Top 10 Cooperative Games

hahaha [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] hahaha [Music] [Music] good afternoon everyone sorry I'm Tom basil I'm Z Garcia I'm going to be understated I'm Mike delicio hey everybody how's it going you sound sick now it's NPR hey everybody how's it going now you sound sick but trying to open it sounded healthy but bored no I'm definitely not bored NPR This is NPR now we've all got to pull together for this top 10 list we've got a pool our Collective resources to make the best darn list that was my uh originating joke but now I can I can't say you got got [Laughter] to do some shout outs of some of our Kickstarter backers we want to say thanks to Eric lagne back magnet back Travers Matthew Chandler Bonnie Mann Jesse Clyde Nicholas rocker he just said say rock sorry Rock that's a great name Nick Rock that is a good name oh I don't mean to make assumptions Nicholas if you don't go by Nick but man Nick rock is a good game a good name good game too yeah Scott mocker Patrick Steele and James Mark Drago or dagrow sorry and finally James McDonald so we want to say thank you that's a lot of you good names today it is I also want to know who the evil person is here in the studio who decided to make popcorn right before we started to film our top ten list of popcorn is in the air the popcorn makes me think of the holidays I was reading a story of a guy who said they had a co-worker who hated the smell of popcorn so they got the boss to ban popcorn from the office so the guy bought a little USB popcorn smelling plug and plugged in the back of her her computer dang that's Karen's computer and uh I did I did used to work with somebody that was very fond of microwaving salmon for for lunch uh not a fan did you say used to yeah it was not it was not here oh well does that happen here it's not salmon but yeah some interesting microwave smells here some days we have experiments that's true Kenny uh Kenny will look at this guy is that you Chris look at this guy look at that hey all right that's fantastic I felt pretty good about that is not going in the end of the year quick show we don't have time all right so this is actually the last live thing we're doing this week and if you hear noises and drills in the background is because our studio is being worked on um and the Christmas Spectacular starts Monday this is the last live thing we're doing right yes nothing tomorrow good because this this is getting torn down we got a lot of stuff going on here um so Cooperative games that's we're talking about we've done this list twice before probably at least I don't know if I was in the other ones but you were not you've never done the top 10 Cooperative games don't believe so oh wow I'm excited to hear your list I mean Tom's I kind of assume I more or less know what we'll be on there but I haven't heard Mike's this is Mike's day I want to say that okay we're right off the bat okay I'm gonna be paying very little attention to you one of my top Cooperative games what's that Mike got nudged off the list really nudge for example so I'll just say ghost stories is not on my listing anymore what's wrong with you I know and I'll tell you why because so many Cooperative games have come out yeah you well see I stole something from you earlier you stole someone definitely did steal that from you um yeah I'm gonna stay right off the bat a lot of my list skews newer right because I do feel like Cooperative games just as a rule have gotten better they've gotten more Innovative um over the years and so when I was putting this list together it's like oh man it's Cult of the new and I'm like you know I don't care I think that these are the games that right now I think are the 10 basketballs I also went with right now what am I digging on yeah right what am I still excited about there's some games that are for me like Classics that I'm just not playing a lot lately so I'd really skewed towards I think about these and play and and they got they still get me jazzed up as of right now right this could change in a year but these are 10 co-op games I'm really psyched about at the moment because it's a Cooperative game we communicated ahead of time because then says I'm talking I want to be clear it's about Cooperative games there's a lot of Cooperative games that I play solo mostly and that like almost all the awaken realm stuff sure so uh tainted Grail and ether Fields they're great but they're not on this list because I don't play them with others I play them by myself right um sprawlopolis that's a solo game yeah yeah yeah yeah so I mean you can play it out with other people Cooperative I don't want to so these are games that I want to play with other people does that make sense it does like the like the only verse games like oniram yeah technically co-ops but they're not they're solo game they're not on my list any of those either right so I'm there with you Tom I'm glad we discussed this and a few of these I do play solo occasionally sure but I I would love to play them with other people absolutely but if you're wondering where the lack of Awakened Realms games is it's because I prefer playing those solo actually okay I agree with you on that yeah so all right I have no idea I have no idea on most of these although I know a couple on mics I have no idea what's on disease what are you talking about you just said it's what you want to play now I threw me completely out of whack no this is a lot of stuff you know though the trainer well how many of your games have traitorous things in them traitorous things in them um meaning that there's a Trader there's a possibility or there is a trade better be none I'm going to say this is not Cooperative I'm going to say zero also none but I I think shazro camelot's a Cooperative game that's a good point Shadows over came out to co-op it's not on my list so I'm safe Z not on my list Z is is is is giving me a haughty one that would have made my list if I was okay with that the others that's a one versus many but it also starts out technically cooperative for everybody but one yeah yeah but the trader games oh in every Trader game I've ever played it's basically an all versus one at the very beginning on my very first turn I'm like I'm the trader you're all gonna die I don't go for these little mind games okay if I'm gonna kill you I'm gonna do it to your face you're gonna know about it early that's a good call all right well here we use we go where's that Mike foreign okay it's interesting that you brought up ghost stories Tom because my number 10 is my replacement for ghost stories ghost stories used to be would have been on my top 10 probably yeah and now it has been replaced by a Cooperative game by the same designer is it the fantasy version because that's the same no no it is not last Bastion actually oh okay it's a game that I actually feel like I can win once in a while really you like this that much I know you're not a big fan of it but my number 10 is ultra I really really like and this is a game I keep playing I've been playing this actually oh wow that now I have to I have to play this the best thing about old Trey is that it's pretty it's gorgeous I mean it's Vincent to trade artwork that's it that's why top 10 business and trade games I could also easily do that but no this this is a very good Cooperative game uh Z is wrong about this one he needs to revisit it again like this I like it okay he didn't love it yeah but yeah um it is a game that is modular in nature where there's a little a light storytelling element where each game you play is a Chronicle and you kind of flip cards like a book and you're having to do something to get through different challenges that come up and each Chronicle has slightly different bad things that you as a team have to overcome but it does a couple of things I think very well number one is that it has very clear scalable difficulty you know so it's easy to to deal with that it has short and long Chronicles so if you want to play a shorter game of it you can do that should do that listen to me matches of Madness absolutely and it has a reasonable difficulty as well I mean I've still never beaten ghost stories I've played it many many times I've never beaten it so now that might stay that is one that I tend to play solo not Ultra I don't I think I've played this solo a few times but I've also played it more you play Ghost Stories solo yeah I don't know that's probably why but I have played it with no you can you can multi-hand it too uh I know but it's still weird there's a lot of I know anyway Ultra is is kind of my go-to for this field because it still has kind of this you're defending the center area and you've got stuff coming at you from all four sides and and so it has some some shared DNA with ghost stories but it doesn't really feel like it but ghost stories will be on your list it will not this is replaced ghost ghost stories was my number 11. it says replacement my ghost stories number 10. these number 10 ghost stories all right that's my number two that'd be amazing but it's not all right now my number 10 is rising five Runes of Astros I really still am loving this little game it's a game that I think got a lot of of pushback listen to trade also by the way that's true um it originally got a lot of pushback because the game looks bigger than it is that looks like an epic yes space worker placement maybe you know that looks like a lot is going on this is a small game yep and I think the the backlash was that's it you know you play it and you go oh it's like a little 30 minute game which feels like Mastermind meets dice chugging a little bit I would love to see another game in the same universe with those characters I know I would be all over that a different style of game with the same world and same art yeah oh my gosh but anyway I really like this little game it's light it's simple like I said it literally takes 30 minutes and you know that because there's an app and it'll tell you at the end of the game how you know how long it lasted it's very easy as well yes though you do have the ability to kick up the complexity a little bit and it's just so welcoming it's so easy to play so attractive so fun light-hearted you know what I like most about this game this this was being my top tier is that you know you have different characters that have special abilities and typically in a Cooperative game you're like I'm this character I've got this ability in this game you can be all the characters on your turn you're playing cards with those characters on them so it's like okay now I'm gonna be this do this character thing now I'm gonna do this character's thing right I really like that so that you can you know if you're like I don't like the one that gives me extra movement I'm stuck with this the whole game right yeah it was like past the characters you can play with them all yeah yeah it's good good choice Rising five all right well we're gonna jump away from Vincent to Trey for a while but go to another game that we all love because of its art and we're also all thrilled because in our upcoming Kickstarter in January we all have new art from this game of us and that game is vagrant song oh gosh I I love anyway go ahead you love the art I love the art you are in the game now well and and our yeah the the little so vagrant song is a really fun theme and the old timey wimey cuphead style artwork was actually a pretty dark theme if you think about it it's like oh we're all on a train going to uh Perdition and we're all dead or some people are dead whatever it might be um but it plays as a boss battler essentially and each time you're fighting or you're that's really what's it called you are uh it is yeah you're giving them back their Humanity I don't think there's a there's another shorter way to say that yeah I forget what it is but yeah you're basically beating up the ghosts you're beating up the ghost to remind them that they're human rights Choose Your Own Adventure to it which I like a lot it has a fun theme it has stuff like a you know suitcase falls off the ceiling or whatever whatever and it has a really really clever mechanism of pulling chips from a bag and then you have an action point system with very different characters and this is again this is one that I don't I don't know if I've even played this solo at all I really like playing with other people this one's fun like I'll go over here you do that and it's just interesting the biggest knock against this one for me is the fact that it's it is a campaign I would love if you could just flip through and just play any old scenario in the book right yeah um but yeah this is a lot of fun and it's finally even though this was on my list for best games in 2021. it's finally out in full full gear I saw a lot of it at Pax last week available now so yay it's finally around favorite song [Music] my number nine is one that is probably not the most Innovative you know this one is the one that feels still like one of those kind of classic Cooperative Cooperative game no no you both check each other at the same time everyone surrenders peace everyone just hits the chess clock back and forth over and over again that's spiking seesaw ah ask him ask me about my seesaw my number nine is endangered this is a lovely theme where you are trying to save different endangered species of animals and it's another one that is somewhat modular is not the right word but every animal has a slight Riff on the central mechanism in the game which is essentially dice placement to take actions but what also is nice about it is that you have cards in your hand that are also actions that you are adding to the pool right so there are some actions that are always going to be available to you and you put your dice out and there's some dice restriction rules of course so it's not so you know wide open but you also depending upon what character you're playing what their focus might be maybe it's gaining money generating money or it might be you know clearing off environmental hazards on the board you add those cards to the table that everyone can use those cards so I like the growing pool of action I love the theme the win condition I think is probably the most Innovative other than the fact that each animal plays slightly differently in that you are trying to influence some World Government World Government yeah yeah yeah and so you're kind of placing cubes and you don't necessarily know what their requirements are until you put the first Cube on it and you flip it and you go oh okay we need to focus on money for that particular Ambassador is there a penguin module there is not yet I don't believe there is you would have to dance you have to dance you get it on video Happy Feet right yeah the whole world to take notice yeah but no this is this is a really solid game it already has had an expansion which is basically just more animals that you can play and again slightly changes the rules the core system is the same uh really lovely looking uh I think a pretty darn good difficulty too it is definitely beatable it's not that easy so uh yeah my number nine is in danger really enjoy this one that's a good one yeah the the worker the the Agricola sort of thing where like there's new work replacement spots in a game like a gricola they just happen in this one players make new ones yes that's just clever right and it just works well yeah all right my number nine is a crossover already folks already it's a ghost stories which would my number 11 and Mike's replacement yeah it's vagrancy I thought I would have no crossover oh I figured one of you would put this on your list two of us are going to put this on our list okay two of us already dead and the three of us learn your math I uh refuse okay I'm dead I am now a hate uh uh I hate no dummy all right vagrant song Tom already said a lot about it uh it's uh cool yeah and I agree with you that I do wish it was not only campaign sure I would love for them to come up with a follow-up or a spin-off or something that was actually just scenarios right one-offs you know uh but yeah I really like it it's a little tricky and somebody in the comments said it actually after you talked about it that it is a little some of the rules there's some hiccups the rule book could have been much better it could have been better there's some sort of having to look up things and going I'm not sure I'm not quite sure how that works but that's because the game is pretty different from a lot of Cooperative games and so it's going to run into some of those issues you would run with a a Miniatures kind of game there's some of those things in it right but it's worth the effort because it's such a neat world it's such a cool interesting bizarre set of mechanisms that again that little extra effort I find very worth it that's my nine two or my nine year 10 right yeah yes my number nine is both one of the newest games on my list and also it's the oldest game on the list what a conundrum and that's because it's a reprint of a much older game and that just came the reprint just came out earlier this year and that has returned the Dark Tower oh sure sure this one I gotta say original wasn't Cooperative right I don't think it was competitive you've been exposed no I'm not possible I'm not positive but I think that's interesting if that is if that is true I think that even makes this more of an interesting pick oh thank you again to be competitive okay well I'm talking about the new one I don't know about the old one um return to Dark Tower when I first saw it I I was honestly I was like uh gimmick cool gimmick but is the game fun and this is a really good one I will stand loud and say I am tired and tired and tired of Cooperative games that are way too hard yeah yeah all right very very few on my list are there's at least one hard one on here unfortunately but actually no none of them are really that difficult so yeah I'm I I stand by what I say this one looks hard but it really isn't it's so much fun to me because the wide breadth of things you can do there's one thing I don't like about Cooperative games and one of my games that will come up later in his list gives me this problem is the illusion of who do whatever you want but you gotta really do these things if you're gonna win in return to Dark Tower you really can go around if I want to go fight a monster I go fight the monster I'm gonna go in this dungeon I can go in a dungeon and all those things can contribute to winning right I think that's really fun yes there's the obvious you're like get the skulls out of those buildings or whatever it might be but I feel like you have that breadth of oh we're all doing different things and it's almost impossible for anyone to Alpha Game you in this first of all they can't see your side of the board there's that that's the main reason no one has brought this stuff I was gonna say that's the whole reason a tower exists it stops the applicators especially short Alpha Gamers they're like What's anyone doing we got it the struggle is real so anyhow really fun game for me and I was surprised how much I liked it and still play it that first expansion was a lot of fun I'm looking forward to it it's neat how each character is really fully fleshed too right a lot of Cooperative games your character with a minor power which could be big like take pandemic for example it's a minor power but in Dark Tower your whole character is different you have different upgrades right I'm a big fan of that so yeah I'm not saying you should have lower expectations right you shouldn't lower expectations but this game could have really just been that Tower and had very little game and it probably still would have been very popular I agree this is a game that stands even without I mean you need the tower for some of the functionality but the core of the game is still a solid game right that's a big difference yeah and all the app stuff oh yeah I like a lot yeah it's really fun so yeah my number nine foreign [Music] before you do number eight I got another one Cooperative diplomacy so in Cooperative diplomacy at the beginning of the game you have to just all say you know what we're happy with the land we have sure if you can pull it off you all win so it's a fantasy but one person right can be like nafu we're fighting and then everyone loses but that person could win so they destroy everybody else's land well that's actually the real game patent pending 2022. both of them Rick The Cooperative game all right anyway go ahead all right so my number eight is a game that um comes up on lists of mine quite often and I feel like I'm kind of the only champion of this game or whatever everybody hates it everybody else hates it especially the designer Matt leacock uh my number eight academic is not pandemic and and I've walked back I know he likes this game too I do Mike this is my 11. oh really yeah my number eight is Thunderbirds I walked back a bit from calling this a pandemic riff because it's a pandemic killer from what I understand it is not but it has some similarities but really it is its own game and sure if you like the theme that is helpful but I wasn't like it's not like I had Thunderbirds posters on my wall when I was a kid or anything I just really like this game I don't know where I went there uh that's amazing what did you say from here nothing oh let's keep going um it was an old joke yeah of course all right um this is that has some of the classic you know uh Cooperative things where flip over card bad thing happens deal with that bad thing but this adds a kind of a unique twist into to how you move around the board because you're using these different vehicles and you're having to utilize those vehicles and the different characters in the game to be able to complete these crises that come up and eventually defeat the hood which is the the big bad in the game um this is another one that gives you a little bit of that thing that Rising 5 does where yes you can kind of change out characters in the middle of a game you are someone you are but you can but there's ways to like bring people along the vehicle yeah you bring a different character in your vehicle now suddenly you've got access to their ability yeah yeah right which is a nice little way to do that as well it's a really tough solo game I don't know if you've played a lot of solo but it's a beast it is I like it better multiplayer definitely better multiplayer because solo sometimes you just can't do something you can't do it and that's why you know we talked before this list I was trying to focus on games that I you know primarily play multiplayer but this is just a really really rock solid Matt Lee Cooperative design I mean yeah um and if you like the IP sure it definitely is going to raise it but if you have no interest at all in the IP it's still a very very good Cooperative game that has just enough of twist to make it feel yeah I think if you don't like the theme I don't know man I did not know Thunderbirds before I played this Tom I know about it a little bit more now but I liked the game it feels this one just feels more more like I'm in a box than any other like really I don't have as much freedom to do stuff in this game I mean it's like a there's a fire go put it out yeah yeah there's a time I was gonna say there's a time pressure right I don't mind that because it fits this theme these guys are running around the world putting out fires right yeah you have to get to South America before this thing explodes I do like the vehicles yeah the vehicles are ran five four three okay yeah I'm eating a sandwich I'll get my vehicle hang on all right my number eight is a game I uh it seems I'm the only one who talks about it because everybody else seems to not be aware of it maybe or play it much anyway it's Subterra Subterra not a lot of love I believe uh Trey Parker has your side on this one oh he's actually this is on on his list of his top 10 games of all time and that's not quite in my top 10 but it's uh it's very high up I very much enjoy Subterra to me it feels like an exploration game which it is a lot of exploration games like I don't know takal or something like that I love I love tile placement exploration games there's a lot of tile placement games in which you are growing a board to score points or what have you but discovering something ahead of you that you can't see that right that fog of War kind of idea I I've always loved that I love games that are able to make me feel that feeling you make that Cooperative you wraps a mean interesting mechanisms you give it a cool Dark theme where there's monsters down there and things that could go awry and you're just you know clawing your way to an exit you are trying to find that's just tens and fun you know sometimes you're thinking you're making great Headway and you realize boom you hit a dead end now I need to backtrack out of this path and keep finding another way out there's these creatures these Horrors hunting me down oh no so-and-so just took their last hit and they're wounded on the floor I need to go back and and save them right I need to go back and like revive them and get them back up again and running um you can't win if someone dies they can't win um so no technically you could escape and somebody dies but traitor game time is Knob you can abandon you can abandon people I suppose you're not really betraying anyone but sometimes it's like I don't have time to go back for you I like to point out in real life that that happened I would consider that a betrayal I don't know what you're talking about look it's not you we just gotta get out no it's interesting it's it's very cinematic this game I really like that about it so okay Subterra is very good have you ever played this I haven't that's not that kind of an user list it is on the list yeah yeah I think yeah you played it with Camilla maybe she's played it and I've played it with her yeah um we always end up doing catch up losers in January or February so that sounds like a little be a good one I like the theme my number eight is a game that I have played by myself and realized that I like it with other people much more because I like the discussions this is the one I love playing with my wife and that is Chronicles of crime oh yeah crowd is a crime I mean really it's everyone is doing the same thing no one is really doing anything different it's one of the I mean yes you have these roles that each person has but honestly it'll be like hey I mean scan I can scan the stuff with your thing right but it's the talking this through I have no idea why anyone on Earth plays Sherlock Holmes Consulting detective now that Chronicles of crime exists I agree with you I mean there's a lot of reasons mostly because when I'm done with Chronicles of crime the game tells me how well I did and it's done it doesn't get me a sarcastic look I did it so much faster than you because I knew the answers yeah yeah in fact I'm pretty convinced side note that in Sherlock Holmes Consulting detective he's the murderer you know and he's just he's like oh I figured it out ow yeah I would anyway uh great twist that would be actually I like that idea Sherlock Holmes is a murderer is what you're saying that will be my when they reboot it well next month it's every year there's always a new one okay Noah Holmes three anyhow uh Chronicles crime there's different versions my favorite is the newest one 29.99 yeah it's oh is it 22.49 or whatever it is it's really 2400 I think something it's really fun though it's something it's like set 1400 yeah 1400 1900 2400 okay there you go makes sense yeah um I like that one the best but I like all of them they're all fun they all have a different feel to them just going through solving the mystery talk it over and it makes sense I'll be like that woman felt iffy there I think she killed her husband what do you think we're talking about that stuff it's just interesting anytime there's a dog interact with the dog never ignore the dog it's all about the dog the dog my number eight the dog [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] all right Cooperative Monopoly basically everybody has to demonopolize okay at the beginning of the game everyone has to put their money in together and then you all win but one person could not do that in which case they become a tyrant it's a very different game Sorry what happens with the free parking I ain't free no more ain't free no more sorry nothing in life is Free Buddy huh Cooperative Monopoly it's like communist Monopoly I wasn't gonna say it I didn't want to it's a secret commodally come opolis [Laughter] my number seven is um if game there you go it's paleo trying to figure it out hang on let me guess yeah no you're right it would take too long this is a game that I feel like really stands out you know I think many of mine have somewhere a little plain as expansion we just talked about it I I imported it like months ago have you played it yes you need to review it it has a new board and has a new resource is it good it's really good yeah paleo is one of those games where it's kind of modular I I've mentioned that a lot too I didn't even realize until I started talking out loud about them but you've got different decks of cards that you can combine to have a particular scenario right and it'll be like oh this one is going to be focusing more maybe on you know having to deal with large animals and so you have the large animals deck and you mix that with this deck and you put it together and you've got this this kind of game session but really the theme of it is one where you are paleo-americans you're a stone age peoples and you're really just trying to survive you're trying to get food you're trying to to make tools to be able to build shelters it is a to me it's like a much simpler version of Robinson cruso right like that's a good way the rules are you know much simpler the difficulty is I think very good and one of the things that the rule books does very well is they say hey if you want an easy one put these two decks together if you want a medium one put these decks you know there's different possibilities and multiples right multiple ways to have easy gains multiple ways to have medium gains multiple ways to have difficult games um really really nice looking game nice production quality not outrageously expensive I think this won the Kenner Spiel actually yeah um really really solid game paleo I think it's very easy to get a hold of now it's not one of those Grail games or anything so I really like paleo a lot this is one that I've found myself coming back to you know over and over again so it could even go higher at one point but for now if Landing we're at a number seven okay this is very different mechanically that's its biggest selling the backs of the car do you have an idea of what you might see but you don't know exactly yeah it's just weird it's not the usual do a good thing do a bad thing right that's a very tropey kind of thing by now yeah mechanically right paleo is not that it's just sort of its own entire idea yeah alrighty number seven you say all right my number seven is Arkham Horror the card game this is the living card game um because it's heavy lifting yeah this is a lot of heavy lifting yeah okay this is by far the most complex and um the one with the most minutiae when it comes to all of these games all the other Arkham games all the living card games this is the one that has the most going on and so it's hard to yeah it takes a couple deep breaths to be like okay I'm gonna get into some Markham horror here we go you know I mean let me let me do the heavy lifting that this takes to bring it back to the table now when I do that and this happens to me with many things like oh this movie looks kind of heavy uh am I in the mood to watch okay I'll watch and then I sit down and watch and have a great time right same thing with this game once I'm sitting down and I'm ready to go I have a great time it is Rich it is in the in the very best sense of that word this is a rich World Rich mechanically but that's why it's this low whereas you know I could see myself some time ago it would have been much higher I haven't played it a lot lately um you played like a whole I played that with uh Chris and Camilla we played a a campaign or whatever cycle yeah it was that final game where you got busted up and had a bag I did die I was lost in time of space with my doggy dog I'll never be uh found again but I enjoyed it yeah so I always have a good time with this one if you were looking for a solid rich like I said Co-op game that manages to do a lot with just cards and you don't care about it being long you don't care about it being complex and best of two I would say but you can certainly play more than that then Arkham Horror the card game is superb and proven at this point yeah all right I thought I thought of my number seven well actually by making this list my number seven got me to pull up an old video game that I haven't played in ages and I've been playing that video game nonsense stop these days and the board game is Adventure Time Adventure tactics man this game is fun that's a good call so if you've never played Final Fantasy Tactics it's not like the other Final Fantasy games it's a it's a grid combat game but as you play through the game you're leveling up your characters but they can switch classes you might level up as a chemist for a while then say I'm gonna become a knight chemist that's the thing it is they throw potions at people [Laughter] it's actually one of the basic classes everyone starts off as either a squire or a chemist and but then there's you could be a knight a ninja a monk a Dragoon this game is the exact same thing you start as one of the five basic classes Like a Warrior a thief a rogue But as time goes by if I'm level two Rogue and level two palette and I might I mean night I might get pound I don't know I don't know what the combos are but there's like 18 classes you'll never play them all in one game but you're slowly built it's a deck builder and you have this cool deck of all these actions and then you go around it's not particularly difficult I mean it's it's hard enough yeah when you go around fight boss battle or not a boss battle as much as a combat on a map there's there's no Miniatures in this a card game there are measures for the heroes but all the um the enemies are standees is there movement though so there's cars car doesn't mean move and I play another card lets me attack oh yeah okay okay I've never played this and you level up quickly too right you level up at the end of every Mission sometimes win or lose sometimes if you and once you get to the end it's only 10 missions once you get to the end you might have to replay one if you lose or something right but you always level up I really like that this is campaign then right it is but it's a shortage campaign and I don't mind it in this particular way because because it's all about the leveling up yeah yeah and Roy and I did play one game with Tom we just sat down and played a game you know it didn't feel like it wasn't a full game even though we didn't go through a whole campaign I mean you don't get all the leveling up stuff but yeah and it's fun because at the end of the game you're just like let's level up and then you immediately want to play again because you want to try out your new level up yeah exactly yeah so just really really fun I would love to see more of this um more of this type of game but who knows anyway I really like a lot Adventure tactics laughs [Music] so Cooperative wingspan okay here we go um well this one you're opening a bird preserve all the time oh okay okay you pause too long after opening a bird I open a bird every Thanksgiving that was terrible there were five of them opening a bird sanctuary all together right so you need to get a certain number so all the all the different things you turn over there's a Cooperative you know I don't know why I'm talking about this because all joking aside it's probably coming it's probably coming I would not be there there's a letter being there's an email being written right now right it says it says yes exactly both those words are in it yeah yeah culture so Cooperative Wings bed I really feel like that's that's gonna be what wingspan South America is Right Cooperative it absolutely could be right I mean but there's not Asia for two players mode but it's not Cooperative at all that's just two players if they call it duet but it's really over but I could see them doing the same thing where it's like okay you can play this as that dual mode but even if you don't here's more cards you can add to your base game of wings back see I'm doing the same thing with this hey here's a way to play cooperatively if you don't want to here's more birds want to be really clear we're just making stuff up we have no idea Mike's number six seasons wingspanic Co-operative he got an early copy yeah I forgot it was okay it's my number six I'm starting this off um my number six is a crossover with Z Garcia Rising five my number six is a crossover with Tom vassel three-way crossover song I called it I said it would be yeah and it is it is and and since we've already discussed it quite a bit I will not belabor the point other than to say that yes the theme is fantastic the art is fantastic the very very clever bag pulling mechanism that that not only controls your actions but controls the actions of the haints that can be with the same chits can be different stuff depending on which scenario very smart it keeps the components uh count down but the replayability in the variety up and I also do agree that the downside is that it's a campaign and there is a quite a bit of rule you have to get through but the the juice is worth the squeeze is is the the new hip phrase all over Tick Tock so I really love vagrant songs as do my fellow campaigns line from Hairspray no better not be oh it's from uh that's uh that's from that Florida's Juice company the juice is worth the squeeze right I bought a Tropicana Tropicana I just started hearing uh what it is so often you know you know every so often you just phrases come out of The Ether and everyone's saying them one day this was one of them yeah juice is worth the squeeze have it your way every day that's right right okay yeah the Jews is working 23 skadoo right everyone's saying 23 skadoo it's the hot new phrase okay my number six is vagrant song all right well uh uh my number six uh has not been mentioned yet but I I wonder if it will be Maybe by Mike I don't think Tom likes it nearly as much my number six is Atlantis Rising second edition this is also lower than I this would be in my top 15. it's not in my life oh so it's not on your list come on now you guys are terrible another Vincent do trait uh look at how beautiful that is okay look at look at those spokes look at that giant World wheel massive asterisk that is what it is and it's going to be sinking from the outside in this massive asterisk unless you build the uh machine that you need to escape this place that is sinking because the gods are angry at you very Cooperative lots of interesting work replacement lots of push your luck is really the main mechanical hook here this idea of I can do more by being closer to the coast if that thing doesn't sink right right I need to put the worker out there and then we flip cards and if I'm still there I get I get something great or I can just go closer to the inside of the island and it's a safer bet but I'm getting less that's the main twist works really well you always feel again it's one of those games that really has a lot of degrees of variance when it comes to difficulty a lot of them I think more than most and it always feels tense though even if you have an easy game and at the end you're like oh we did all right most of the island didn't sink you always immediately will feel like oh this is impossible look at look at how quickly this is sinking we're all gonna die we're doomed I love that feeling of this game also to have this level of dice rolling in a Cooperative game where it doesn't feel completely arbitrary is a pretty good thing to pull off too yeah the way they handle dice rolling in this game I think is really smart yeah there's a lot of um rolling for production and it works well so that's it Atlanta's rising's uh Second Edition that's my number six pick [Music] my number six is more than one game because I'm a cheater oh boy here we go was it every pandemic game as much as y'all it's the pandemic legacies oh our Legacy okay that's zero through two I didn't consider these for some reason I don't know why uh you know what I thought about this but I'll tell you what I've played all three of these with my good friend Z Garcia and various others I I must I'm not saying anyone else I'm just saying different people play the other one Zee was like was my constant yes uh throughout all three of them and all three were just really fun experiences the first one we binge like going tomorrow do you remember that one the second one we spread out more in the third one we played at the right length we played a third one or that the season zero worked very well you were in season zero right that was a really good experience one of my best what do we do is we played it twice a week once or twice a week yeah it was like we came we got the airplane twice wait and that was a good time that was a good way to do it it really was um and zero is my favorite of the three but I put this on the list because it's that was a really special time I really like those I'll probably never play any of them again right but it was great if you have a family who's willing to you know we talk I I kind of you know trying to think of a word let's say barf narf I I kind of get down on Campaign games a lot um but this one is worth it for me and I know I've met a lot of people who haven't finished it but it's such a good experience it really is it really really you're looking for the word poo poo poo poo is what I was looking for yes so pandemic Legacies poo poo [Music] my number five is a game that has not only fantastic Cooperative mechanisms and you've talked about you know that you wanted to focus on this list being one where you really need to cooperate this game probably of all of mine is that that's the biggest like more most in the Forefront where everybody needs to bring their unique problem solving and thinking about something differently the crew no no no no no funny yeah okay I'm gonna leave that alone my number five is unsettled um this is the one Tom was talking about that's what I was talking about you're so wrong here man you are so right I haven't prove it wrong by the throngs of people I see playing this everywhere this game looks like a stereo system and I hate it no this game I hate it as much stereo system the idea behind the game is that you are crash landing on a particular planet and the planets are like modular you you basically take all the components from that planet you add them to the few components for the base game and you're playing on that planet and each planet is going to play everybody sure you can you can be reductive that's fine somebody just took down I don't mean I don't mean to be reductive that is what it is though no you're absolutely bad thing is it's not because yeah because you know on the desert Planet you're going to be dealing with a particular issue there you know on this planet you're going to be dealing with some deadly spores but the things that this game does so well is a some of the best writing in a board game I've ever seen and it's not a narrative game but it has this really great funny slightly sarcastic tone of hey you know what you're probably gonna die but do the best you can type of a thing so very very well done riding and I I'm very surprised that you feel like this game doesn't give you agency because I feel like this game more than any other Cooperative game I've ever played does not have one way to win I like a list list like Bunch you said it might be more vagrant song Return To Dark Tower build your tactics here you go those are three I can't say the rest because they're so much you said that has more here's my problem with this one Mike is that it gives you the illusion that you can do all this cool stuff but you don't have time to do it you actually have to go solve the thing you might get to do one or two things right they make sure they may shake some shiny things at you to try to get you to go off on something else but but no this is a game where there there are many ways to potentially solve the problem this planet gives to you and you can replay it right you it's not like once you've played the planet you're done yeah some of the surprise some of the kind of the the exploration won't be there but you still have this problem you have to solve and there are many different ways to do it and I've never played a Cooperative game as much as unsettled where the people are on the table were like oh my gosh let's try this and it's like oh I didn't even think about that that's really cool anyway I think it's a really special game it's friends my number five unsettled no matter what this one over here you're gonna need to try this have you so do you solo it I do not I've sold it once not not the way to go no no it's definitely a multi get two three people or four around the table and and because different ways to look at a problem is what this game shines at it's very stinky right that's the thing yeah yeah it could be it if you have to like Cooperative games where you'll stop and as a team talk about what you might want to do you have there's a lot of that right you've got you know basically two actions on your turn you're going to do you really want to discuss all right do you think it's in our best interest to do this should we split should we go together should we you know timing wise how do we want to handle this should I deal with this issue now should we wait for you those types of discussions if you like that that in a Cooperative game I like that this is very much Atlantis Rising has a lot of that actually sure but it's lighter than this from what I remember I played this a bit and it was just it was dense I think you know what I mean yeah I wonder if trying it again would make it feel less so yeah maybe so I don't know all right my number five is uh coming up on Mike's list really this is Cthulhu death may die this is a game that has grown in both my and Mike's estimation very much you don't know where it's on my list you don't have it on your list that's correct you're a Cthulhu hater I'm proud I always vote against him that's what you're always like I've heard you say that many a Time um this is a little bit like the others which I mentioned in the intro but fully Cooperative in which you have again that plug and play feel you are picking a big bad like Cthulhu like whatever and there's a bunch coming in the expansion and you take a Chapter you Shuffle things from those two parts together pick a character you're gonna be and you're off yep it's a two-parter sort of game chapter one or part one the first half whatever you're trying to what do they call it corrupt the ritual yeah you're trying to disrupt a ritual that basically means do this task to reveal the big bad on the board oh and he shows up and punch him in the face that's what you're trying to do now if you don't do that he will reveal himself eventually anyway but you really that's you're not gonna have a lot of time left to then actually punch him in the mouth so you want to do that and then part two is well just take them out yeah take them out by beating him several times in a row um it's a game that has a really interesting Crescendo yes of emotions of action of ability it's a game that just ramps up the the ramp in this game is it's just scary fast and the last three turns in this game are some of the most interesting turns in any game where you're you're you're basically insane you have a couple of clicks more and then you're fully a babbling buffoon you have all these Powers you've accumulated you are rolling a handful of dice and you're just like walking across the map with two monsters latched onto your ankles and you're dragging them about and you're like hey Cthulhu I hit him for 12. that might not take him out by the way but so yeah it's just big swings it's just big wild swings I really like this guys do all the little cthulhu's die no baby they're good yeah they'll be fine I've seen movies this always happens they vanish yeah they all go on the desk it always happens yeah Cosmic dust you kill the big bad and everything else is kind of like falls asleep right and then right before the credits roll you'll see some little thing that that tells you that they're not one eye glows yeah right right anyway Cthulhu death may die number five my number five I've actually played a lot solo I mean a lot but there's a tonsil but I also really like playing with other people a lot I played this game much more almost more than any other game this year um and uh it's epitome of Plug and Play which is good because most of the time when I get a giant Kickstarter with 200 million things I can't play all of it I've played all of it and that's Marvel United or X-Men United or whatever United um I really love this game and I again I think it's fine solo but I like playing a lot with other people too sure I I think it's a it's great three players and that's as dumb as it is because the initial everyone gets one turn before the bad guy no I don't know why I like that when there's four players one guy has to wait yeah three is really good and you can play solo with three actually that's actually usually what I do that's all I ever do I usually ignore that's stupid solo mode is not great yeah I I used to do two-handed solo now I just do three-handed solo that's the way to go but so much fun and really it is the epitome of how hard do I want the game to be yes I can play against apocalypse if I'm like in the mood to die you know I can play against the Sentinels if I want a hard time but I can also play against Magneto who's a pushover sometimes also the characters you pick and it's just like I'll take this this and this and play against this guy and one thing I like about that is most of the time there are a few villains that you want to have someone with speed or whatever sure sure but most of the time you can just pull out that and play and it works it does you know ah it's so much fun and I'm really happy ours to paint it looks really good no kidding it's fun it's Marvel it's I don't know I just I just really like this one it's done pretty well well and it's fun that's a big one it kind of almost emphasizes fun yes this isn't revolutionary it's not bombastic it's kind of just let's have a good time and I think the artwork and the style fits that it almost puts that foot forward where it's like if we got Marvel characters with big heads and cute chibi faces this is just fun it's just light-hearted and fun come on in you know yeah I think of Mark this is almost more as a game system than a game you know what I mean it's like this is a framework that you could just add you know what I mean and the little tweaks they make all work they all work lots of fun Marvel United foreign a Cooperative game that everyone should learn how to play cooperatively is the old children's game called Don't Wake Daddy okay okay which basically always ends the same way daddy gets woken daddy gets woken up we should be like when we're Sarah gonna play Don't Wake Daddy and then train the kids to tiptoe away from the table and the dogs to shut up and be quiet sorry I'm getting tired of people walking up at five every morning yes buy a puppy dog a puppy going hello puppy breakfast ain't no thing like that essentially does he like do that thing where he breathes him in your face no but you'll put the wet nose up against your arm which is a marvelous way to wake up oh I'm about to become a cat lover I'm just kidding come over to our side my number four is a game that completely unrelated to this list was so it's competitive was bad talked by one Mr Tom vassal he was throwing shade on this game when today just earlier today when we were out there yes well that's probably true but what was I what was I putting shade on because I'm ready to do it again my number four is the loop which is a really really I I didn't say anything negative all I said does this expansion make the game better yeah right exactly that's all I said the game didn't even need to be better it had some nice stuff but but the loop is a game that does have a lot of kind of familiar Cooperative game tropes where you are moving around a centralized board bad things happen and in this case they're primarily through dropping red cubes into that little Cube tower that you see in the middle of the board which is Dr foe's kind of his machine his time machine and so all of these little uh wedges that you see there are different kind of eras that that you're having to travel around right but this is essentially a game where you are playing cards that have particular actions abilities on them trying to defeat Dr Foe and at the same time deal with bad stuff that's getting in your way your main goal are these missions there's always two active around the outside of the board that's how you win complete the these enough of these missions but you can't just focus on the missions that's what Cooperative games do you have to deal with the stuff the the duplicate Dr foes that are all over the board it's all over you got to push them back to their right timeline the the red the red cubes that are causing these these other things to blow up and and and and kind of break down and it has a nice little hook where again it's not the most Innovative game it just is a lot of fun the the hook to it is this idea of when you play your cards you you put them down and you tap them that card is now exhausted however if you spend the green cubes you can unexhaust all the cards of a particular type and you could do those actions again and you can do it again if you now it's two cubes to re you know to do a loop and if you want to do a third time it's three three green cubes so you're trying to set all these things up so that you can do those big epic actions at the right time right so it's one of those games of pacing and timing and trying to put out fires but just on nice Edge that's what I think the best Cooperative games do is make it feel like you just barely have a chance to do it and when you do it feels really good I have I have beaten the loop uh he's escaped the loop I have escaped the loop yeah yeah the the the the the the the balance of the difficulty I feel is is pretty spot on um I really like it I love the look of the game I love the theme it's very irreverent very silly the items that you're using are very silly it does not take itself seriously but it's a rock solid game I really like the loop how do you followed your choice maybe if you want Tom to like this game you need to wait until the upcoming Marvel reprint with Kang there you go okay I'm such a sucker and I'll tell you why this one you can have for free I would be a slam dunk right I mean yeah the theme is yes copies of the same guy and time different time periods is like it says King the Conqueror written all over it it does this would be an easy reskin reworking yeah that's a good point that's a good point so we're gonna get on that okay also I want my cut my money my number four four you guys were mentioning ghost stories well this is not ghost stories last batch but it is last Bastion which is the reworked ghost stories which to be fair I kind of go back and forth on this and ghost stories I lost the theme the wonderful theme right the ghost stories had yeah yeah but I gained a lot of clarity some simplicity the characters are more distinct and interesting their abilities and this game is easier than ghost stories I need to play this then so this one you can win this one you can get there okay even you can win it yes right you could do well here cool even a buffoon like you delicio I like the ideas of darker than I thought you were doing yeah I got really serious there I was merely joking I was joking okay do a loop I really like the the changes they made here to uh ghost stories basically the idea is kind of a not really a tower defense game kinda is kind of but they're not marching in but geometrically it is but it's not really you have a town in the center with people you can visit to help you and you move around these this three by three grid and you can do so or you can move up to the face of Beastie trying to break into your castle and smack them around roll some dice and see how you do things shut down as as new effects come into play this is very much a do a bad thing do a good thing kind of game but it works well and that's always fun anyway you know you always have those moments where you flip a card which adds a new bad guy but there's an effect on that card that says flip another one it's like oh no we just lost some Tempo now I gotta flip two and this one says it also oh no now we're climbing up that hill there's a lot of interesting new abilities on these characters too that were not in Ghost Stories there's more than just the the you know the ones that were in the original so okay yeah this is neat they they really did a good job taking that game modernizing it cleaning it up making it easier and more accessible the theme is not as good it's a little more generic but I'll put up with losing that cool ninjas and monks theme for the sake of a more accessible game so yeah if you haven't played you got to try this I do first Subterra then last Bastion let's do it let's make it happen before my number four is a game that is just a few years old but very very very very popular won many awards and will continue to be popular for decades crash in the pants it's the very opposite of a flash never heard of it and that is the crew which one you know I forgot to tell Roy but he put the right one on her and deep sea why Mission deep sea Tom because it just it just expands this is such a stronger theme do you know I never tell you that Cosmos came out to us talk about the theme for a third one and I was like I don't really care it doesn't matter they're like what do you think about they asked me a couple themes I was like don't care don't care don't care um I'm in Marvel crew I would play that but the crew is a Cooperative trick taking game and as someone who loves trick taking games one of my favorite experiences in the world is playing this with three other people who also all like trick taking and we all are kind of like we play a card and everyone goes we got this just by playing one card everyone knows what's gonna happen or by playing one card we're like oh well that's the end of that round yeah that's one of my issues with the game actually is that I think to really shine and as much grief as I give it I think it's a very very good design I have a lot of appreciation for the crew um is that if you have people that are not familiar with trick taking with people who are very familiar with trick taking it can lead to some kind of I agree yeah I agree on that um yeah it's not the the different levels of um experience I guess I don't know among in the same group of skill I suppose in the same group does not work well with this yeah whereas I could teach you know I played Atlantis Rising a bunch I could teach it to somebody new right now and it's going to work out in this you have somebody who's brand new plus the wrong card everybody else is like yo big dummy right you know what I mean when you're probably someone new and someone plays a pick five and you're like wait a minute so you don't have those cards in your hand that later on they play eight and you're like are you a more yeah they're not but I don't care they are despite all that it's still fun oh yeah and I you know what I have players of new people and you just got to go in and you're teaching trick taking and Cooperative thing at the same time and that's not a terrible way to learn it experienced players um but man man when I played it so people who like trick taking but have never played this and watching them just go Marvel The Wrecking Crew oh I like that that would work okay okay yeah is everything theme Marvel no we're going all in on Marvel okay when when the crew is at its best it does what the Mind tries to do I agree you know what I mean that that's when the crews at its best when you have four people that really know trick taking especially if they've played game trick taking games with each other before it does that thing where you lock eyes and you're like sometimes I'll sit there and go how am I going to get Z to win a trick right with a yellow one mm-hmm oh we can do this and I like that a lot yeah no that is great that is great so [Music] all right try this one okay here we go Cooperative Candyland basically the kids all take one turn draw a card they move in and you're like okay that's enough candy for now because you can't have that much candy no you can't and then we move and we play vegetable land which is competitive I'm guessing well if it's a combat game fight for the brokers in the Meat Land that's the next one terrible name actually Meat Land okay don't play meat land carnivore land carnivore land that's a new horror game for kids it's like an amusement park but it's like uh well we've really got off topic here yeah all right that's a bad one Pinocchio's like ties you to like that Spinning Wheel he just starts telling lies I do and that thing gets closer and closer you know he's like I love you you know he starts saying things I was like ah as dumb as you think that is in the newest Disney Live Action Pinocchio spoiler he killed a bunch of people no no he's locked in a cage and so they get him out because the keys are across the room so the cricket gets him to tell lies so his nose goes over and picks up the Ring of keys and I was like that's so well Pinocchio's nose growing is a really stupid thing they gotta do something with it right yeah you gotta that's actually that's clever what else would you do the tortures that you just describe torture thing is good but it's first it's a different film but that if that doesn't exist though you can have that one first why would it be three send me my money right just have 3D just that Pinocchio staring at the screen yeah you didn't just get ripped off all right my number three look the the live chat here sure seems to be saying that there's a lot of uh Marvel fatigue right the people are over Marvel I put one Marvel game on my list my number three is Marvel United yeah and high five you but then people would say it's too much that's right so look here's the thing this is the Cooperative game when I don't want to have to remember a rule set when I don't want to take 45 minutes to set the game up yeah when I don't want to have to mess with a lot of stuff that gets in the way of the experience right you can set up and play Marvel United in minutes you could teach it to just about anybody it levels the playing field it is just fun that's really what it's about this is a fun game and this is one that also has risen in my estimation quite a bit when I first played it I was like yeah this is cute this is cute but I don't think there's that much there and that was the base game and then all of these ridiculous amounts of boxes going I'm like come on with this Overkill with this bloat and I played it I'm like the Sinister sticks this is this is great oh this the the Spider-Man this is great oh this is great and then the X-Men stuff I like all of it that's the bottom line someone like better than others they did a better job in the X-Men United box I think the Marvel United starter box yeah I agree could have used a slight bit of flare yes one weird bad guy something to show you yeah I'm gonna show you what this system is capable of right I suppose it's never going to be the most deep you know experience right but they do a surprising amount with this basic core framework which is so simple so simple that you know I I just I I I'm impressed by how much they've gotten by taking everything out that doesn't need to be there and it's a lot of simple it's a lot of little simple things but it does add up to a nice mix it's not a game that's like brain dead by any means no it's not just because you know oh the player cards only three symbols okay cool you have only six locations okay cool but they each have a power before you take off the characters card or and after the bad guy behaves differently yeah there's a lot there that you start layering simple thing on top a simple thing and you end up with something that's not basic right it's a very Nimble system I I really it is yeah I've been continually impressed by what they've done with it so my number three is Marvel United I know people may be tired of Marvel and I'm not any at this table I'm probably the the in this room I'm probably the least in this building the least Marvel family in the city in the world I Hate Everything I hate Namor and everything he stands for um this just is a game that I I really enjoy so Marvel universe that is Marvel yeah yeah we just watched it kind of forever I was thinking in Aquaman um okay speaking of Marvel my number three is pandemic Iberia where Marvel was born oh no wait that's uh Stanley on the cover there there he is look at that he's like oh a spider he's looking through the microscope he's like um a spider what if a man was bitten by a spider Los Excelsior [Applause] uh pandemic Iberia is of course another pandemic game I only wanted to put one on the list I figured this is the one I would pick because it's replayable it's repeatable it has a really neat theme a cool setting that makes sense with the word pandemic on the cover still as opposed to some of the newer ones and it's a train game it's a train game-esque yeah um I like the look of it a lot this was the first one that they had as a spin-off which was sort of I guess a specialized pandemic they were like oh we're gonna do these like quirky one-offs you know yeah historical themed right yeah we're going because they they were used to have this um I guess pandemic tournaments around the world the yearly pandemic tournament and so wherever it was happening they would do a pandemic set there that's right yeah they did the same thing with the rising tide 2020 they just released pandemic this is re-released it pandemic it just got real that's what it said and then Marvel pandemic that's got to be coming at some point sure of course all right Tom you know what that's actually a very strong possibility they just did who would it be Doctor Doom now Kang I think the king no we can't use Kane for the loop no I think this is actually going to happen really you think there'll be a Marvel I can see that they just did Star Wars and they did um World of Warcraft they did both yeah they did Cthulhu too so it's Marvel pandemic coming out you heard it here first folks confirmed the Marvel pants it's just multiple men going everywhere you're like stop oh that'd be good he's spreading everywhere and he's out of control I Like It Anyway Marvel uh Marvel pandemic Iberia is a fantastic Standalone pandemic game there's a couple of little variants right in the box so you got some some legs there you can have some replayability it just looks good feels good it's got a good theme nice long term and short-term tactics and strategy in there great set definitely if you want just one I recommend Iberia some nice variants you can put in there too right yeah yeah all right my number three I want a couple things I played this game a lot solo but I've also I enjoy it most with other people also I'm ranking this list and how much I enjoy playing these games with other people otherwise this could some people can wonder why it's not number one okay my number three is gloomhaven okay yeah or I was wondering sure um so glue Maven or Frost Haven or gloomhaven Jaws Little Lion I really like this a lot even if I'm playing it on Steam it's more fun to play with other people I played a lot of gloomhaven and frost Haven these days well I haven't heard of it because there's uh because there's an embargo that you're not supposed to say if I like frosting I think you're allowed to say the word though Tom yeah it's a weird embargo I'm not allowed to say that I like have you played Frost Haven a lot um and I played do you like frost Haven don't trick me I'm secretly Kang what's in that fifth box from the top um but these games I like playing them solo and it's interesting and fun but I found I enjoy it more because usually when there's a game that you control multiple characters people tell me I hate controlling more than one I'm like I like it I like it I can't do it in this one I like to try multiple characters but in blue Maven it's fun to concentrate on one yes it is it really is because when you have that one character there's so much these characters are so different and diverse Haven are even more unique and interesting and so concerning that and then seeing you do your thing and it's fun because you're working together as a team mostly except for you're not allowed to tell each other what numbers which is a dumb Rule and um you also have these are you doing again it's been so long since I've played gloomhaven here but is it the whole like I'm gonna go soon I'm gonna go early I'm gonna go kind of early is that is that yeah you just can't say what the numbers your initiative numbers are okay although if you're playing with me I don't care if you tell me what number you're playing because it's still hard I don't care the game's already hard it's hard enough even if you know exactly when people people are going it is a lot of fun to play with other people which is why it's number three on my list [Music] that Cooperative Super Chat everybody in the chat gets together and all contr I'm sorry thank you that's literally what I was gonna be like Cooperative super jets wow you guys are like the same person or something it's usually you and I that are not to know oh my Cooperative boxing you're just basically massaging the other guy's face oh check please I thought you were like putting something in a box that would make more sense actually Cooperative Jenga how do you do that Cooperative Jenga certain height yeah and then you look it up in the back of the rule book and it gives you a tower based on how high it is you get a 16 levels oh that's power orific well there's a game kind of like that which is not on my list but somebody mentioned it Monaro yeah that's true not on my list okay calm down I thought it would be on your list it's not weird I hate it now we had a live play of it here on the channel okay it's very good it would be my 12th what's your two good question Tom I'm glad you asked my number two Marvel no it's the it's actually the polar opposite of the of the Continuum right so I said Marvel United is the co-op game I get out when I don't want to have to worry about a big heavy rule set a lot of setup and all that my number two is by far the most complex of the games on my list but it is another one where if you put in the effort if you put in the time you can have such an amazing experience my number two is Spirit Island it is a game where every player and this is I I've played this solo but I do prefer it with other players preferably two to three players okay um where it's asymmetric in that every player has the is playing as a spirit and the idea is that there are some Invaders that are coming onto your Island some some colonizers and you are spirits that are working with the indigenous peoples trying to scare them out get them out of here get them off the iron right and so this has some very very clever are similar in some ways to pandemic in that it's all about the cards and the timing because cards will have slow powers and fast Powers five times more complex oh it's very complex and some Spirits are more complex pandemic uh yeah oh it is some Spirits are more complex than others but the the way that you work together as a team to use the strengths of your individual spirits to do this Collective puzzle is so good um and it also does alleviate a lot of what they call the alpha gamer prop problem in in Cooperative gaming where you might have one person at the table that is telling everybody how to take their turn it's very hard to do that in this game because I call that playing with Z well there you go um you're the most awful game right now uh spirit Island uh you know does make that very very difficult to do because you are so focused on what your spirit can do that you don't really have the mental energy I don't think most people to be worrying about what the other Spirits are doing on their turn you may collaborate you want to talk you want to say hey you've got some good power you know Invaders forward I'd really you know or to push them towards the coast if you do that I can use my water powers to just wipe them out that type of thing um a game that that again it's not short it's it could be a very long game it has a high degree of difficulty to get in there's a learning curve very much but it is so satisfying when you have players that are into it you have these really really epic epic feeling games so Spirit island is a very very good game very special game but there's a lot of caveats right you just have to know what you're getting into thank you for taking one for the team here because if we didn't put Spirit Island on our list then there will be so many people yelling in the comments as it is we're only going to get half the comments we're gonna go oh why did Tom and Z hate Spirit Island I don't hate it I like it just to make my top ten yeah it would probably be Camillus Camilla would be an area she's I'm surprised when you mentioned it she didn't die she's concerned sorry oh she didn't see that probably Spirit Island wakanda forever actually would work actually right or what kind of has that protective shield on it and people are trying to break in there it could be those weird dog things yeah just saying think about this okay every game is a Marvel game and to prove my point here we go my number two is Marvel Champions oh my goodness Marvel Champions uh boys number seven this game is shot with a bullet for you man shot with a bullet there you go yeah and then all of a sudden yeah well that was a terrible experience because I had a great time well it was it was a bad way to learn the game because hey I was being taught the game for the first time with four players in a busy party-esque atmosphere in this place we would be learning there were so many snaps lots of snacks lots of distractions it was a very bad way to learn the game yeah and I learned it and thought it just kind of feels like uh the Lord of the Rings won a little bit or the Arkham or a little bit yeah it's just a Twist on that all right cool the gosh it's so long there's so much upkeep I play a couple of cards and then I spend the next 15 minutes while everybody is attacked then everybody is dealt a card then we resolve that card yeah that sucks if you don't know the game so I avoid playing with four and I avoid playing with three really I mean um and obviously I know the game better now so you know there's a lot more but yeah you're right absolutely right it's really shot up for me yeah this is when I play solo a lot but I like it with two just as much as I like it with one okay I think it's a fun engaging game what it does it does really cleanly for the most part and by that I don't mean it's Marvel United by any means no no but it's it has broken away from ER come horror crunchiness in many ways where this is way more accessible and Lord of the Rings and The Lord of the Rings yeah the Lord of the Rings uh is had a lot of steps and things going on so this one's a lot more straightforward I'm glad that they've been able to shave a lot of things down and make them more palatable to a lot of people which is good because Marvel is gonna want to appeal you know sure it's going to want to do that to appeal to a lot of people this is not a bad time to get into this game either because if you buy it you're like oh what hero can I get there's a lot of them out there a lot of villains you get to mix and match and buy which ones you want you don't have to own everything yeah and this is also very good about that about saying get the core box you're gonna you're gonna want that but then after that you do not need to do the Arkham Horror thing where you go okay well I want I want to play this cycle pick up part one then packs two through six right right and that's the story yeah there's none of that pick this up and then after that if you like Captain America just by Captain America just buy that pack oh I like X-Men stuff great buy core box get the X-Men pack you're skipping 30 products and that's fine there's I really like that two core boxes is that right two standalones no there's one core box the Sinister one is not a core box no no there's one core box and there's like little story ones got it okay that have like five bad guys in there and a couple of good guys and there's like five of those okay and then just the little packs you know got it too much marble now because we put three out of 30 games never stops on my Marvel but I well now because now I'm going into one of my favorite genres I'm gonna add marble to this you just watch go ahead well you can that's fine but I won't go Maven is actually not my favorite dungeon Crow or any longer oh gosh I know what this is my number two is massive Darkness second edition what a great game really uh it's better than the first time when it was called Merchant's Cove it's wrapped it's not hooked is a typical Dungeon Crawler in many ways but the thing about it that's very there's two things about it I like a lot one is the Plug and Play nature that I mentioned in Marvel United pick any Heroes you want pick any villains you want boom they're in the game but each character plays so differently you're playing your own little mini games with each character if you're playing the the ranger you have a little Pusher luck deck if you're playing the the Rogue you're pulling tokens out of a bag if you're playing the mech dwarf guy you put on a battle suit like like characters like some sort of uh Hulkbuster maybe but called it this is the new theme now it's also even though they did have one expansion that can add this to the game but the base game is not campaign that's a big one for me I actively avoided this game I was not interested in it because I didn't think massive Darkness was that great of a game right I thought it was fine but now the more you've talked about it and everything you're saying I really do want to play this now because I like the idea of playing your own mini game within a Dungeon Crawl they should have called it a different name they really should have buying it because they didn't like massive Darkness that's why I had it really is it was a bad move I had no interest until you're I'm like really it's like a different game everyone who's played both has said so okay I really need to play this thing but yeah again you have your own it's you're still going in Rolling tons of dice and fighting monsters and things like that but that little thing that you get to do the the Mage is moving cards around something and you'd like that because that's your thing like Merchants Club you mentioned this game slightly better we'll see uh Matt gave us a super chances I want to wish Mike a marvelous Mike's day oh it's Mike's day already my goodness seems like was just yesterday yeah and tomorrow quick thank you Matt [Music] I do want to try that hey I don't have a number I don't have another game that could be makeup I ran out of ideas okay all right um my number one is a crossover and we talk about games that have shot with a bullet and and my number one is Cthulhu death may die and quite honestly at this point it's not even close I really really like a lot of Simon loving this list well they they too they do tend to make Cooperative games right I mean that's a lot of their bread and butter or cooperative games and and to be honest this game it's not about the minis at all that why I like this game it's that it's that modularity that we were talking about it's the Simplicity again of the design I I'm just getting to the point where it's like I appreciate so much when I feel like a design is streamlined that everything is there for a purpose I can't think of anything in this game where I'm like they didn't need to do that it's really really streamlined it very much is and um and it's easy to teach and it's easy to play and this the difficulty is just right and like you said it has this very very dramatic Arc where you know even if win or lose you're going to have some sense of excitement in the game even if you are pretty likely to lose you've always got a glimmer of hope you know what I mean tough that's the only thing yeah it's very tough it is tough the new the new stuff that they're releasing in this this third wave second whatever the new Kickstarter they just had has some things in it to make it easier yes and that'll be neat I'm looking forward to that because this game is not a pushover it's not and we played with some of those the yeah during our live play those ones relics I think this is Plug and Play two and that yeah pick an old one right Cthulhu Master black go to the woods does a grandfather okay pick an old one pick an episode right that one from the Happy Days or whatever he's like hey exactly the one where they jump the shark and it's not a whole lot of cards either you're not getting 75 cards you're dealing with you Shuffle up some cards you lay out the map as it shows you on the back of one card and you pick a character and go that's it I mean yeah every character in this game has a a turn break down on the side yes and you know what it's pretty useful it's almost all you need it's almost all you need right right there's a couple of little things like yeah oh when you move bring dudes with you I think it might not say that I say that but it's really good and so that's that right there is proof in the pudding where they just give you a few lines of text and you're like this is most of the game right you're not flipping through the rule book in this yeah no you're really you're really not maybe your first game but uh yeah no I I really am impressed with this design and uh yeah I want to play more but if they had not made I'm thrilled they made one an expansion yeah if they had not made one I would have been perfectly happy because there's so much gameplay in there all that game is missing Marvel it needs Marvel that's it quantumania deathmate died that's what I'm waiting on my number one is also a crossover is it Marvel Marvel United is it really yeah that was my number one game it comes to Cooperative games of all time okay pandemic get out my house Marvel remember this that Magneto that's pandemic that's right he'd go whooped at that uh Mike delicio I'll be playing uh your Beast no I'm Cyclones you're the Beast dude I'm good with that yeah but he's like get out of my house how much hair that Beast has uh it's true who's the most powerful those characters Jean Gray that's correct the long shot so I'll take it yeah yeah that's right also the illustrious air I know look at that foreign anywho I did not see that coming this High that's that's impressive yeah again it's I just find myself thinking what can I get to the table quickly and have fun with quickly it's that heavy lifting I was talking about which is why games that are think you're heavier just more you know Annoying or difficult to get to the table whether they'd be fantastic or not right stay on the shelf you know Arkham Horror yeah it gets played but not nearly as frequently as something like Marvel United that I can literally grab the box and be like uh Wolverine Captain America and so and so versus uh that bam you're done done I'm playing right I'm playing in 10 minutes I'm done I mean I was quick yeah this has killed I think for me almost completely let Marvel legendary oh yeah now again there's only people like so much Marvel love in the comments but we talked about two Marvel games Howie did one I like Marvel Legends I like Marvel games this is the only this one is Marvel legendary is fun but it takes forever to set up and put those decks together and it's probably I should say probably it's a deeper game for sure yeah it is but Marvel United the speed and the fun I have and again I get that people are feeling very burnt out on Marvel stuff I totally understand that um if you're not though these are fun they're well made they're not cash crabs that's the main thing I do like someone in the chat said I'm I'm more into Carvel right now I thought that was pretty funny oh I'm in the Carvel too Carvel United that's all about that it's called Carvel's down here that used to be oh really would that be a Cooperative game though no no I will stab your every person for myself soon budgie the whale get within 10 feet see what happens yeah all right my number one is not a crossover with anybody but it has been one of my favorite games for a long time cooperatively just played it actually a couple weeks ago we whooped it so hard we have to play it on a harder level next time also from Seamon okay but it's about aliens and not about Marvel this is Project Elite another one I still haven't played that's by the way Simon Simon Simon right what was your number one death may die yeah I'll tell you Simon for me has that formula they it's they do there's a lot of stuff but it's also pretty easy to print you know we we sometimes laugh at Robinson Crusoe and I say every time I play the game I have to relearn the rules yes but you know joking aside I really don't like having to remember all the rules it's fun to pull out a game and be like I know how to play this except here's a new something so like in Project Lily a new alien boss and how does that one work that's different but the rules are still the same right and man this game is so much fun just hordes of aliens running at you and you are just blowing them away and every time I like we I just played a couple weeks ago and the aliens came out everyone was like how are we going to beat them all after a while they're like we got this rolling Dice and it's it's so entertaining it's just another one I need to play everywhere um and it's real time update or move them up or whatever the killing them is actually during the speed time yeah yeah because you're like rolling and you're like that dude's dead but you're like you physically are just like get him out of there get this guy out of there so much tunnel vision when I'm playing I'm looking at my guy and then it's like over and look I'm like oh good job you guys cleared out that whole section in the board yeah yeah there's no Alpha gaming here at all because you just don't have time yep oh if you try the alpha game for this game I will not play with I can't imagine someone's screaming at me the whole time I'm playing this um yeah all right so that's my number one project Elite let's jump to the people people people's choice before we look at it before we do yeah I want to mention a couple things I have a feeling a couple of games that are in my 11 to 15 will be on here or somewhere in that range I think sleeping Gods will be up here sleeping Gods horrified horrified those are both games I hold in very high is it gonna be a little surprised by this let's take a look okay they're not Cooperative they're not Marvel huh number 10 is just one that's a very interesting choice that's a good one that's a very good choice Forbidden Desert is a great choice yes very good again I want to look point out a lot of people like these simpler co-op games yeah just one for me I like it a ton it's just hard for my mind when you say favorite Co-op game I just can't say just one because it's a party game it's I don't know how to explain that I know but that and I don't care if I win or lose that to me is the reason why I wouldn't put it on this list is that the best Cooperative games really have this oh are we gonna make it just once like oh you know that's true that's that's yeah then we have arkamar the card game yeah Robinson Crusoe still going strong and then horrified which is like almost a modern day pandemic in many ways yeah it really is just barely missed my list all right what do we got next we have the crew okay Flash in a pan pandemic Legacy glue Maven Spirit Island and very strong winter pandemic still um that's interesting both Crews actually made the list but I combined them Spirit island is the one that kind of blows my mind it just continues to climb it's been a slow burn but now I hear it mentioned everywhere also I think the conventions oftentimes that conventions will be you know there and somebody has asked at our booth who comes up to us and somebody else will be talking to him and go so what's your favorite game I can't tell you how many times Spirit island is mentioned whether they mention just one game or a couple it's everywhere it's awesome it's not like a new game either yeah I feel like it came out it was like it was liked yeah yeah but it wasn't adored and it's continued to claim territory yeah yeah it's it has grown with estimation yeah yeah now there are so many co-op games in the comments someone's gonna go this list is invalid because of you didn't put this game on the list well Marvel too much Marvel not enough DC yeah there was no DC games in the short list but there are so many games like I said dropping ghost stories that shocked me when I was like wow I've really there's just so many there's a lot um to the point where I'm actually getting a little burned out new Cooperative games they need to be really special if it's like here's a game first you do a bad thing then you do a good thing I'm already kind of backing away because I've seen that a lot yeah yeah it usually needs to have something to a little hook yeah be original paleo is a good one of that that's modern but it really does something different right you're right I feel that way about uh deck building games myself yes it's like oh there's 10 cards you Shuffle and you draw five three of one kind six of four you know seven or another whatever I'm already I'm very skeptic you know but yes anything else we got here in the comments I haven't seen burgle brothers that's a that's a good choice I like burgle Brothers shipwreck Arcana is a very unique very interesting yes oh there's a ton I I this is not an exaggeration we could do a top 100 co-ops yeah for sure I agree yeah um I don't know 100. just watch my top 100 games of all time there you go that's coming up there that is coming up this is the last thing you'll be seeing live from this week probably folks um so next week on Monday the one is spectacular four days eight hours of each day of top ten list playing we're playing heat we're playing the Shivers we're playing several games uh we put the schedule up on both Facebook and on YouTube so you can check that out and see what's coming your way indeed thank you everybody who voted People's Choice thank you Roy for running the stream thank you uh for watching say goodbye to this table until next time I'm Tom vassell I'm Z Garcia I'm Mike delicio have fun cooperating foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: The Dice Tower

Views: 193,042

Keywords: board game, board, game, dice, card game, cards, catan, monopoly, tower, dice tower, vasel, review, tom vasel, vassel, settlers, gaming, GeekUsername: TomVasel, board game review, boardgame, uno, ticket to ride, apples to apples, educational games, educational, top 10, juegosdemesa, Brettspiele, ボードゲーム, brädspel, jeuxdesociété, משחקילוח, 보드게임, deskováhra, graplanszowa, bordspel, 棋盘游戏, gioco da tavolo, desková hra, gra planszowa, настольная игра, trò chơi trên bàn cờ, jogo de tabuleiro, لعبة اللوحة

Id: _6w7CoX3BaM

Length: 97min 6sec (5826 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 08 2022