in these crazy dreams. And because their dreams, the world does not have to follow the rules of physics or make any sense at all. Yeah. And it's just a really cool concept that has pulled me into liking cooperative games a little bit more. And part of that is because I feel like because it's a story even if you fail this one time, like you're meant to go back and try again until you succeed and then you move on to like the next thing. It's not just, oh, no, we lost and I guess that's just how it is. That's how we're ending the night we lost. We failed. And don't get me wrong there. There are definitely times when I've left in either fields game and been like, Oh, I'm so frustrated. I feel like we've done this same dream four times, and we can't figure it out. Yeah, where's the secret that we need to find? So, but like I said, I don't want to go into too much detail, because we are definitely going to have a series on either fields. So that's my thoughts on fully cooperative games.
Jake:I like but you know,
Rachel:alright, so semi Co Op games. What do we have for this? I think we already mentioned a couple of examples in the beginning. Yep.
Jake:And we talked about betrayal. And we actually have done a previous episode on betrayal at house on the hill. If you aren't familiar with it, definitely go back and listen to it we we give a whole in depth introduction on how to play it, what it's like, what are the objectives and our experiences with it?
Rachel:Yeah, we talk about two of the haunts specifically. So like, we do have a like a spoiler warning right there if you want to skip it. But if you're interested in listening to that, you can, you know, listen to how that kind of plays out the haunts and what it's like to be on the traitor side versus the non traitor side and stuff like that.
Jake:Yeah, the other semi cooperative game I wanted to talk about is crisis, I had never heard of this game until Rachel just bought it at our local seller's market. So at our local board game bar that we go to, once a month, they have people come in and just sell their old games or their use games or kind of trade. It's pretty cool. And she, she just picked this up. And it seems pretty weighty. It's weighted really highly on board game geeks, I think it's like a three, eight or something. But it's semi cooperative in the sense that the game is set that you are the head of a business, each of you is the head of a business in a failing economy. And you as a collective group have to make good decisions throughout the game, that will help bring the economy back up. If you don't do that, and it falls too low. There are consequences. So there are three different levels. You've got like a green, a yellow and a red, the worse it gets, the worse the consequences are. So you, as a collective group have to make decisions that will make the economy good, while also competing for the most points. It's pretty cool. I really like the idea of that. Mm hmm.
Rachel:Yeah. So when Jake and I were playing this game, there were a couple of terms in a row where it was like, Oh, we really need to work together and figure out like what we're going to do to prevent the economy from collapsing, and like, just us completely losing the game. And then we got past that we were able to kind of recover and then it goes back to being more competitive. Okay, I'm going to now focus on the things that I really need to get done. But we had to come together for those couple of turns in order to be able to get past that and allow the game to continue, which was just a really interesting experience. Yeah, because
Jake:if you as a group do really poorly at managing the economy, and it goes all the way into the bottom, you all fail, everyone loses. Nobody wins. Yeah, that's pretty, pretty interesting.
Rachel:Chris, what are some examples of semi Co Op games that you've played? For me
Chris:semi cooperative? I think we talked about Marvel legendary. I think that's a good one legendary series is probably a good one. I don't do as many semi Co Op, surprisingly enough, okay. When it comes to me, it's more cooperative or competitive. Okay. But there is one semi Co Op that that hits the right spot. And it's it's one that I thoroughly enjoy, instead of winner. Yeah. And dead of winter, the longest night, the idea where you have some certain objectives that you might need to do to quote unquote, win. And it kind of fits also the hidden traitor, but it's just that fact that also, there's somebody there that is trying to mess everything up, and watch it all burn and get the zombie apocalypse, basically, coming in and killing all your people that are there. It's one game that I think fits so well as sound like Co Op. Yeah, yeah.
Rachel:And actually, I would argue that depending on the mode, and the rules that you're playing with, I think dead of winter actually fits into all three categories that we have outlined, because you can play it without any secret objectives. And without any hidden traitors, you can play it fully cooperatively. You could play it semi cooperatively without a hidden traitors, but still have secret objectives. Because like, there's a distinction between traitor objectives, and just regular secret objectives. And then you could play with the hidden traitors where you've actually got somebody who is trying to do their own thing and kind of burn it all down.
Chris:That's the best way to do it. I have to say, Yeah,
Jake:I've never played it that way. I'll be honest.
Chris:Oh my gosh, you are missing out. You need to play with somebody being the traitor and you have like, you've got to get five people. One person needs a traitor you just pass out the card. You don't know which one is going to be the Traitor Card. And then oh my gosh. Oh yeah, I'm turning into two gasoline. Okay, yeah, I'm turning in so much food turning in so much medicine.
Rachel:Oh, but you play it all facedown, right?
Chris:You play it all facedown. So somebody could be lying through their teeth. What's a lot of fun is when you're the when you are the traitor, I like to play some of the cards that we all need. Uh huh. And then that way, it's like, oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, this is one medicine. So I play a medicine. And then on the next round, I'll be like, Yeah, this is gasoline. And it's something else. So yeah, yeah, it's such a joy to play it that way. I think that's probably the best way to do it is to play it with a with a hidden traitor in it.
Rachel:That's a really interesting perspective. And I want to talk more about that. But let's go into hidden traitor examples. And then we'll come back to that. So what are some of the hidden trigger games, Chris, that you really like?
Chris:Well, I mean, of course, bank heist, bank heist, which from lonely Hero games, there's just something fun about that game, where you're playing. And what's crazy, it's only a five to eight player game. So it's a it's weird niche, that you have to have the right amount of players for it. And it fits very well when you have that five. And it's even more fun when you have eight. But you're basically going through these couple of phases, you've got a phase where you're doing the bank robbery phase, you're taking things out of the safe, and you're passing the different people. And at some point, if they get a cash bag, they're going to react with whatever their cash value, their role tells them to do. So if I get a cash bag, and I'm part of the crew, I'm going to put it in the getaway vehicle. But if I'm a cop, I'm going to keep it in front of me. If I'm a rival, I may keep the cash in front of me. So that way, I can pay off the getaway driver when we get to the end, and we kill all the rest of the crew, and we win the game. But that's that's kind of what it's about. It's just one of those fun little things. But then five cash bags enter the vehicle, and then the bullets start flying. So you'll get some things like some different cards that have abilities like sharpshooter, which will let you shoot a couple extra times, you'd get some things like chloroform, because who doesn't want to chloroform their next neighbor, you know, the adjacent player to the to the right or left of you. And then there's of course, you can get a shotgun, which will shoot you know, Jason players. So it definitely makes for an interesting way to play the game. And it is just fun when you are the rival. And you make everybody else believe you're on the crew. You get to having like two people left. One of them's your fellow rival. And there's a crew member and then just going like this. Hey, bang, and it's so much fun,
Rachel:huh? Yeah, so I've actually played this game with Chris, you know, a couple of other friends. And something happened in that game that kind of gave me away as a cop. And this kind of is the perfect example of why I'm not a huge fan of hidden traitors games. So I was a cop. And I was given the opportunity to search the deck for cards. And because I didn't immediately pick cash, I was outed as someone who was not on the crew. And like, I don't know how you avoid that, I would have have had to have been familiar with all the cards and been able to very quickly pick something, I think
Chris:what would be usually as a cop, what is a good route to go is to take a cash bag, just to at least once and throughout the game, take the cash bag and pass it to somebody that is not a fellow cop. That way you at least kind of get some of the heat off of you, so to speak. And then any cash bag after that, just keep passing it to your fellow cop. And that way, you're just kind of like, alright, it's good. Yeah. Or if you find out who the sticky finger person is, there's a sticky finger crew member that has to keep all the cash bags. So that will cause them to get looked at and possibly shot later on. But it's a great idea to have you pass the cash back to them to basically kind of, you know, mess with everybody else.
Rachel:Mm hmm. But yeah, and going back to what Chris was saying about, you know, being that rival member like, it feels so good. That's what happened in my game with him. I felt like I knew who Chris was the whole time. And I wasn't on the crew. So like, I didn't feel betrayed. But I saw the shock from from everybody else when he revealed himself. And that is definitely a fun component of hidden traitor games is like that big reveal and everybody going. No,
Unknown:it's so much fun. I think that's what makes social deduction games enjoyable. A lot of people, you know, there's people that don't enjoy it, but there's something about that rush of knowing that you've been deceiving all of your friends for as long as you have. And then you have this big reveal. Yeah,
Jake:so I've played probably 1520 Maybe 30 Different rounds of hidden traitor games. I have literally only been a traitor like twice. I never get it. That being said, Rachel always looks at me like you're the traitor, aren't you? No, I'm not.
Unknown:Mm hmm. You really have to learn how to do a poker face to and try not to Netta the game. That's a big thing, too, is like, learn how to be yourself. If you can be yourself without giving it away, then it works out really well. It's the people that quickly change their demeanor as they're playing. Yeah, that they give everything away. It's like, okay, you're a cop. I can tell. You're acting completely different from yourself. Yeah. Whereas like, if I'm the werewolf, I'm going to blame everybody else. I'm going to try to get everybody else killed. Because I think that they're the werewolf. I mean, that's, that's what's happening. No, stop pointing at me. I know. It's you. I know. It's you. So you need to die. So you know, just kind of have fun and then and then he killed people and it's great.
Rachel:Alright, Jake, what's a good hidden traitor game that you want to talk about?
Jake:Battlestar Galactica, also known as unfathomable now, but there's an issue with the publication rights to Battlestar Galactica, merchandise at the moment. So the company that was previously making the Battlestar Galactica board game is no longer able to do that. So they have now created a game unfathomable, which is really basically the exact same game from what I'm told. I've never played Battlestar Galactica, I have played unfathomable and it's almost the exact same concept like you're on a boat instead of a starship, like you are on a boat doing the same thing. And there's no Cylons. There are Lovecraftian monsters that are coming to destroy you and your ship. And there are traitors on your boat. That being said, there's like two different times that you get your loyalty cards. And at the beginning, there could be none. There could be no traitors. And then halfway through your voyage, somebody turns or two people turn, which is what happened when we played this game. And I was going to talk about this more on our experiences section. But I'll just do it here because we're talking about unfathomable. The reason I'm not a huge fan of this is because I worked so hard. I worked so hard. Literally, I needed one turn, I was next. And we would have won the game. But one person who I thought was an A traitor was and had he not revealed himself that turn, I would have won, we would have won. Yeah. But like legitimately. So the way that it works is you have to, you have to spend actions to progress the boat by shoveling coal, basically. And I spent like the whole game in the coal room, shoveling coal. And I got to so far doing that, like I got us more than halfway by myself. And so there's like these random souls, these random passengers that get put on the outside. And if you lose too many of them, the whole game is over and the cultists are traitors win. And if we hadn't lost one more of those, I would have won. So I don't know. I feel like I worked so hard. You know, earlier, you're saying well, I need to carry us to a win. I did carry carry this so far.
Rachel:Yeah, well, okay, so this kind of touches on why I'm not a fan of fully cooperative games. Because, again, like you can have that same kind of situation where you're not screwed over by another person. But you're screwed over just by the game itself. Because cooperative games are tend to be designed to be difficult. It's not supposed to be easy. And you work so hard. And then the zombies still kill you all right, or whatever.
Jake:And I work really hard.
Rachel:I get that feeling. I understand that. But then the hidden traitor aspect of it, like adds that you thought you were okay with this person. You thought this person was helping you and on the same side as you. It's just that heartbreak when they're not
Unknown:so good. It's so
Jake:so that's why I'm, I don't know, got a bitter taste in my mouth on hidden traitors games. Oh,
Unknown:I feel sorry for you. But
Jake:that's, that's kind of what my experience has been with hidden traitors, though. It's like, it can go so well until the turn. And then it's just all downhill.
Rachel:So this is starting to get into our experiences section. But I have played Battlestar Galactica and unfathomable now, so I can confirm that the same game. But this is kind of part of the conversation that I wanted to come back to with Chris. I feel like I have to, I have to be in the right mood for a hidden traitor game. And, Chris, you've got to tell me if this is a problem with me or if this is the problem with the people I'm playing the game with. Okay. You're going into a game where you know that there's going to be a traitor at some point somebody is not on your side. So what I do is I'm very analytical of everything that everyone is doing. And I'm I end up pointing the finger a lot, even when I'm not the trade It's not as something to like, throw off suspicion. It's something that's like, well, you're acting weird. I don't know if I can trust you. And so in that unfathomable game, I actually did throw Jake into the brig, even though he wasn't the traitor. Oh,
Jake:that's right. That's right. How did you know? We would have one?
Rachel:There was actually no traitor. At that point in the game. Everybody was on the same side. But I thought Jake was acting suspicious. And I thought I caught him in a lie. And so I throw him in the break.
Jake:You just paranoid. Paranoid,
Rachel:my sister says like, this is why she doesn't like to play hidden traitor games with me, because I'm always pointing the finger like, you're the Cylon. I knew it. I saw it. You did a thing. You said something weird. I don't know, you're a Cylon. I can't trust you. So tell me, Chris, is that how you're supposed to behave?
Unknown:The way that I go into it, I mean, some people are like that some people are not like for me, I just go into it and try to just stir up as much chaos wherever I can. Whether or not I'm on the good team or on the bad team. It's just there's something fun about the chaotic nature of the game. And one of my experiences, I know what I talked about my experience with one game, there's something just really enjoyable about going into it. It's good to analyze, it's good to analyze. But the one thing is if you overanalyze, you kind of lose the fun aspect of it. At some point, you turn it more into a strategy and it's like, there's no strategy to the duction game like that. I like werewolf. Maybe Battlestar Galactica has a little bit of it, maybe maybe I'm fallible has a little bit of it. I mean, even even Yeah, you can definitely start figuring things out as you're playing bad guys. But when you get into a game, like werewolf or get into a game, like blood on the clock tower, there is no strategy. It's just you analyze a little bit, you go with it, and then you try to basically create a popularity of getting people to kill. It's so much fun.
Rachel:Well, yeah, so I don't know, I still think I need to be in the right mood for hitting traitor game. And I think that for some, for some people, it's just hard to get past some of that. Just the way that that plays when I think that the people that we hang out with and play games with most of the time don't necessarily enjoy that type of game as much as we'll do. And that's
Unknown:okay. Like people people don't have to like it people people don't have to like it interior was there's games that are close to a hidden traitor type style, like Venice among us. There's games, like, like he said, I'm traveling Battlestar Galactica, there's games, like don't mess with Cthulhu. There's, there's games like that, where you're trying to accomplish different tasks, and there will be little bit of that hidden traitor trying to, you know, try to get you off track. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's ultimately what you enjoy to do. And if, if that's not your thing, that's okay. Yeah. Even though I'm silently judging you right now. Oh,
Rachel:no. All right. So we've talked a lot about various types of cooperative games, we're going to wrap up by just mentioning, the recommendations that we have for our listeners cooperative games to go check out for this reason or another slash, what kind of cooperative games are we looking forward to that we haven't had a chance to play yet? So Jake, go ahead.
Jake:I keep seeing information on this game called Spirit Island, I think it looks really cool. I have not played it yet. But from what I understand you, as a player, take control of a god or a deity that has power on this island, and your fellow deities are trying to resist this rising tide of colonialism that these sailors are coming to try to colonize your island. So you're using these powers to deter them from doing that. It sounds really cool. I really want to play it. It's kind of expensive. It's like 80 bucks for the game. And Rachel isn't typically a fan of cooperative games, so I haven't really bought it yet. So that's one I'm looking forward to. I have the Dark Souls board game, which I haven't tried yet. Because if you know anything about us as podcasters and board game enthusiast, I don't read rules, and Rachel has zero desire to play this game. So I have to read the rules in order to play this game. And that's not gonna happen. So that's why we haven't tried it yet.
Rachel:Yeah, okay. So I wouldn't say I have zero desire. But I have told Jake, that this is his game. And he has to teach it to us if he wants to play it. I don't feel like that's unreasonable out of the whatever. 100 some games that we have, that he reads the rules for one game. Mm hmm.
Jake:That's a hard game. Okay, so as far as recommendations, if I'm going to recommend something to a beginner for a fully cooperative game, I would definitely recommend one of the Forbidden SIRs Forbidden Island desert sky, definitely do that. It's pretty approachable, it's still challenging. But it's not something that's going to take a long time, it's fairly quick to play as far as a board game goes. For somebody more advanced, I would definitely recommend crisis for our semi cooperative game is hard. There's a lot going on. There's a lot to manage. But I like that. And that's why I would recommend this to a more advanced player.
Rachel:Oh, I definitely agree that like the forbidden series is a great place to start, it will introduce you to a lot of concepts that cooperative games often have like having a specific role, you know, there's a certain ability that you can do that not everyone else can do. And that's what makes you a special member of the team. And everybody has to cooperate and use their different roles together. So I definitely agree with that. As far as my recommendations, I really love betrayal at house on the hill. And so we categorize that as a semi cooperative game. This is one of those ones that I'm pretty much always willing to play. And I love all the different endings that it can have. So the base game comes with 50 Different haunts. And then there is an expansion that you can purchase, which comes with an additional 50 haunts. That's just so many options for what you can do that even if you do get a repeat, like, Oh, hey, we played this one before. It was like four years ago, and you don't really remember what happened. Right? Right. It's okay to play it again. I love that game a lot. That would be kind of my beginner's recommendation, I guess. And then my more advanced recommendation would be etherfields. And like I said, we're gonna do a whole series on that. But it is story driven. And I love the fact that nothing really has to be based on reality. It really opens things up. And you guys know me, I love the manic games. It definitely has that thematic, immersive, just feeling to it. I love it. Things that I'm looking forward to. I've actually been keeping an eye out for sleeping gods. That is something that I think was a Kickstarter game and hasn't been available. Like I think they did a second printing. And it was available on Amazon for like two days, and I didn't pick it up, and it's gone again. So
Unknown:you just need to go to the red Raven store website, you have better chances of finding it on their website, they need to probably on a third party store.
Rachel:Okay, that's good to know. But that's also another story driven kind of campaign game that looks very interesting. The art is beautiful and just very attractive to me. And then for my birthday, Jake's mom also got me forgotten waters, which is like a pirate story campaign game. We haven't had a chance to play that with anyone yet. So I'm looking forward to that as well. All right, what about you, Chris? I see a massive list that continues to grow here on our behind the scenes outline.
Unknown:I know I'm just like, things come to me so quickly. Alright, so here we go. So Thanos rising. This is from the opposite cooperative game, where you're playing through the Infinity saga and fighting off Thanos's minions and trying to survive before he gets all the gems, snaps his fingers and ends the game. There's a few different ways you can lose but the one way you can win is by defeating seven of the villains. However, if you want to add a little chaos and fun to it, try to kill all of them and see how long you last. Next one will be Hogwarts battle. This is based on the Harry Potter franchise. Shawn Fletcher friend of ours actually worked on the mechanic that made this game. So Hogwarts battle of fun cooperative, where you kind of like unlock different chapters throughout their a potter series. Then next up, we're going to say dead of winter Plaid Hat Games. Like I said earlier, how fun is it to be a traitor and kill your friends. Next up, we've got chronicles of crime missed by lucky duck games, you can play it solo, but cooperate is a good way of doing it. You're trying to solve a murder mystery, you're scanning QR codes using a mobile app, you're looking at the crime scenes, it's so much fun, highly recommend it. next pandemic from Z Man games pandemic is one of those games where there's a virus and guess what, there's not just one virus, there's usually four viruses. So you are trying to go ahead and cure the different diseases. But if you want to add a little extra difficulty, not only are you going to try to cure them, but you're also going to try to eradicate them. And then you can add epidemic cards which can cause more problems throughout the game to boost up the difficulty in the replayability. After that we have Scooby Doo escape from the Haunted Mansion from the OP one of the best kind of cooperative games that I've played where you're kind of like escape room style game very well put together. The actual designers of the game put like these nice touches to make it feel like you're actually watching a Saturday morning cartoon. Then of course too many bones from Chip theory games, you're gonna pay a chunk of change for this game. But there's so much dice, there's so much to it. And it's just it's amazing little story that you're basically going on this path in this journey. At some point, you're going to face the big boss, and probably get destroyed. So that's one thing, but it's such an enjoyable game that you may lose, and you'll pick back up and you'll, you'll be ready to play again. So that's really well done.
Jake:I'm also getting that one. Oh, it's
Chris:so good. It's so good. Core quest is one that was done by Dan and Cora who's that's a father and daughter combo, where Dan and his daughter were just basically in the pandemic and saying, Hey, let's make a board game. And they made a board game and it's like a dungeon crawling game. And what's really cute is that the artwork is done by kids, and then touched up by a designer, like a graphic artist and stuff like that. So it's really cool. And then you can actually draw your own pictures and make your own little avatars to play as a different characters in the game. So it's very well done. It's cute. It is one of the Kickstarters that I was so thankful that I back because it's just well done. Next up, we've got truck door, the board game. If anybody's a Homestar Runner fan, you know of truck door. So trog door is the burn inator trying to burn and eat the peasants and the thatched roof cottages and the countryside and if you burn everything you would. So that's a fun one. And then last but not least, this game is near and dear to my heart. This is a Princess Bride storybook game that's from Ravensburger where you are actually trying to get the characters to go to different places and do different actions and you're doing as cooperative campaign. What's nice about it is that you know, you just feel like you're watching the movie again. And that's something nice like that is one of That's my wife and I our favorite movie. She walked down the aisle to the theme of the Princess Bride being played on the piano. So yeah, Princess Bride by Ravensbruck and for looking forward to games. Considering that I do like cooperative games, and I do like some of my co op and hidden traitor games, I would say the ones that I'm looking forward to I have chronicles of crime 2400 on my table right now getting ready to possibly open that up and very soon and do a playthrough of it. More than one playthrough, of course. And then the one that I want to try at some point, if somebody has a copy of it, is the betrayal at house on the hill, Scooby Doo addition, because who doesn't want to go? swings, like, I'm so scared Scoob and just have some fun with it, you know, just be able to play a little bit of Scooby Doo.
Rachel:I would also like to check out that game.
Chris:I'm very interested in the too many bones. I'm very interested in The Princess Bride. Alright, well,
Rachel:that is our episode on cooperative games. Hopefully everyone feels sufficiently educated about it. Chris, thank you so much for coming on. We loved having you. And Jake and I have both come on your Twitch channel and played games with you before? Why don't you go ahead and give our listeners a little bit of a plug and tell us where we can find you and what you're doing.
Chris:So you find us on YouTube, which Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. But yeah, you can go on to twitch we have Tuesday nights we do our RPGs and such, we're playing through an RPG campaign at about 9pm Eastern Standard Time. And then on Thursdays, we do two different things. We do a people's employee podcast, which was Justin and Chelsea myself, where we interview members in the board game community. And sometimes we talk about nonprofits that they're interested in. And then right afterwards, our family usually will play a game where we call it family game time. And we'll just play some games, so it's always fun. And then on Saturdays on Twitch, we do what's called the CVG variety hour where either our family will play something or I'll play something like a video game. Or I'll invite other people on to just play some games virtually and have some fun. We've done wavelength before. And we've done left for dead two before. So it's like a complete mixed bag of games and fun that we try to do on Saturdays. And then all throughout the week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we have content that is going up on YouTube, whether it's what Monday is called punchable Monday where we open the boxes, and I like to call them punch bubbles where you're punching all the chips out of the cardboard. And then Wednesday is what we call How Does It Work Wednesday where we do a brief overview of a game. And then Friday is what we call deep thoughts where we talk a little bit about, you know, something special to us whether it be the legacy of my mom and her inspiration for the charity board gamer talking about conventions, or even a complete episode where we talk specifically about our love for Justin bird. It's there, right?
Rachel:Nice. That's lovely. I love you know the things that you guys are doing. You put out a lot of content. And I feel like I've met a lot of just really great people through your channel and like playing games with you guys. So It's been a great experience for us. And I highly recommend that people go check out the charity board gamer content, because it's fun and interesting. And there's always something new on there.
Chris:That's true. Absolutely. I appreciate that. You know, the one thing I've learned in in this hobby is that you put yourself around the people that you want to be around, and you try to build a community that you know that you would want to spend time, whether it be playing games, or not playing games, like I could see myself going out to dinner with a lot of the people that I've made friends with in the hobby. And we actually have done that we have something like that. It's just it's one of those things that you want to do you want to culture and cultivate the people that you're around. And you want to build that community as much as you can. And when you cultivate that community, to where you want it to be. It helps with your mental health, it helps with your outlook on life. And then during those times, you can be an encouragement to somebody, but also they can be an encouragement to you. And it's a nice balance between the two. Yeah,
Rachel:that's a good words to end on.
Chris:Thank you again, Chris, for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Anytime.
Rachel:And there you have it. That is our deep dive into cooperative games. Thank you guys so much for listening. Hit us up on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at so board podcasts. That's S O B Oard. Podcast. We love hearing from you any experiences that you have with cooperative games? How will you like them or not? You know, are you more on my side Chris's side, Jake side. You can also find short stories and other things that we've been playing and doing recently on all of those social media outlets. And you can also email us at We are so board. That's w e a r e s o Bo ar d@gmail.com. Lastly, make sure that you subscribe so that you receive notifications when new episodes are available. It's also super helpful. If you have like two seconds to leave us a review. You can do that on Spotify now. All it is is clicking how many stars do you think we are? So like that's helpful for other people to find our podcast and you know, to spread the word about how awesome we
Jake:are. We also want to give a shout out to the people who knew we were reviewing cooperative games based on the picture we posted last week. So congrats to Chris Foltz Roco rora, Aly Borden, Andrew Wolf, Adam Butler, and Vinny from Twitter. Awesome job. We also would like to thank Mitchell Mims. He's the designer of our art. He is currently accepting commissions. So check him out at Mims, co Sa ra on Instagram or on his website at Mitchell Mims. That's M i c h e o m i m s.ca RR d.co. And don't
Rachel:forget, we are doing a giveaway right now for the next two weeks of Dune Imperium. So that is open worldwide. As long as there are no shipping restrictions to your country. I think that's very, very few countries that have that from the United States. So go ahead and enter. It's free and you actually get a reward if you listen to our previous episode and know the secret code.
Jake:It's true. Also, once again, I am streaming on Twitch like I said at the beginning of the episode, you can find me on Twitch at Naughty Doc 541 Nau GH TYDOC 541. And I keep my schedule up to date because it changes each week so you'll be able to see when I'm on
Rachel:Alright, thanks for listening and we will see you next time. Bye.
Jake:Bye.