I know this doesn’t really belong here, but I don’t care. I need to pay homage to someone whose music influenced me.

Recently, John Wetton, songwriter/bass player extraodinaire died. If you don’t know who that is, he was responsible for the voice and bass of the rock band Asia. He was someone I looked up to (as a musician) and someone whose work inspired me throughout his career. He early bass playing with King Crimson was just an amazing testament to how a bass can start to be a lead instrument. His voice was strong and powerful, and his sense of music was breathtaking. His work in the band UK was phenomenal, but his true legacy would be working in Asia.

Why is this here? This is a CO-OP board games list! To my mind, one of the most amazing collaborations in music history is the song-writing duo of Wetton/Downes. How much work does it take to write songs together? Consistently good songs over decades of Asia and the Icon project. In my mind, the friendship of John Wetton and Geoff Downes was one of the hallmarks of cooperation. You liked their music that much more because they were friends. They cooperated well.

When I found out John Wetton had died, I turned up the music on the way to work and cried in my car as I sang along with “Let Me Go” (from the Wetton/Downes Icon project). I had to learn to let John go. I got a chance to see him on his last tour when they came through Tucson on the (under-appreciated) “Gravitas” tour. His voice was amazing, and the last show I saw with John was with Geoff, Carl, and Sam, second row. I’ll miss you and your music John.

Here are the top 11 John Wetton musical moments. These aren’t the big songs, these are my personal favorite John Wetton songs.  I’ve also included links to YouTube videos.  Some Honorable Mentions: Let Me Go (from Icon), Never Again (from Phoenix), and Battlelines (from Battlelines solo album).

11. Anything from the (USA) Live Album, by King Crimson.

I like Wetton-era King Crimson, but I think the live version of that material is better than the studio versions. The studio versions always came off as dry to me. The live versions of all these songs has more energy and passion. If you can only get one album of Wetton from the King Crimson days, I’d get the live USA album. (You’ll notice Eddie Jobson on the credits on this album, and we’ll see more of him later on). John’s bass playing is just great. His singing is great too, but this album is NOT a pop album. He doesn’t sing too much, but his bass playing is very frontward facing.

10. “Hold Me Now” from Battlelines solo Album or Chasing the Dragon (live solo album)

This is a beautiful song. I think the live version might be better. It showcases Wetton’s strong, great voice. And he can pull it off live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oubSCEdSlNA

9. “Finger on the Trigger” either from Icon II (with Wetton/Downes) or Omega (re-recorded with Asia)

When I first got the Asia Omega album, I was like “Wait a minute! I know this song!” They re-recorded this from Wetton/Downes Icon II. And you can see why! It’s a great upbeat, rocking song. I miss some of the Downes keyboard fills from the Icon version, but the Asia versions rocks that much harder with the Howe solo (somedays, Steve Howe can really play!). Shockingly, it’s a Wetton/Downes composition.

8. Tie: “Valkyrie” and/or “Gravitas” from the Gravitas album.

I loved the Steve Howe era of Asia with Wetton, but I think the last album with Asia Howe (XXX) was just ok. I think Howe leaving pushed them, and the resulting “Gravitas” album was phenomenal. I don’t know which songs I like best! The first two are both great songs! “Valkyrie” is definitely more poppy, but so catchy! My wife was singing it in the car (and she’s not really an Asia fan)! But “Gravitas” is almost a prog-rock song with a catchy, catchy chorus. I love this album, and the two leading songs are some of Wetton/Downes best work.

7. “In The Dead Of Night” from UK (by UK)

Before the super-group Asia, was the super-group UK. Bill Bruford on Drums, Eddie Jobson on keys/violin, Alan Holdsworth on guitar and John Wetton on Bass and vocals. This song leads off with John’s bass in an odd time signature. A spanning song that leads into a trilogy of songs. Definitely a prog rock song. John’s bass and singing is amazing.

I feel like the Wetton/Jobson team really gained ground here. Eddie Jobson was John’s writing partner for thre UK albums, and they wrote some amazing material. I am very sad UK broke up, because they were probably my favorite Wetton band. But, we saw what happens when Wetton teams up with a great keyboardist. This was, in some ways, the second greatest writing team of all time. And opened the door from the Wetton/Downes team.

6. “Heart of Darkness” from Welcome To Heaven solo album

Just a great song. It comes from a dark and lonely place in the verse, coming to a chorus full of hope. And the final outro feels like you finally found happiness. Just a great song that takes you on a journey. Another almost proggy, pop song.

5. “Carrying No Cross” from UK album Danger Money

See Wetton holding the Bass there?  My senior picture was an attempt to recreate there.  I was a huge Asia/UK fan back in high school.

After Asia “imploded” (when Wetton was forced out of the band for Greg Lake), I went looking for other Wetton music!  I remember when I found Danger Money.  What a great album!

My favorite song on the album is the giant opus, Carrying No Cross.  It’s full of white space, John’s great bass and singing, and some really choice music.  This song is a very under-appreciated prog rock gem: I think it’s better than most Yes long prog songs (and yes, I am a huge Yes fan).

4. “Open Your Eyes” from Alpha (by Asia)

The greatest album of all time: Asia/Alpha. I know a bunch of people who would disagree with me, and point to Asia/Asia and Sole Survivor and the “hits”. But, I love every single song on this album! I love the singing, the guitar, the arrangements, the harmonies, the drums, the keyboards, the odd collection of time signatures. The singles from this album, musically, were much stronger than the singles from Asia/Asia. “Don’t Cry” has the AMAZING drum intro with Carl palmer, the hooky chorus, and subtle and underappreciated rhythm guitars of Steve Howe. Holy cow! (We’ll talk about the other single in a bit).

But, “Open Your Eyes” was just such a great song. It was an prog rock song on a pop album. They still play it live, even though it was never a single from the album! That’s how great this song was. It’s hard to pick a favorite song on this album, but this is my second favorite song from Alpha.

Oh yes, It’s a Wetton/Downes song.

3. “Extraordinary Life” from Phoenix (by Asia)

This was probably the strongest song from Asia’s Phoenix, but for some reason they had some trouble pulling it off live when I saw them on the Phoenix tour. I think it’s because it’s a song of “white space”, where the song needs to breathe and go from intro to verse to chorus very deliberately. In a rock concert setting, it’s too noisy to pull off the nuance of this song.

This song is about hope. Almost about convincing yourself: you can hear the strain of the verse about how it delivers the words in a minor key, as if trying to convince himself. Then, he believes it in the chorus as we switch to a major key with expansive harmonies. The verse is about living the roller coaster of life, and the chorus is about enjoying that ride.

For a while, this song would make me cry whenever I heard it, as it reminded me of a lost girlfriend. It’s just a great, emotional song.  Another Wetton/Downes tune.

2. Side 1 of the “Night After Night” Album (by UK)

This LIVE album is one of my desert island albums: If I were stuck on a desert island with only a few CDs, what would I choose? I would choose this one.

First off, this doesn’t sound like a live album! Holy cow! Three guys pull off some amazing music LIVE. This is, in some ways, the peak of Wetton for me. His voice was STRONG and his bass playing was STRONG: the perfect combination. This album is where we see the best of Wetton as a singer and bass player.

And these songs are just so catchy. I can’t hear these songs and not sing along. This album side just makes me happy.  Night After Night, Rendezvous 6:02, Nothing to Lose, and As Long As You Want Me Here.  What a great album side!

2. “To Catch a Thief” from Icon II (by Wetton/Downes)

Another Wetton/Downes masterpiece.

This is a rare duet with John and Anneke van Giersbergen. It’s just a beautiful song. The two voices dive back and forth and just blend so well. This song just exhausts me emotionally because it’s so powerful. It’s too bad this was never a single: I think it would have done really well.

1. “The Smile Has Left Your Eyes” from Alpha (by Asia).

This is a sad song, written by John for his buddy, Geoff Downes, who was going through some hard time. The song moves through 3 key changes, with soaring guitars, amazing drums, great keys, and John’s voice.

It’s a testament to friendship of John Wetton and Geoff Downes. I think this is what made them the greatest writing team of all time. They were friends. They augmented each other as players. They worked together. And Wetton/Downes made some amazing music.

This song has an interesting history: when John Payne joined Asia, he did say he would never sing this song, as it was John Wetton’s song. Only John Wetton could pull this off. I think this song is special to Geoff and John.

Another little interesting tidbit: As John Wetton was getting thrown out of Asia (for the Asia in Asia Japanese tour back in 1985), this song was climbing the charts.  If they had left John in Asia, I suspect this song would have done a LOT better.  Greg Lake couldn’t pull this song off live (his voice has a different range), and I think his performance in that worldwide live concert hurt the single.  It should have been a number 1.  Well, it is here. On my chart.

This song is also special to me in many other ways.

The video shows the sad story of a little girl dealing with her parent’s divorce, and the only place she finds refuge is in the song. My parent’s were going through a divorce at this time, and this song gave me some refuge as well. That meant something special to me too.

This song was also my first “solo” performance in college (I played solo guitar and sang it). I was never a great singer, but I came a much better musician later on in life. The Wetton-era Asia always inspired me.

Goodbye John

In the End, John Wetton was very influential on me. I will miss him sorely: I know a lot of musicians have been dying lately, but Wetton was the only one I cried over. His music really meant something to me.

Goodbye John, I’ll miss you. Rest in Peace.

What a fun little game!  I have now played 2 solo games (and there aren’t any solo rules, *cough cough*) and 1 4-Player game.

The components are great: the art of the cards is very thematic, very fun to look at.  The art is almost comic-booky (but in a good way).  So, maybe that’s why I liked it so much.  My friends I played with also loved the art.

Because I got the Kickstarter exclusive, I got some extra content.  The “Taunt!” token is now a really hefty, metal token (rather than a piece of cardboard).  Cool!  This token is for helping out your bethren: if you need to get a monster of your friend’s back, you can Taunt him!  In the game I played, the “Taunt” degenerated into the Monty Python and the Holy Grail Frenchman: “Your father was a hamster, and your mother smelt of Elderberries!”.  Very keeping with the theme.

Some of the extra Kickstarter content you get is for a game called “Red Dragon Inn”.  I was slightly annoyed at HOW MUCH was for Red Dragon Inn.  I have played “Red Dragon Inn” a few times and liked it, but I don’t have it.  I bought this game because I wanted to play THIS GAME.  So, the fact that so much extra content was for a game I didn’t have was actually annoying.  I would have MUCH rather had an extra character, or an extra Scenario for this game.  You know, the one I supported on Kickstarter.

I was also slightly annoyed that there are no solo player rules.  I feel like this is a holy quest for me now!   Games NEED to have a solo mode so I can learn to play them so THEN I can bring them out to my games nights!  I have found that games go  over SO MUCH better if someone knows the game and can teach it.  (I have one game group in Las Cruces where I feel like we can learn a game from scratch, but I feel like this is a rare thing.  Most groups get annoyed if you have to learn a game then and there).

Okay, enough rant.

This is a fun game!  It’s a deck-builder with some twists.  You play heroes, but you can only play 1 hero per turn.  And you can play one item on your hero (but only if it’s the right type: physical or magic).  Since this is a deck-builder, you know you can get cards that let you play one more hero.

The game moves pretty quickly: since it’s a co-op, people are engaged even when it isn’t their turn (one of my major complaints of Dominion).  I found that we were all discussing the best way to fight as a team, which is what I think the game wanted!

The scenarios are clever, and the way you “Protect the Town” is neat:  at every point, you are at a location in the town.  Each location has a number of hit points, and you have to stop the monsters before they destroy the location.  If you protect it successfully (by defeating all the monsters), you get a bonus.  If you not, you get a penalty.

Gameplay: 7 or 8.  We had so much fun.  I think we played it wrong in a few places, but in general, this is a fun game.

Components: 6 or 7 … they’d get an 8 if the extra content was for THIS game …

Rules:  5. Still annoyed at no solo rules, and the reason we played wrong was the rules are a little off.  Good enough, I was able to get going without a video.

Time:  2 hours?  It was a 4 player game, and it seemed a little long.  My 1-player games were maybe 40 minutes.

Overall.  Fun game.  Everyone I played with had fun.  I want to play again.

 

Thumbs up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Huzzah! The Kickstarter for CO-OP: the co-op game funded. It was a success, but it didn’t make a major splash. To be honest, I am very happy that it was any kind of success. I have seen some good kickstarters fail. So, I set my funding goal fairly low and made two plans: barely funding and substantial funding. Barely Funded! Huzzah! Still a success! So, I am executing a plan for a small print run.

Along the way, I learned some weird/interesting/simple things about the Kickstarter process. For future Kickstarters, here’s a list of some interesting things I encountered along the way when running my Kickstarter.

Honorable Mention lesson:  Have two plans so you can be successful at a small or large level  of funding.  If you are a small publisher like us, it’s nice to have multiple levels of success.  This may not matter if you have a lot of experience or are a big company.

10) You get SPAM in your Kickstarter messages. What? SPAM? I got 10-20 messages from SPAMMERS who wanted to be my social media outreach, (for a nominal free of course). It was directed SPAM (no real estate deals or anything like that), but still SPAM. Hm. I wonder if someone should do a Kickstarter for a product that filters SPAM in the Kickstarter messages?

9) Vote Trading. Many people (5-10?) with active Kickstarters reached out to me: “Hey, if you support my Kickstarter, I’ll support yours”. A different variant of SPAM. In a dark hour, when my funding velocity was negative, I did it. Only once, for a project that looked okay. I felt dirty and never did it again. I am hoping by posting this, maybe I can get some absolution. Sorry.

8) People will Cancel. Oof, the worst feeling in the world is when someone supports your project, then backs out. And it’s their right: Kickstarter has made that one of the options. So, you have to steel yourself for that. It’s easy to say “Yes, I know that can happen”, it’s different when you see it. Recently, I saw a video by Tom Vasel who said this happened to him in the Dice Tower Kickstarters … up to $30,000 in the last bits of the project! (This is one reason Dice Tower is moving to Indie-Gogo: when someone gives you money, it is immediately withdrawn).

7) Reviews and advertising didn’t help that much. I spent $500 on advertising and maybe, maybe got 2 people from that. A lot of my supporters came from people I had personally met and playtested my game, Social Media, friends, and UNPUB testing (Rincon Tucson and San Diego). If I had made it to GenCon, I suspect I would have gotten a lot more support. I just wasn’t ready for GenCon.

I will say this: even though I didn’t get a lot of click-thrus, the reviews and ads gave me some legitimacy. The reviews showed a real game, and the ads showed someone cared/supported my game enough to spend money on it. So, I can’t quantify the “legitimacy”, but I suspect it helped me keep people who came to my site.
6) BoardGameGeek. I should have put my game on BoardGameGeek sooner. I was under the impression that I couldn’t register a game until it was “legitimate” (in Distribution). Not true. Although when I did finally register, we had just funded, so it was clear the game was legitimate at that point. I think I got some more traffic once I was on BGG.

Like the reviews and advertising, being on BGG gave me some more legitimacy.

5) Non-traditional buyers. As hard as it may be to believe in this day and age, not everyone likes Kickstarter and the act of putting Credit Cards on the Internet. I had one customer send me a check and one customer give me cash. So I did the paperwork of creating an accounts for both of them and “funnelling” their money through a credit card.

I am happy they cared enough to want the game, so I was happy to do the paperwork (Internet work?) for them. Make the customer happy.

4) Try to give lots of updates. When I first started, I didn’t want to give too many updates (I don’t want to annoy people with too many messages). The more I looked around at other projects and talked to people, I came to the conclusion that people seem to want those messages. They may not read them all, maybe they’ll just glance at them, but it gives a warm fuzzy. They may even get slightly annoyed, but it shows you care enough to try to reach your backers.

I heard about some projects where the people just disappeared with the money. I don’t want to be that guy. I want people to feel fully engaged, knowing what I am thinking.

So, I am probably more chatty in my updates than I should be, but I want people to feel like they are being kept in the loop.

3) Eye on Shipping. I made my game to fit in the USPS Fixed Rate Small box. On purpose: if I only got the minimal funding, I wanted to be able to ship by myself (if I had made the bigger levels of funding, I would have gone with Naked Shipping).

One really neat product I found was the Scottie Stuffer: it allows me to fit two of my games in the USPS Fixed Rate small padded envelope and still have great protection. For those of my backers who bought two games, that’s how we are able to get them two games for the cheaper price.

2) Feedback is important. It always good to have several friends you trust give you brutally honest advice at every level. I thought I was ready to Kickstart much sooner, but really got some honest feedback that really helped me. At every stage, my friends have helped by by proofreading, pointing out errors, and so on. Try to get as much feedback as you can at every stage: the Kickstarter, the Updates, the Comments, etc.

1) Friends matter. This was my first Kickstarter, and I got a lot of support from non-traditional gamers. Thank you.

When it comes to Kickstarters, I am a sucker for the cooperative game! I have supported as lot of kickstarters just because they were cooperative! And that’s where Daedalus Sentence came from for me …

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/167427101/the-daedalus-sentence-escape-from-space-prison-co

The Daedalus Sentence looks really cool. It has rotating, concentric rings and a LOT of moving pieces. Did it live up to how it looks?

I’ve played two games now with two very different groups of friends. We’ve lost one game and won one game. Group one is me, Josh and Jeremy (Jeremy hates cooperative games, but it looked cool enough for him to try), who are younger gamers. Group 2 is me, Junkerman, CC and Kurt, who are older gamers about my age.

Theme: 8
Gameplay: 7
Instructions: 5 (6 because they have game summary charts)
Cooperative Play: 8

Background: Some of us love cooperative games, and some of us (Jeremy) hate cooperative games.

Theme:
Wow! The whole reason we played this one because Josh and I really wanted to unbox this one and see how it worked. Jeremy came in late and was sucked in to playing (but he thought it looked cool). The whole idea that all there rings can really rotate, and fairly easily I might add, made it “fun” to do maintenance.

I would describe this as the prison from “Guardians of the Galaxy” meets Pandemic! It felt like we were in a prison, trying to discover the way out. We have to get from the inner rings to the outer rings to escape! It looked very science-fictiony, and felt the same way. We are trying to escape a space prison! That theme really came out.

Nit-pick:
If you JUST look at the rules summary, and the rules, it’s not clear how to get out of your cells! It looks like someone has to get you out of your cell, but how do we do that if we are all stuck AT THE START OF THE GAME? After searching the rulebook and the game summary, someone finally read the “flavor text”, which implied all the cells were all open (from a power burst). I’m all for flavor text, but when a rulebook is as big as the Daedalus Sentence, you tend to skip flavor text! Make it CLEAR we can just get out at the very beginning. This cost us about 10-15 minutes and kind of put us in a grumpy space to start.

Like: I like the Game Summary. It’s one of the better ones I’ve seen: it has all the actions you can do, it gives a very good summary of how those actions work, and we could “mostly” figure out the game from the rules summary (occasionally looking at the rulebook for clarifications). Like many games of this ilk, it has special locations with special powers: the Game Summary even summarizes what you can do at the different locations really well! That was great!

Dislike: My only quip with them Game Summary was that the “special locations” didn’t feel well distinguished. You really had to stare at it (“Oh! There’s a vent there”!) or consult the OTHER side of the Games Summary (“Wait, which one was a Research Lab again?”). Seriously, just put a picture of the location (even a small one) on the Game Summary next to the action. That way you can immediately draw your eye from the location to the summary.

In general, I really liked the Game Summary: without it, I think we would have been a lot more frustrated learning the game. I just wish the Special Locations were more distinguished.

Gameplay:
Josh and Jeremy jumped right in. We consulted each other, we tried to figure out the best thing to do, we tried to figure out when to open the way to the next ring. I think it’s a good game for cooperative gameplay: we are all just trying to get out of this prison (which of course we were wrongly put in!)

I am a huge fan of “Player Selected Turn Order”, and Daedalus Sentence uses it! We each get 4 actions per turn, and we are allowed to take those 4 actions in any order with the other players. So I can move (Rich action 1), Josh moves (Josh action 1) then researches (Josh action 2) then give me a card (Josh action 3), then I can (Rich action 2) use that card. Our actions support each other!

Most of the time, each player just used all 4 actions in order, but when it made a difference, we could go in any order. I know some people don’t like “Player Selected Turn Order” because they think it’s too hard to coordinate, but it was definitely NOT a problem in either game I played.

Jumping right in seemed to work. We learned parts of the game “On Demand”: how the circles worked, how to get to the next set of rings, how the locks worked, how to open the locks. The Games Summary really helped for this.

I like that the game has a simplicity to it, in that all actions are related to just one set of cards. The cards show either a colored ring, a minotaur (easy guard) or a Lactate (hard guard). (And they aren’t really called Lactates, but that’s what we called them in both gaming sessions). Rings show a color and a direction. When used in the maintenance phase, they show which ring rotates. A Minotaur or Lactate spawns a new guard in the maintenance phase.

The cards are also used for the actions. The players can replace maintenance cards (on Special Locations) so they force different rings to rotate.

The cards are also used for the combination to the gates. Each gate (to the next ring) needs to be opened by the players playing cards for the combination.

So, prison actions, player actions, and combinations all used the same deck! I thought that was pretty cool. We even did some strategy to keep Lactates and Minotaurs out of the main deck (in our hards) to make sure there was less of a chance they’d come out.
The Good News: I liked both games I played. I had fun, and I think my friends did too (Jeremy had fun, but in spite of the game). The game seems to foster cooperation. I think it’s a good game. The coolness factor of the rotating rings wears off, but I still feel like this is a good game. It has a vaguely Pandemic feel.

The Bad News: Ugh, the first game we lost felt very arbitrary. If you get caught by a guard once, you get sent back to your cell … at the middle of the board. And someone has to come rescue you. The first game felt like … stalemate. We were just about to escape (almost ALL Minotaurs were on on the board), and I got a stray minotaur in my space randomly. So, back to my prison I went. There’s no way my friends could go all the way back in and save me. Too many minotaurs. We knew we couldn’t win anymore, so we just quit.

That’s not good. Part of the reason we quit because the maintenance was unbearable: all the Minotaurs were out, 4 rings were spinning per turn, and it just wasn’t fun. We knew (as experienced gamers) we couldn’t save me and win, but we would have to “plod” and play it out. Nope. We just quit.

The second game (with a different group) was much more fun: I think that’s partly because we kept the Minotaurs and Lactates under control—there weren’t may of them. So, the maintenance didn’t weigh us down too much. Although it still got slightly annoying to go through 4 possible rotations every turn at the end.

Summary:

I like this game. I will play it again. I think CC and Junkerman would too. I think Kurt and Josh are on the fence, but Jeremy definitely won’t play it again.

It’s fun. I like the theme, I like the cooperative gameplay, but the maintenance on the rings and guards might turn you off (especially at end game).

We’re puttering along!

We’re over 50% We’re happy to have enough backers to put us over 50%  And we are still trending towards funding!  Things are looking good!

Kicktraq Link:

We are now live on Kickstarter! Watch out for those MondoMart types!

CO-OP: the co-op game link to Kickstarter!

One brave sole pointed out that a link to a previous rulebook is out of date.  The newest rulebook: version 9.0 (after many many rounds of editing!) is available here!

 

Please consider supporting us.

 

After months of design and development and test, we are ready to Kickstart CO-OP: the co-op game!  We’ve had many blog entries here in coopgestalt where we discussed decisions, playtesting, rules, and general development of the game.  We’ve had a few false starts, but we’re just about ready!

The official date we go live is November 15th.

Thanks to Bob Diven for the great art he’s given us!  Final Totals:

• 200 cards (63 Happenings, 99 Groove cards, 27 Goods cards,7 COOPERATE cards, 4 Locations)
• 18 Jumbo Cards (7 characters, 5 days of the week, 3 Game/Icon Summary, 2 Scenario cards, 1 Money Chart): all double-sided with content on both sides!
• 15 Markers (7 standees, 6 VIBE gems, 1 Money marker, 1 Happening Dude marker)
• 1 Rulebook (16 pages, 4.5″ by 8″)
• 1 Box (big enough to hold everything, small enough to fit in the USPS small flat rate box) about 5″ by 8.5″!

Special thanks to everyone who helped out!  It’s a long list, and I’m sure we’ve forgotten someone (not on purpose)!

Thanks to playtesters and helpers Anya and Robert, Chris M., Alan C., Kevin D. and family, Byron & Jenn H., Drew, J on S., Cynthia, Junkerman, Kurt D., John M., Mike H., Bob A., Sam K. and family, Lon F., Charlie C., Alison C., Clint J., Cary J., Audrie T., Stephan T., Leif T., Teresa F., Sara B., Ben P., Jon G., Robert C. and wife (Alison), Mark S., Nancy S., Madeline M., Adam N., Jeremy W., Dustin and wife, Robert S., Jeff H., Jeff Barr, Random, Jacob, Kylie, Scott S., Jeff, David H., Erin, and Robin. From UNPUB: Olivia, Max, Geoff, Sun, Katie, Rob, Ben, and Milo. Thanks to Bob Diven for the great art! Special thanks for Jenny J., Chris C., Josh M., Don W., Martha C., and Andrew A. for their extra support and help! A shout-out to “Isle of Games” for their support!

One of the better gaming events in Tucson is the Rincon Board Game Convention.  If you’ve never been, they have board games, RPGS, miniatures, card games, new prototypes, games for kids … almost any game you would want!

This year, we were able to get some playtesting in for CO-OP at the UNPUB mini event:

Thanks to all who attended and for some great playtesting!

And yes, they kinda looks like some of the characters from CO-OP …

… but I promise you, it wasn’t on purpose!

Seriously, all feedback was great!  Most, if not all problems, were because people came late to the event.  One remark was:

If I had set-up the game myself, I think a lot of my confusion would have gone away.

Another comment was:

I didn’t know when to play a card, but I realize that was because I was late and missed some of the rules.  The Game Summary card was really helpful!  Too bad I didn’t see it until after the game!

Everyone who filled out an UNPUB form said they’d play again and that they’d buy the game.  Unfortunately, I don’t know what the people who didn’t fill out forms think …

 

Mythos Tales was a very successful kickstarter, doing 5x it’s initial asking!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/8thsummit/mythos-tales

I am excited for it because it combines detective work with co-operative play in the genre/world of Arkham Horror (a perennial favorite at our games table, especially on Halloween).  It was described to me as Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective meets Arkham Horror.

My copy of Mythos Tales arrived just today. Super cool!   But my unboxing left me a very pleasant surprise! What’s that you may ask???  … wait and see!

First, the box opens up with a nice “Thank You” flyer (+errata). Very classy.

The game box has very nice artwork and is very high quality.

But what’s this underneath the gamebox?

I got candy! I think that is the coolest thing ever! Thank you 8th Summit games!  It’s amazing how such a little thing made me so happy. (I love Smarties).

I opened the actual gamebox and looked inside .. holy cow! So much stuff! I think this will be a deep, deep game that will last me years.

I like to savor stuff like this, so I am excited to play.

Watch for a review in this space after a deep play!

 

There are a lot of top 10 lists for co-operative board and card games, but I have noticed that they tend to rehash the same games over and over.

To that end, here is a list of my top ten “off the beaten track” co-operative board and card games.

10. Shadowrift:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/112092/shadowrift

I believe it was originally a Kickstarter, but I picked it up at my local  game store (the original edition).   This (at the time) was unique, as it was a co-operative deck-building game. The theme was simple: keep Haven Town from being overrun.

Shadowrift is hard to set-up, but once you get into it, it’s pretty fun. (I strongly recommend finding a youtube video for set-up: we liked this one).

Currently, there’s a second edition, but I only have the first. My friends and I always enjoyed it when we played it, so I have new reason to buy the new one. The newer edition has better components, but again, I was happy with the first.

9. The Isle of Dr. Necreaux:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42892/isle-doctor-necreaux

 

An interesting co-op card game, where splitting the party is a mechanic!

I don’t even think this game is in print anymore. I just adored this game: it has some interesting game play ideas: every turn, you decide how many “challenges” (cards) to flip. Too many and you get overwhelmed and “die”, too few and you won’t save the scientists/get off the island in time!

The FAQ is bigger than the rulebook, and there are some ambiguities. If you like rules very cut-and-dried, you won’t like this game. Fairly often in the game, you have to make a rules interpretation to move on; this can be fairly disconcerting to some gamers. But, for me, it was kind of thematic! “I’m on this weird island! How do I deal with this weird stuff?” You just deal with the weird stuff and move on.

I adored this game (I know I said that), but I can see why others might not like it. It’s worth checking out just to “split the party”; the fact that they have a mechanic for that is worth at least a few plays.

8. Agents of S.M.E.R.S.H:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/111105/agents-smersh

A fun co-op game with lots of immersive reading, originally a kickstarter.

Thematically, you are secret agents from the 70s. (Think Bond in the era of James Bond with Sean Connery, but much sillier).

This game was originally a kickstarter. I introduced it to a lot of my friends: they liked it so much they bought it themselves!  (I had the first edition, there is currently an updated 2nd edition).  It’s best described as Tales of Arabian Nights meets Pandemic and Arkham Horror. There’s lots of reading that can be very immersive: every turn, someone reads some text from a VERY big book about a secret agent challenge, and you either succeed or fail in the challenge. You move around a map, trying to squash Dr. Lobo and his minions before they destroy/take over the world!

One complaint I have heard about Tales of Arabian Nights is that it’s too random (and it really is!). If you like the idea of Tales of Arabian Nights, but want something with strategy, SMERSH is for you!
My friend Joe bought the game because the reading aspect is very helpful in his classroom: it seems to encourage kids to to read more.

My friends Charlie and Alison bought it because they loved the co-op nature and the flavor text is very immersive.

This is a fun game. It also has a sense of humor. (There’s at least 2 expansions, one is named “Swagman’s Hope”.)

7. Ygdrassil:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/71671/yggdrasil

 

A fun co-op set in Norse Mythos. Very hard, but very fun.  This game comes out a lot onto our table.  It seems to be a real crowd pleaser.

6. Arkham Horror:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15987/arkham-horror

A very big, very thematic Cthulu Mythos board game squarely set in town Arkham. It’s almost a role playing game, in that you play a character with abilities and equipment and stats, but it is  still “limited” to a board game (to keep some of the complexity down).

So, you might wonder, “How is this off the Beaten Path? Arkham Horror is an mainstream game!” Well, I was “shocked” how little presence Arkham Horror had at the Fantasy Flights board game center in Roseville MN (I got to visit when my wife and I visited her family). There was just a few copies of the game and the expansions. It didn’t seem like they were pushing it very much. It seems like the new generation of Fantasy Flight games is getting the love: Mansions of Madness, Eldritch Horror and Elder Sign.

I suspect that Arkham Horror has gone as far as it can, and Fantasy Flight is hoping to next generation of Cthulu Games will take hold.

My friend CC even thinks the newer games (esp. Eldritch Horror) are more modern and have slighly better mechanics (and he introduced me to Arkham Horror!).

But I’ll play Arkham Horror just about anytime. It has a special place in my heart: for my Bachelor Party, we played Arkham Horror and 6(!) expansions at the same time. EVERY SINGLE EXPANSION AT ONCE. To keep track of the different boards and rules, every player was responsible for one expansion.

I still think it’s a great game. If you like Role Playing Games, but just don’t have a DM or time to make up an adventure, Arkham Horror feels very much like an RPG while still being bounded. It’s a great game, if a little complicated.

To my mind, it’s the first real co-operative board game.

(And, I also loved it so much, I tried to get my Software Engineering course to implement it.)

5. Dead Men Tell No Tales:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/141423/dead-men-tell-no-tales

 

This was originally a kickstarter .

I am a sucker for co-op games, so I picked this one up. I also picked up a second copy for my friend CC (as a birthday present) because I knew his kids love pirates (and CC is the only person I know who likes co-ops as much as me).

CC, a bit of a connoisseur of games (and quite the designer), was really taken with the game. He thought the dice mechanic was interesting and original. I also noticed that the game was pulled out many times at one of my Las Cruces gaming groups. “Did you bring Dead Men Tell No Tales?”

It was a good gift and it is a good game.

4. Secrets of the Lost Tomb:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/150484/secrets-lost-tomb

This was originally a kickstarter.

For gameplay, it can be best described as Arkham Horror meets Betrayal at House on the Hill (but fully co-operative for the entire game). The theme is very Indiana Jones/Johnny Quest with exploration of crypts and tombs and defeating all sorts of evil creatures. In some ways, I like this better than Arkham Horror because each time you play, the scenarios are very different (with different win conditions,  set-up, etc) a la “Betrayal at House on the Hill”. The only problem with scenarios is that there are a finite number of them which may limit your replayabilty a little.
There’s a lot of pieces, but it’s lots of fun. There are TONS of expansions, but I still only have the base game, as I haven’t played through all the base scenarios yet.

A long game, but lots of fun if you like a lot of role-playing aspects in
a board game.

3. Say Bye to the Villains:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/140795/say-bye-villains

My friend Jeremy brought this over some time ago. I was skeptical: it’s a co-op that plays 3-8 players. 3-8?  We ended up playing a game with 7 people. And it was FUN! There are very few games that work well with 7 or 8 people, especially a co-op, and this one pulled it off. I am sad to say we haven’t played this as much as we should, but it was really fun.

I bought it the next day.  Part of the reason this one gets such high marks is because of the 3-8 players for a co-op.  So few have that now.

2. Big Book of Madness
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/171233/big-book-madness

This game is fairly new, and has hit our table quite a few times.  I suspect many of my friends may go and buy it they like it so much (CC already has!).  Check out our review and discussion of the game here.

I wonder … this game has quite a bit of “Parry Hotter” in it (I don’t want to get sued …), so I am curious how well the Harry Potter Deckbuilding game (out very soon) stacks up (no pun intended) against this.  Will the one that was developed with the IP work better?  Or will the “offshoot” be a better game?  Time will tell …

1. CO-OP: the co-op game
http://www.picklingtools.com/coop61.pdf

Hopefully, a kickstarter in the future.

This is a my own creation, which I have working on for about 9 months now. I still like playing this game! I like co-op games that are very puzzly, especially ones you can play by yourself or with others; that describes CO-OP to a T. I also like games with a sense of humour (The Secret of Monkey Island, Chez Geek, Munchkin, Agents of SMERSH, etc.) and I tried to instill humor into a game without sacrificing gameplay. I also find that some things are missing from a lot of co-operative board games, mainly “Why can’t you play in any order?”. If players control the order, they can make some neat combinations that can really move the game along (See this blog posting for what I call “The Fastball Special”).

So, I am hoping to take CO-OP to a kickstarter maybe at the start of next year. Be on the lookout!