Cooperative Games 10 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Mice and Mystics

In Mice & Mystics players take on the roles of those still loyal to the king – but to escape the clutches of Vanestra, they have been turned into mice! Play as cunning field mice who must race through a castle now twenty times larger than before. The castle would be a dangerous place with Vanestra’s minions in control, but now countless other terrors also await heroes who are but the size of figs. Play as nimble Prince Colin and fence your way past your foes, or try Nez Bellows, the burly smith. Confound your foes as the wizened old mouse Maginos, or protect your companions as Tilda, the castle’s former healer. Every player will have a vital role in the quest to warn the king, and it will take careful planning to find Vanestra’s weakness and defeat her.

Mice & Mystics is a cooperative adventure game in which the players work together to save an imperiled kingdom. They will face countless adversaries such as rats, cockroaches, and spiders, and of course the greatest of all horrors: the castle’s housecat, Brodie. Mice & Mystics is a boldly innovative game that thrusts players into an ever-changing, interactive environment, and features a rich storyline that the players help create as they play the game. The Cheese System allows players to hoard the crumbs of precious cheese they find on their journey, and use it to bolster their mice with grandiose new abilities and overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.

Mice & Mystics will provide any group of friends with an unforgettable adventure they will be talking about for years to come. Assuming they can all squeak by…

Across the globe, ancient evil is stirring. Now, you and your trusted circle of colleagues must travel around the world, working against all odds to hold back the approaching horror. Foul monsters, brutal encounters, and obscure mysteries will take you to your limit and beyond. All the while, you and your fellow investigators must unravel the otherworldly mysteries scattered around the globe in order to push back the gathering mayhem that threatens to overwhelm humanity. The end draws near! Do you have the courage to prevent global destruction?

Eldritch Horror is a cooperative game of terror and adventure in which one to eight players take the roles of globetrotting investigators working to solve mysteries, gather clues, and protect the world from an Ancient One – an elder being intent on destroying our world. Each Ancient One comes with its own unique decks of Mystery and Research cards, which draw you deeper into the lore surrounding each loathsome creature.

Discover the true name of Azathoth or battle Cthulhu on the high seas. With twelve unique investigators, two hundred-fifty tokens, and over three hundred cards, Eldritch Horror presents an epic, world-spanning adventure with each and every game.

A perfect balance of cooperative gameplay and back-stabbing goodness.

An artifact of untold power lies in your hands. To claim it, you must escape the caverns alive. No less than nine horrific beasts stand in your way – that, and the greed of the other players.

In this game of kill-stealing, you decide whether to swing for a whopping 50 points of damage – or hold back, awaiting a more opportune time to strike. Only the final blow matters if you are to score the kill. Hold back or sabotage other’s plans too much – and the entire party will die, without a winner.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is an expandable game, with the first set containing nearly 500 cards. The Rise of the Runelords – Base Set supports 1 to 4 players; a 110-card Character Add-On Deck expands the possible number of players to 5 or 6 and adds more character options for any number of players. The game will be expanded with bimonthly 110-card adventure decks.

Launch a campaign to strike back against the evils plaguing Varisia with this Base Set. This complete cooperative strategy card game pits 1 to 4 heroes against the traps, monsters, deadly magic, and despicable foes of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game’s award-winning Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path. In this game players take the part of a fantasy character such as a rogue or wizard, each with varying skills and proficiencies that are represented by the cards in their deck. The classic ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, etc.) are assigned with different sized dice. Players can acquire allies, spells, weapons, and other items. The goal is to find and defeat a villain before a certain number of turns pass, with the villain being represented by its own deck of cards complete with challenges and foes that must be overcome. Characters grow stronger after each game, adding unique gear and awesome magic to their decks, and gaining incredible powers, all of which they’ll need to challenge greater threats in a complete Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Adventure Path.

A STORYTELLING BOARD GAME SET IN THE 1970s COLD WAR ERA.

SMERSH is a portmanteau of two Russian words that translates to “Death to Spies.” It operated as a counter-intelligence agency by the Red Army during the 1940s. Despite having had a large number of paid employees, little was known about the agency until recently when Russia opened their archives.

Agents of SMERSH is a cooperative Storytelling game that pits players as UN Secret Service Spies set in an alternate 1970s timeline against a newly formed and independent SMERSH. The game will be able to accommodate play with either The Encounter Book that contains over 1500 written encounters with a similar reaction matrix to Tales of the Arabian Nights – or played more simply with only encounter cards with shorter encounters and no matrix. Agents of SMERSH includes custom dice to determine success or failure of encounters, and more strategic play from what is typically expected of a Storytelling board game. There are plenty of James Bond gadgets, guns, cars, pop references and detailed artwork – not to mention a touch of humor. The game features the artwork of George Patsouras (The Resistance & Flash Point).

Early in the history of the United States, slavery was an institution that seemed unmovable but with efforts of men and women across the country, it was toppled. In Freedom: The Underground Railroad, players are working to build up the strength of the Abolitionist movement through the use of notable figures and pivotal events. By raising support for the cause and moving slaves to freedom in Canada, the minds of Americans can be changed and the institution of slavery can be brought down.

Freedom is a card-driven, cooperative game for one to four players in which the group is working for the abolitionist movement to help bring an end to slavery in the United States. The players use a combination of cards, which feature figures and events spanning from Early Independence until the Civil War, along with action tokens and the benefits of their role to impact the game.

Players need to strike the right balance between freeing slaves from plantations in the south and raising funds which are desperately needed to allow the group to continue their abolitionist activities as well as strengthen the cause.

The goal is not easy and in addition to people and events that can have a negative impact on the group’s progress, there are also slave catchers roaming the board, reacting to the movements of the slaves on the board and hoping to catch the runaway slaves and send them back to the plantations.

Through careful planning and working together, the group might see an end to slavery in their time.

Darkest Night, by designer Jeremy Lennert, is a fully-cooperative board game for one to four players (up to six with variants), set in a kingdom broken under a necromancer’s shadow. Each player takes on the role of one of the kingdom’s last heroes (nine playable characters), each with a unique set of special abilities, just as they hatch a plan to save the realm.

Searching the kingdom provides new powers and equipment to strengthen you and your party, as well as the keys that can unlock the holy relics and defeat the necromancer. You can acquire many powerful abilities—unique to each hero—that can help to fight the undead, elude the necromancer’s forces, accelerate your searches for items and artifacts, and more. The knight is a brave and powerful warrior; the prince can rally and inspire the people; the scholar excels at locating and restoring the treasures of the past.

But ravenous undead roam the realm, and as the necromancer continues to build his power base, he blights the land and his army steadily grows. As the game wears on, the necromancer becomes more and more powerful, creating blights more quickly and effectively. If an area becomes too blighted, it gets overrun—and the monastery receives the spillover. And if the monastery is ever overrun, the necromancer wins and the kingdom is swallowed in darkness!

Before the monastery falls, it’s up to you and your party to defeat the necromancer in one of two ways: If you can gather three holy relics and bring them all back to the monastery, you can perform a powerful ritual to break the necromancer’s power and scour the land of the undead. Alternatively, you can try to defeat the necromancer in direct combat—but be warned, he will readily sacrifice his minions to save himself.

Can you save the kingdom from darkness? Do you have the courage, the cunning and the will to withstand the necromancer and his forces? Strategize, plan and bring out the best of your abilities to end our Darkest Night!

Legends of Andor is a cooperative adventure board game for two to four players in which a band of heroes must work together to defend a fantasy realm from invading hordes. To secure Andor’s borders, the heroes will embark on dangerous quests over the course of five unique scenarios (as well as a final scenario created by the players themselves). But as the clever game system keeps monsters on the march toward the castle, the players must balance their priorities carefully. Will their heroes roam the land completing quests in the name of glory, or devote themselves to the defense of the realm? Uncover epic tales of glory as you live the Legends of Andor!

You are a team of adventurers – trapped in a cursed temple. Together you must activate the magic gems in the temple chambers in order to banish the curse.

Look out for one another. Some tasks can be accomplished only as a team – and you have only 10 minutes before the temple collapses!

Escape is a cooperative real-time game, that is not played in rounds. Instead, each player rolls as quickly and as often as he can with his five dice.

The dice determine your fate:

Discover the different temple chambers by rolling the correct dice combinations. Take care, though, because if you fall under the spell of the Black Mask, you‘ll need the help of the Golden Mask and your team-mates in order to keep moving!

Act together:

If several adventurers are together in one chamber, you‘ll activate more magic gems faster!

Two modules make Escape even more exciting: The modules “Curses” and “Treasures“ make gameplay even more varied. The treasures aid you whereas the curses make escape more difficult. After all, an adventurer who is unable to talk or who must roll his dice with one hand stuck on top of his head will have a tough time working with his team!

The 10-minute soundtrack enhances the exciting atmosphere of the temple adventure!

Police Precinct is a cooperative/semi-cooperative game where players are tasked with solving a mysterious murder while simultaneously working to keep crime on the streets under control, and to keep the city from falling into chaos.

Players take on the role of police officers with different areas of expertise. The players work together to solve the mystery by collecting evidence and eventually arresting the suspect.

Complicating matters is the fact that there may or may not be a corrupt officer that is being paid off by the murderer to suppress evidence, the same evidence everyone else is trying to uncover.

Players move around the city searching through randomly shuffled investigation cards for evidence in relation to the murder. The number of investigation cards drawn depends on the character’s rating as well as how many player cards are added by other players to boost the character’s rating for the current “search”. There are four decks of investigation cards (Interview Witness, Collect Crime Scene Evidence, Examine Body and Locate Murder Weapon) to be searched. These decks are shuffled and placed in different locations. So, a player might search the cards in one area and not find any evidence at all… or maybe the bribed cop, if there is one, did the searching and just said no evidence was found.

Players have to find all of the evidence cards from the investigation decks to be able to arrest the murderer.

At the end of each player’s turn they draw an event card. These cards represent growing crime and emergencies that are happening in the city. Each one piles on top of the other, and if the cops don’t stay on top of things, they will be buried in crime! These Event cards are placed on the game board at the locations where they occur. Some of them have “unknown circumstance” tokens placed face-down upon them, adding even more tension.

If too many criminals are located in one area, a gang is formed. Each gang has it’s own power and can cripple the police efforts if not handled quickly and carefully.

So, not only are the players investigating the murder, but they must also arrest street criminals and handle emergencies.

Sometimes when a character successfully completes a task, that character is rewarded with a doughnut token. These tokens can later be used to help with tasks. However, if the character does not complete the task in time, the city crime track advances. The track can also advance if street crimes grow so large that no more street criminals can be placed, when called for. If the Crime Track advances to the end, the murderer escapes justice and the good cops fail the game.

To add to the tension even further, The good cops only have so many days to complete the investigation. If time runs out, once again the murderer shall escape justice!

The pressure is great and the stakes are high!

Mice and Mystics

Eldritch Horror

Cutthroat Caverns

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Agents of SMERSH

Freedom: The Underground Railroad

Darkest Night

Legends of Andor

Escape: The Curse of the Temple

Police Precinct

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