Some of you were wondering how UNPUB Mini in SAN DIEGO went. The notion of UNPUB is that game designers with a  bunch of unpublished games come together and have new players playtest their games.  (In this case, we all came to Pair A Dice games in San Diego). This event was run by Galvanized Studios, and they put on a great event.

For me, this event was to playtest CO-OP: the co-op game. How did it go? Very well!

1) I got about 6 playtests from 6 very different groups. I had only signed up for one slot (because I signed up so late), but the people who ran it were very nice and very professional and let me have 2 more gaming sessions (also because a few people didn’t show).

2) I ended up with about 12 UNPUB forms. An UNPUB form is “what did you think of the game after playing it”, but in written form.

In general, all were positive. 9 out of 12 said they’d buy the game. 9 out of 12!

I was thinking that, “well, maybe only the positive people wrote something up”, but as Chris D. says, “Have you seen the Internet? People aren’t shy about expressing bad opinions”. So, if Chris is right, yay!

3) One form looked like a ringer, but it wasn’t!  (See picture above). All 5 out of 5! And left an email address in case I Kickstart! (Deleted from picture to preserve their privacy).

4) I saw “The Perfect Playtest”.

This family of 4 walked up and asked to play. I was nervous, because there were some young kids (5, 9, and 11). The 5-year old sat on Dad’s lap and just watched. The other kids looked young … were they too young?

The other kids were GREAT! I just watched them play: they laughed, they read all the cards, they were bummed when their VIBE went down, they worked together, and they just barely won. AND THEY HAD FUN!  I had fun just watching them!

And yes, the Dad signed up and gave me his email.

They didn’t really have a lot of negative feedback (they found a few issues here and there).  It was clear those kids play a lot of games, so I think if something really stood out as bad, they would have said something.  It does tell me the game is almost done.  There are really no big balance issues, there are no real obvious deficiencies, and most important: it was fun!

I have been nervous about putting ages 10 and up in my rulebook.  But every single time I’ve had younger kids play, they seem to really enjoy it.  This playtest clinched it: I think ages 10 and up is appropriate.

5) Found some other places to go for cards.

I have been going to the Games Crafter (somewhere in Madison, WI) for my cards. They are kind of expensive, but they do a great job.

One other game designer (I’ll call him B. to preserve his privacy) pointed me to two new places: qualityplayingcards and printerstudio

Apparently, B. said he can get 200 cards printed, with tuck box and shrink wrap, delivered to his door, for $7 a box. Now, the minimum order is 1000, but if I can get games for $7 a box, I might be able  to sell it! It seems like $19.99 is the magic price point: anything more, and people are less likely to buy. Anything less, and it seems like something is wrong with it. I might be able to go to $30 for a Kickstarter with shipping. (And this price came from qualityplaycards).  I imagine $7 for production, (amortized cost) $7-13 for artist, $10 shipping will put me at $30 if I kickstart. If I can lower to $25, then I think I stand a better chance for a kickstart.

The interesting thing is how expensive shipping can be.

6) Artists.

More great advice from B.: make a standard contract with Artist’s or you’ll get burned: 50% up front, and a penalty for missing the deadline (10%). Ben told me he paid an artist 100% up front, and he never saw anything. They have no incentive to do anything after they have the money.

7) Met some great game designers.

If nothing else, there are at least 3-4 game designers I will try to stay in touch with. They had some good feedback and good ideas, and good places to go for future playtests.

In general, a favorable response. My inner grump was “worried” that since I signed up for just 1 session, I’d go, have 1 playtest and that’d be it. Nope, it worked out SO WELL.

 

Have you ever played a co-operative game in which one player takes over, telling everyone else what to do? That player makes other people feel unimportant as he co-opts (pun intended) the game. This is the Alpha Player Problem: someone who simply takes over the co-operative game and makes it less fun for everyone.

“Boy, what a jerk! I don’t want to play him anymore!”
“Ya! No more co-ops with him!”

I have a confession: I have been the Alpha Player before. It’s true! I hate to admit it, but I can think of a few Arkham Horror or Pandemic games where I knew the right thing to do to win, and I let it be known to everyone. I admit I try very hard not to be that guy, but every so often, in the heat of the game, my Alpha Player comes out. And my friends, whom I adore, have also been the Alpha Player. We have all been that guy at one point.

I want it to be clear, in general, Alpha Players aren’t necessarily jerks. I have to argue that, or I am calling myself a jerk.  Sometimes, a new player is really in need of a very guided tour of a game—In that case, the Alpha Player is acting as a guide/teacher. But, it’s a very thin line: too much Alpha Player and the guide becomes insufferable.

Alpha Player Syndrome

Rather than call it the Alpha Player problem, I’d prefer to call it the Alpha Player Syndrome. The Syndrome lurks within all of us (some of us more than others), so it’s not a problem per se, rather something that simply exists. If we know it exists, then we can work with it! If, on the other hand we deny it’s existence, then it will come out at the worst time and ruin a game.

Knowing that it exists, there are things to do to mitigate that effect.

1.  Don’t play with jerks. There are players who are jerks and will always be jerks. Don’t play with them.
2. Don’t be a jerk. Recognize that you have that tendency and simply watch yourself. (Are you an Engineer? You might have a higher tendency towards Alpha Player. And yes, I am of that ilk.) You want to keep your friends and play board games with them more often, so just keep the Alpha Player in check.

There are some people who claim that some games “cause” Alpha Player Syndrome (Pandemic, Arkham Horror are two canonical examples). I disagree whole-heartedly with this sentiment! How can an inanimate board game cause players to be Alpha Players? That’s like blaming Moby Dick for Captain Ahab’s obsession! One of the major themes of Moby Dick was that the whale had no inherent evil: it simply existed and Captain Ahab ascribed the evil/lifelike qualities to it. I think the same can be said of board games: players bring their own conceptions to an inanimate game when they play. Having said that: A game, by its nature, can tend to attract a certain type of player. But that’s very different than saying some game causes “Alpha Player Syndrome”.

I bring this point up because I bristle when I hear: “That game has the Alpha Player Problem!” No, some people playing it may have Alpha Player Syndrome. I don’t believe we should blame an inanimate board game for something that comes from within ourselves.

Mechanics That Can Mitigate Alpha Player Syndrome

But, there can be mechanics that help “curb” Alpha Player Syndrome. I’ve played co-operative games for some time, and I’ve noticed the things below tend to mitigate the syndrome.

1) Keep the play moving.

As long as each player can player quickly and do something interesting on their turn, the Alpha Players tend to lie dormant. I’ve noticed that the Alpha Player tends to come out when there’s indecision or a slowdown in a game. They tend to “fill in” the slowdown to keep the game moving.

If your game moves along quickly for all players, there is less chance of the Alpha Player.

EXAMPLES: Space Panic!, Bomb Squad (anything with a timer), Sentinels Of The Multiverse (it plays quickly)

2) Each player has information that an Alpha Player can’t “absorb” quickly.

This could be something as simple as having secret information that the Alpha Player can’t know. Or, there could be just too many cards/pieces for the Alpha Player to read and figure out.

If someone can’t absorb what other players know/have/do, then they can’t make an informed opinion and the innate Alpha Player tends to remain quiet (rather than look stupid).

EXAMPLES: Shadows Over Camelot (some cards are hidden), Arkham Horror (each player just has a lot of stuff and it’s sometimes too hard to keep track of everything), Sentinels of the Multiverse (each player has a lot of cards with a lot of text)

3) Gameplay that recognizes the discrepancy between Expert and Novice players IN THE SAME GAME.

If a novice has to try to play at the same level as an expert, both the expert and the novice quickly become frustrated (and the Alpha Player quickly takes over). There are many games where the “simplest” character is given to the novice, and the “harder” characters are given to the experts. The novice can come up to speed and understand their character quickly, while the expert has to “read” and takes longer to come up to speed.

Although Pandemic doesn’t strictly do this, I’ve found that first time players should always play the Medic! It’s the easiest to play and understand and feel useful. Experts can have more complex characters which tends to engage them more so they are less likely to Alpha Player. The novice can come up to speed quickly and keep play moving (see 1 above) and the expert can become engrossed in his more complex character.
EXAMPLES: CO-OP (the rules encourage first-time players towards certain characters), Secrets of the Lost Tomb (directions encourage certain characters for certain games), Pandemic (see above)

4) Rotating Primary Player

Every turn, someone new is “in charge”, and it rotates through all players.

In TIME STORIES, a different character is Captain at the start of every “turn”. In CO-OP, the Karma Chameleon changes every day. In Arkham Horror, the first player rotates (a lesser notion of in charge, but a notion nonetheless).

Thus, that person that is in charge IS the Alpha Player for that turn! This is a great example of recognizing that the Alpha Player Syndrome exists in all of us! And then embracing it! We can let loose with our Alpha Player for a turn, then go back to a good citizen next turn. Let the beast out for a day, then put it away!

Seriously, if makes it easier to tolerate some Alpha Player Syndrome if you know your turn (to be Alpha Player) is coming up.

 

Conclusion

Some of the examples above won’t necessarily work together: You can’t put a timer on every game, some games don’t have simple characters, simplicity in design that makes an awesome game will not have the complexity that tends to fend off Alpha Players. But, they can help.

Alpha Player Syndrome does exist. We’ve seen it in others, and (some of us) have seen it in ourselves. Sometimes, it just comes out naturally because of the combination of people, experience levels, personalities, and ability. That doesn’t mean we should let it ruin our games. If we watch for it, knowing it can appear, we can keep it under control. As Jefferson said “Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty”. Or perhaps, more apropos to a gaming blog, Jean-Luc Picard once said: “Vigilance, Mister Worf – that is the price we have to continually pay” (with obvious allusions to Jefferson). In this case, we must be vigilant of Alpha Player Syndrome, lest it overtake us.

Recently, I have been working on my own co-op card game (called, interestingly enough, “CO-OP: The CO-OP game”). I have been getting lots of playtesting on my game from many, many groups.  Some feedback is better than others, but in general, there is always some nugget that’s useful. (“This card needs to be fixed”, “This text in the rulebook needs to be moved”, “This rules should be re-worded”, etc.). All very useful.

The problem is what to do when you have contradictory feedback. Basically, a lot of the contradictory feedback I’ve seen boils down to “I have too much choice” or “I have too little choice”.

The basic game hasn’t changed much since GAMA, but a lot of tweaks have made it better. The main negative feedback I have gotten from some playtest groups is “there’s not enough to do, and that made it less fun.” This kind of feedback definitely resonates in the side of “there’s too little choice”. Below is some discussions of problems and solutions, what worked and what didn’t for this problem. This is all in the name of making games more fun!

1) There used to be “bad news” cards where players could lose turns.

Losing turns in a thing of the past (but see below). I should have listened to James M. from Minion games. (see link)
http://www.jamesmathe.com/game-design-for-dummies/

James basically expounds that players should never lose turns in a game. And he’s mostly right (again, see below). So, in my game “bad news — lose turns” has been replaced by some other “bad effects”,  such as disallowing a particular type of action. That way, players can still do SOMETHING on their turns.

As my friend CC said, “It’s no fun when you don’t get to do anythingon your turn.” Touche’.

However, as an interesting counterpoint, there was contradictory feedback on this point from another playtest group:

“It doesn’t matter if you lose a turn,
since you decide as a group who gets to play and who doesn’t.
It’s a team effort, so it’s not as big a deal as in competitive
games. Part of the co-operative experience is figuring out who’s
going to ‘take it’ for the team.”

That was basically my position on the “lose turn” issue for a while:  hard-core gamers seemed to get that in a co-operative game (every so often), someone has to “take it” for the team.   BUT, at least as seen from my playtests, casual gamers don’t like losing  turns. They think it’s less fun.

So, for the most part, I got rid of all cards where you lose a turn.   I can’t argue with all the playtests.  (I kept just one turn loss “bad news” because it was very thematic; I still like the idea that somebody “takes it for the team”.  I think that idea is okay in a co-op game, but it appears I am  definitely in the minority).

2) The hand limit was too small and inconsistent.

The hand limit used to be 3 or 4 depending on the number of players. After lots of playtesting, it was clear the hand limit needed to be upped: it’s now always 5, no matter how many players.

There’s two reasons this is better:

1.  Fewer rules means fewer ways for players to get confused; there’s exactly one hand limit, no matter how many players.
2. More options. If you have more cards, you have more options on your turn.

Upping the hand limit gives the players more options, so they felt like you can do more on their turns. That made it more fun for them.

3) BUT … there is still a hand limit.

We playtested without a hand limit, and it was a disaster.

The cards grew quickly in the player’s hand! Physically managing that  many cards was NOT fun. HINT: I am trying to make the game MORE FUN!

And there were too many options: of the 16 cards, which one to play? Players have to read them all and then decide … and that takes time. So people are waiting (and waiting) for a player to play, and that  waiting makes it less fun.  REMINDER: I am trying to make the game more fun.

And the game was too easy. If it’s too easy, who wants to play?

For all these reasons, there still is a hand limit.  Too little choice, there’s no fun because you can’t do anything.  Too much choice, and it’s no fun because of the overwhelming  amount of physical and mental information. Five cards seems a good balance.

4) Too many options is even worse in a CO-OPERATIVE game.

“What?” You ask? “How can too many options be a problem? The whole point of a co-operative game is to explore the problem space and come to a consensus. More options seems good!”

Go back to the “no hand limit” issue. If just one person has to read 16 cards and decide, that’s already annoying. But if 3 more people have to help decide, then you have to read all the cards aloud, decide amongst each other, and everyone will have different ideas. It will take *much longer* to go through the choices.

That’s another reason to be very careful with too many options:  you want to avoid the Alpha Player problem.  (The Alpha Player Problem is where one person takes over the game and essentially tells everyone what to play, thus making everyone else become or feel irrelevant).  As long as the game is flowing quickly, it’s harder for an Alpha Player to jump in and take over. As long as someone can play fairly timely, the Alpha Player tends to lie dormant. The Alpha Player usually only appears when there’s indecision. By limiting the number of options, the game flows quicker, limits indecision, and fends off the Alpha Player.

5) The FROLIC action is never used.

(The FROLIC action is how you cheer people in the CO-OP game, but it has some limits). It seems sad (no pun intended) that a game option to FROLIC and have fun isn’t used very much!

So, note that all of the changes from points (1)-(4) make the game easier.
There are more choices, and fewer turns are lost, so the players get a lot more done. So, we have to adjust the game difficulty so it’s not too easy. How? The standard way is to add more cards to the bad news deck. This is undesirable because it makes the game longer: the game has been designed to be about 40-45 minutes on purpose! My very first playetest showed how important it is to limit the length of the game or players lose interest quickly.

There is a better way: Start the players at DREARY instead of OK. That way, players are
(probably) forced to used the FROLIC action at some point during the game. It’s sorta like losing a turn, but it just forces you to spend a turn doing a FROLIC action. And there are other ways to move up from DREARY to OK, so it doesn’t have to be that!  There are strategically many ways to do that.

So, this is a case of win-win:

1. We can adjust he difficultly without increasing the length of the game
2. We can force more variety on actions by making FROLIC more likely
3. It’s more thematic: the players start the game “bummed” because they are in a bad situation they have to get out of!

Conclusion

So after a bunch of feedback, I think is game is more fun: I have removed lost turns. I have upped the hand limit (but not too much, and still keeping the hand limit). I have kept the game balanced WITHOUT making it longer (by trading lost turns for more FROLICs). These three minor changes seems to address a lot of the “you can’t do enough and it’s less fun”.

After all these changes, I got some other feedback that goes the other way: “By drawing a card each turn, you have less reason to MEDITATE  (the name of the action for drawing cards), and spend a turn drawing cards. You might be able to create a nice tension by not getting a card unless you specifically MEDIATE.” I think this falls in the direction “there is too much to do”, so limit what the player can do. (This comes from someone I really respect as a gamer: he knows his stuff and he is a hard-core gamer).

I think this is a great idea, BUT it completely contradicts all the playtesting I’ve done. Almost all of the negative feedback is of the nature “There’s too little to do” (which I thingk I have now fixed).  I am afraid this change (don’t always draw a card) would cause the “too little to do” problem to re-emerge. I think casual gamers would HATE that rule, but hard-core gamers would love it.

What to do with contradictory playtests?

1. Go with the majority playtests: What do most people say and do?
2. Incorporate it in as an option
3. Ignore completely
4. Rework mechanics

I think the right thing here is to do (1) and (2): Make the default the current way it is right now, but add an optional “expert” mode where players don’t always draw cards! That way the casual gamers (who  won’t read all the rules anyways) play the game they will like, and hard-core gamers (who will tend to read all rules and variants) can try those out.
It’s almost like I co-operated with all my playtesters to find the best solutions which address their concerns.

 

I was happy to see that Zephyr: Winds of Change  funded recently!  Like Venom Assault, it just barely funded in the last few hours of the Kickstarter!  I am very excited to see how this game turns out.

Another co-operative game on Kickstarter is on the RADAR: The Dresden Files co-operative card game.  I am very excited by this one: I never read the Dresden Files, but I have listened to just about every one of them as Books on CD: They have a sense of humor, good pacing, and drama.  I will say I almost gave up on the series after the first two books (Man, Harry was whiny and I started getting tired of it).But, the characters grew and evolved and, frankly (in the later books), the stories are pretty amazing.  If the game catches the spirit of the game, I think it real be real fun.

One thing I didn’t note until I looked closer at the Kickstarter: the amount of shipping goes DOWN for each tier they get to!  Right now, it is only $4 for shipping (it started at $10)!  And it’s only about 10 days into the campaign!  So it is possible this will ship at no extra cost if the Kickstarter makes it to a certain level. Just an FYI.  (Because my first thought was that this is an expensive Kickstarter and then adds $10:  With the cheaper and cheaper shipping, it’s nice).

 

In this entry of Co-operative Gestalt, we’ll take a look at some co-operative board games either currently on Kickstarter, or have finished fairly recently.

1) Zephyr: Winds of Change by Portal Dragon. As of this writing, it is about half-way to being funded, about half-way through its period. There is a really neat physical mechanic where you can change the “background” of a character card and change it up. Looks very promising.

2) The Daedalus Sentence: Escape from Space Prison, by Eagle and Atlas Games. Funded, and did real well! It also has a really cool physical mechanic, with concentric rotating rings. It is a bit pricey (about $100) but they are saying it’ll have $130 MSRP, so get it now. If the gameplay is good, coupled with a coo mechanical device, this could be real fun!

3) The Red Dragon Inn: Battle for Greyport by SlugFest Games. Set in the world of the Red Dragon In games, this is a deck-building card game where you recruit members of the time to fight off the big bads. The Red Dragon Inn games seem to have a humourous take, so I am hoping this will be be a touch of silly as well. It funded. About $40 for base.

4) Venom Assault by SpyGlass Games. This is a “GI-JOE” co-operative deck-building game. The art is very comic booky (in a good way: think Jim Lee or Byrne in the early days) and looks real fun. This game BARELY funded! About $35 for base game.

5) Mythos Tales by 8th Summit. An mystery game: Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective meets Arkham/Cthulu mythos. About $40 for the hard cover. When it is realeased to stores, apparently it will have a soft cover, so only kickstarters and a few people will get the hardcover. It funded.

6) Sentinels of The Multiverse: Oblivaeon Expansion by Greater Than Games. Seriously, you must have been living in a hole if you didn’t hear about this one! It was a huge kickstarter garnering $1.5 million dollars, with all sorts of options and foil cards.
I adore Sentinels of the Multiverse, and glad to see it did well, but they say this will be the last expansion.

7) Nemo’s War by Victory Point Games. This is reprint/redo of an old game by Victory Point games. It didn’t originally come with a co-operative mode, but in this redo, it does! (Once they reached $63K, they added a co-op mode) It also has a solo mode that looks fun. If you passed this up because it wasn’t a co-op game, check it out! It is! It funded, and was about $56 for base game.

8) Spirit Island by Greater Than Games. It funded quickly, and has some great art. It’s the “anti-Settlers” game in many ways! It’s co-operative instead of competitive, and players play against the Settlers instead of being them! The art was a major plus for this game. About $49 for the base game. It funded.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gtgames/spirit-island

Unfortunately, all of these games are a ways off until they are delivered (sigh, I ordered all of the above!), but I will start reviewing them as they come in!

Enjoy, and be on the lookout for great co-op games on Kickstarter!

My friend Joe threw the thimble across the table at his brother Max. Max was buying up all the property and very slowly putting Joe out of business. I was staying afloat but very bored as I watched Max slowly win. We all knew Max would win, but the game just keeps going and going and going … , and of course, Max was being a jerk about it.

I am talking about, of course, Monopoly. It’s one of the first games we learn as kids. Then we learn (from history and the Sherman Anti-trust act) that Monopolies (in general) are evil. But of course, every kid has already learned this lessons from the board game anyways: If real-life monopolies are anything like the board game, then they bring out the worst in people: greed, jerkiness, and mean-spiritedness.

And so, when families ask which board game people want to play, the mom reminds us that “Last time we played Monopoly, Joe threw the thimble at Max, so why don’t we play something else.” As my friend Joe says, “If you want your family to hate each other, get mad at each other, and general be mean, you play Monopoly”.

When I get together with my friends, I want to have fun. I want to feel closer to my friends, and I want to work together to overcome something.

This is why I like co-operative board games.

As a group, I can remember many times when we barely defeated Asathoth in Arkham Horror, or played that 6 hour game where we just barely won. It’s a badge of honor, it’s a shared experience we all survived and can remember later on in life. It brings us closer together.

And this is why this blog is called “Co-operative Gestalt”: A Gestalt is “an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts”. A co-operative board game is more than just the game: it’s the experience and the memories. A co-op board game is more than just a board game and it’s more than just a co-operative mechanic. It an experience that brings you and your friends together.

Welcome to Co-operative Gestalt: where we explore all the great things about co-operative board games.

We have entered a Renaissance for Co-operative Board Games!

In the last decade, Co-operative board games have really taken off and become very popular!  There used to be just a few co-op games in my collection: Arkham Horror,  Pandemic, or Shadows Over Camelot. And my friends and I played them all the time. We’d lament “Don’t you wish there were more Co-operative games?”.

And now there are. There are a LOT.

The purpose of this blog “Co-Operative Gestalt” (or “Co-Op Gestalt” for short) is to explore the co-operative board game universe. We’ll talk history, mechanics, design, new games, old games, new kickstarters, and anything related to co-operative games in general.

Why am I starting this blog? If, as I stated in my intro, we are in a Renaissance of co-operative board games, why do we need a place to talk about them? Honestly, I am surprised how little I find about co-operative games when I Google “co-operative board games”! I find a few great videos (from the Dice Tower and a few others), a bunch of dated top 10 lists, and a few links here and there. But that’s it!.

What I DO NOT see when I Google “co-operative board games”:

1. What are the newest, coolest, hottest co-op games?
2. What co-op games are currently on Kickstarter?
3. How do I design a co-operative board game?
4. What are some interesting “new” co-operative mechanics?
5. What are some older co-op games that I may have missed?
6. What do people think of co-op game X?

In general, this is my space to talk about one of my favorite subjects: co-operative board games. And I will try to hit all of the topics above.  (And Yes, co-op games are far and away my favorite type of board or card games. For a while, I would buy ANY game that purported to be a co-operative game. And some were great, and … some weren’t.  It actually got too be too expensive to do that! Maybe you were like me and just wanted a place to read about some current co-operative games!)

My plan is to write every so often and talk about co-op games.

What do I mean by Co-Operative Board Games?

This is one of the nicer entries I’ve seen on classifications of all “co-op” type games.
https://blog.wethemeeple.co/2015/11/18/your-guide-to-the-best-cooperative-board-games/

Basically, as they discuss there are 4 different types of co-op type games:

• All vs. The Game
• All vs. One
• All vs. The Traitor
• Teams

When I say “co-operative board games”, unless otherwise stated, I am referrring to to “All vs. The Game” type of board game (also known as “fully co-operative games”). This seems
to be common parlance, as you will hear people talk about games like Traitor Mechanic: The Traitor Mechanic or Battlestar Galactica as Traitor games rather than co-op games.
So, welcome to “The Co-operative Gestalt”! Why do we call it that? Watch this space!