Tag: Co-operative Games (Co-op, Coop)

Victorious losses – games without loss or victory condition (Topic Discussion)

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In digital games, the idea of a high score table dates back to the 1970s and 80s. Yes, you would eventually run out of lives or credits and therefore lose a console game, but beating your own or someone else's highest point score was much more important. Finishing a game and beating the last boss monster was not really a thing. Many digital games didn't even have an ending as such. They just got more and more difficult. So the question is, if something similar is also possible for analogue games.

5 Great Christmas Games (Saturday Review)

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Yes, it is that time of year again when I release a list of games that I think are ideal for you to play over the holidays. My list of Christmas games is not ordered in any particular way. Instead, I am trying to offer five different types of games that will hopefully provide you with one or two choices that suit your taste in games and are a great fit for the festive period.

How Realtime Games Deliver Excitement (Topic Discussion)

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Hey there. It's Joe Slack from the Board Game Design Course. Oliver was kind enough to let me return and write another guest post on his blog, this time about realtime games and the experience that they deliver. I hope you enjoy the article!

Alien: Fate of the Nostromo (Saturday Review)

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The Nostromo was returning to Earth with a seven-member crew in stasis. Detecting a transmission from a nearby moon, the ship's computer awakens the crew and they land on the moon. While one part of the crew tracks down the source of the signal, the rest decipher part of the transmission and discover it's a warning - but it's too late! Despite protestations, the returning crew brings with them an Alien: Fate of the Nostromo by Scott Rogers from Ravensburger.

Tricky tricks – trick-taking and other games (Topic Discussion)

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Growing up in Germany, I started playing traditional trick-taking games like Skat or Doppelkopf from a relatively young age. I'm used to the idea of suits, trump, following suit, taking tricks, gleaning information from what cards others play and much more. Traditional trick-taking games sort of have their own language. So I love to see modern games developing this mechanism further and incorporating it into other mechanisms, creating completely new game experiences.

Two players – how games change in 2-player modes (Topic Discussion)

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I often play games with my wife. We have a fair few two-player-only games, but mostly we play games that were designed for two people or more. Some games do it really well and the experience is no different to higher player counts. Other games introduce two-player-specific setup or other rules and that can work too. In this article, I want to look at how games, that weren't specifically designed for two people, change, or don't change, when played with two people.

A game about stuffing balloons as a team, without talking. But it’s a card game – there are no actual balloons (Saturday Review)

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I thought long and hard about how to start this review. Usually, the introductory paragraph of my reviews is like a short story, setting the scene of the game and the experience you're likely to get. I finish by linking back to the title of the game, making it part of the short story. Yet, for this game, its name is a little short story in itself. So I might as well just go straight to the title. Here goes... In this review, I look at A game about stuffing balloons as a team, without talking. But it's a card game - there are no actual balloons by Bez Shahriari from Stuff by Bez.

Face-off – interactions in two-player games (Topic Discussion)

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I love playing board or card games with my wife. Spending a little, or a lot of time together focused on the same activity is a wonderful way to connect. It started as a date night, but now we might play a quick 5-10 minute game or two over lunch or we play a longer game. Co-operative games tend to be our favourite. Working together to solve the puzzle that the game presents is a lot of fun. That's why we also love solving the Sunday crossword puzzle together. There are very few two-player competitive games that we enjoy and in this article, I want to explain why.

Adventure Games: The Dungeon (Saturday Review)

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Waking up from an uneasy sleep, you look around. You aren't quite sure where you are or how you got here. There is moonlight streaming through the small, barred window. It looks like you're in some sort of cell, but you're not chained up or otherwise restrained unlike the skeleton opposite you. There is only one thing for it. You have to find a way to escape Adventure Games: The Dungeon by Phil Walker-Harding and Matthew Dunstan from Kosmos.

Nemesis (Saturday Review)

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Waking up from years of hibernation, all of us were a bit dazed and confused. Temporary amnesia was very common and while we all knew our names, we only had some basic memories of what had happened before or what we were meant to do. We weren't even sure which ship we were on, let alone its layout. When we saw that one of our colleagues was dead and had a gaping hole in their chest, we knew something was seriously wrong. Nobody was sure what caused our colleague's death. We knew we had to work together to get out of this nightmare, but the trust in each other had evaporated. So we set about exploring the ship and finding our Nemesis by Adam Kwapiński from Awaken Realms.