Hello friends! I know we fell off of the face of the earth for a week there. Apologies! With Sarah and Marti going to PAX Unplugged, it ended up being a really busy week. Expect a PAX Unplugged wrap-up on Friday, by the way!

It’s Thanksgiving in the United States and, because of that, we decided to go with something a little more friendly for this month’s A Seat at the Table post – so, here you go, our favorite cooperative games.

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Marti: My favorite Co-Op game is Forbidden Island, published by Gamewright and designed by Matt Leacock. In this fun little co-operative games, you have come to a magical island, looking for untold treasures of the past. The problem is – the island is sinking! You need to collect all 4 of the treasures and lift off from the island before it goes completely underwater. Collect cards and turn them in at the right locations to obtain the treasures, “shore up” different locations so that they don’t sink to the depths of the sea, and run all over the island to make sure that everything works out. Get to Fool’s Landing with a “Helicopter Lift” card and fly off with the treasure to win. There are varying levels of difficulty to the game, I like that it is a bit lighter than Pandemic (so it’s a good introductory game to the co-op world), and I like the theming as well. Being a treasure hunter is always fun, especially when you get out with the treasures untold!

Scott: It was actually really hard for me to pick a favorite co-op game, as that’s my favorite genre of tabletop games. There are so many really good games that allow you to play with your friends instead of against them. In the end, I decided to go with Legendary, which also happens to be my favorite game of all time. Teaming up with your friends to play awesome superhero cards to defeat the mastermind and stop their evil scheme, what’s cooler than that? Being able to talk with your teammates to decide whether you should buy a card or save it for someone else’s deck, if it would fit their mechanics better, or whether you can take a swing at the mastermind or a villain threatening the city helps you develop strategy for each game, and change it on the fly it needed. When your carefully crafted decks pull off major combos (as my sister is able to do quite frequently) that let you take big swings, it really feels good to be able to rejoice with others. It’s also nice to be able to share the hits you take to help minimize the impact and effect of the mastermind trying to foil your plans.

Sarah: There are several games that I greatly enjoy in the cooperative genre, but my favorite is One Deck Dungeon, published by Asmadi Games and designed by Chris Cieslik. You can either play it solo or you can play it cooperatively with two people. In the two-player mode, you work together to survive your foes in the dungeon. You pick between Paladin, Warrior, Rogue, Archer, and Mage characters to descend into the dungeon. You also choose what boss creature to fight at the end of the dungeon. Then you start entering rooms in the dungeon by flipping encounter cards and defeating either combat or peril encounters by using dice. The dice actually represent the different sorts of stats that each character has, making it feel like a dungeon crawl. You proceed through the deck three times; if you can do that successfully, then you move on and fight the dungeon boss. The boss is much more difficult than the rest of the monsters previously fought. I really love that they made their heroes all female as well as diverse race wise. The game is quick, fun, and it accomplishes its goal of being an interesting dungeon crawl within one deck of cards.

We at Open Seat Gaming hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Game On!
Marti, Scott, and Sarah