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Cooperative Games
Our family loves cooperative games. For years it was because those were the only ones my daughter would play, but eventually, it became because we enjoyed the fun of working together. As a result, we’ve collected quite a few games to play together, and they make for a fun bit of gameschooling. After years of talking about them, I thought it would be helpful to put all of my cooperative games together into one post. So, you’ll find all of the games I’ve written about, as well as some I haven’t written about, but have played.

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Completely cooperative games
Some cooperative games only have one mode, which is everyone works together to beat the game. These are probably my favorite versions.
Oh, and I should probably add I may be incorrect on a few of these because we only play them as cooperative, so it might have a competitive option that I missed.
- Cthulhu Death May Die– for much of last year we played this game at least once a week, it grew less once Batman went off to the army because it’s his game, but he also left it behind with us for us to play it (buy the game)
- Captain is Dead– in the review I talked about the sequels, they are not expansions because each one is a stand-alone game, we only really like the original (buy the game), the others have very different gameplay. I like how this has so many possible roles to play
- Forbidden Island– this is probably our least favorite that we own because you really have to do your “role” or the entire party will lose the game, but we have so many friends who love this. (buy the game)
- Shadows of Brimstone– my post on this is more about how we organize, but I’ve got some videos linked in there that explain it more. This has probably the most replayability because each adventure is completely different, we have so many expansions and extra things for this game (buy the original core sets)
- Oregon Trail– Oh my goodness! I forgot about this game, I need to pull it out and play it again (buy the game)
- Escape Room games– Go to the post, there are a lot of escape room-style board games, but the one I highlight the most is our favorite because it’s solely analog, no phone apps are needed
- Forbidden Desert-much like Forbidden Island, you must play your role (buy the game, huh, there is now a Forbidden Jungle game), we also bought this one first because it can play 5 players, unlike Forbidden Island which is only 4
- Kings of Israel (sadly out of print now)- this uses a lot of similar mechanics to Pandemic, so I have a friend who jokes this is Christian Pandemic, but I really enjoy it, I think it might have a cooperative/competitive version, but I don’t remember and we never played it
- Harry Potter Battle for Hogwarts– I keep forgetting I don’t have this written up. This is a deck-building cooperative game. When Jeff and I went on our anniversary trip we brought this with us, and it’s so much fun as just a 2 player game.
- Mice and Mystics– I got this for Jeff this Christmas, and I wanted to get this years ago, but when we tried it one time at a game store, it was a terrible set of circumstances to try it in, but this is a great intro storytelling cooperative game to play with your younger kids.
- Legends of Sleepy Hollow game– I can’t speak to this one yet because we just got it for Batman for Christmas, but he is very excited about it because it also has the possibility of being a solo game, also gorgeous miniatures
- Commissioned– another one I thought I had written about, there are at least four missions in this, but we keep teaching it to new people, so we keep repeating the first mission. You are the disciples and are working together to evangelize the Roman Empire AND write the New Testament. The other missions do other things, but I don’t remember what. It’s a fun game.

Cooperative/Competitive games
Some cooperative games are cooperative but you are also still competing to do better than the other players. Most of the cooperative/competitive games also have a purely cooperative version, which is what we play.
- Mysterium– I went back and forth on whether or not this is cooperative/competitive or solely cooperative, but there is a competitive aspect to this, so those of you who have played it more than me, what would you say? (buy the game)
- Touch of Evil– This is Batman’s favorite game, and you can play it as everyone working together, teams, or everyone trying to get the glory by themselves and beat the bad guy (buy the game)
- Castle Panic– The competitive version you are still working together to protect the castle, but you are trying to kill the most monsters (buy the game)

One versus all games
One version of cooperative games is one player is controlling the bad guys and is trying to beat everyone else. I personally don’t really like this form of cooperative game, but I know some people love them. Some of the one versus all games (frequently shortened to one v all) also have a solely cooperative version.
I think this must be falling out of favor because the games I mostly know of are out of print. So I guess I will only have or two games to suggest here.
- Hero Quest– one person runs the game attempting to defeat everyone else
- Last Night on Earth– I have played this all of one time because I do not like zombie games, however Superman loves this game and has several expansions
- Batman Shadow of the Bat game- I got this for Christmas, Jeff had to hunt down a copy on eBay as it went out of print almost as soon as it was published as the publisher decided to randomly stop making games. It’s a shame because it’s a great game

All right, that’s all of the cooperative games I have or have played. Actually, that’s not completely true. I know we have a few other games I haven’t brought up yet, but they’re not ones we’ve played as much so I don’t remember all of the details.
Comments
3 responses to “Cooperative Games”
This is a cool list. We have three of them – Pandemic, Forbidden Island, and Forbidden Planet. A has a group in college where they play coop games every so often and she is loving it.
We had the game Commissioned but my kids thought it was too complicated! Maybe we need to try some more cooperative games. Mainly we play competitive games lol!
Thanks for this list! I love a well designed cooperative game, but I’m mainly familiar with those for younger kids.
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