What’s a party game? A party game is usually a casual game you can pull out with a fairly large group of friends and jump right into!  Many, if not most, of the cooperative party games we see are Cooperative Guessing games, where the players collectively guess something based on clues from a clue-giver! 

Surprisingly, the year of 2024 produced quite a number of cooperative party games! That’s right; cooperative party games! And most are Cooperative Guessing games! We saw some really good party games on the Top 10 Cooperative Party Games list … and here’s 10 more below just from 2024!

10. Word Traveller

Player Count: 2-5
Ages: 10+
Time: 30-45 Minutes
Type: Cooperative Guessing

Like many of the games on this year’s list, this is a Cooperative Guessing game!  In this game, a clue-giver will give word clues to “guide” the others around the board, trying to get to a destination on the board!

This feels a lot like the cooperative word guessing games Mystic Paths or Landmarks (see below), as you use words to imply directions to travel.  What makes this a little different is that the words you choose refer to tourist spots in the maps!  There are 4 maps in the game for London, Paris, New York City, and Tokyo!  See below for the map of London!

This is a real unique game and has some really neat idea in the crowded cooperative word guessing genre!  

9. Landmarks

Player Count: 2-10
Ages: 10+
Time: 20 Minutes
Type: Cooperative Guessing

Landmarks is a cooperative word guessing game where one player gives word clues, trying to guide the rest of the playing (cooperatively guessing) to water, treasure, and finally the exit!  This game is very similar to a game called Mystic Paths where players are moving across a map of hexes.

There’s also elements of Codenames in here, as the clue-giver has a hidden map as he tries to guide the players around the map!  

We have played this game with several groups, and it seemed to go over pretty well!  It takes a few plays to get the sense and spirit of the game, but once you do, it is fun.  Some people didn’t love this (because sometimes it was just too vague or the map is wonky), which is why it’s lower on this list.   The components are quite nice (with the cloth map and dry-erase hexes), and it was generally fun!

8. Adventure Party

Player Count: 3-8
Ages: 10+
Time: 20-60 Minutes
Type: Cooperative Guessing

This looks like a role-playing adventure game (see picture above), but it’s actually a role-playing game PARTY game!  It even says that on the cover! 

It’s quite silly as a game; a player will have to do an activity and then roll a 20-sided die (secretly) behind their character shield (see above).  The Berserker has to open the door; what does a “19” mean?  The player then roll-plays what they do (based on the number they roll) and the other player have to “guess” what the roll was on based on what they roll played!  It’s a silly game that just gets sillier as you play it!

In fact, it’s so simple to play this that the directions for how to play are summarized very well on the back of the box!   See above.  My friends and I had fun playing, pardon me, ROLL-PLAYING this silly adventure party game.

7. Message From The Stars

Player Count: 2-8+
Ages: 11+
Time: 45 Minutes
Type: Cooperative Guessing

So, this is another cooperative word guessing game, but it has elements of math and it is quite thinky.   I love this game because it’s so unique and interesting, but some people just bounced off it because of its weird blend of math and wordplay.

Players plays as two teams; a team of aliens trying to communicate with a team of humans!  Teams communicate single words to each other to establish some ideas!  What letters you use in your words matters, as well as what concepts/words you are trying to communicate!  It’s great fun with lots of deduction … if you grok the game.

This is a great game that can play 2-8+ people, and you can pull it out casually … once everyone knows how to play.  The biggest problem is that it takes some brainwork and time to figure out this game.  This is probably the most thinky game on this list, and why some people might not classify this as a party game .. which is why this is only #7 on this list, despite how good a game it is.  See our review of Message From The Stars here to see if you might enjoy this! (Remember, Codenames is classified as a party game, and it’s quite thinky too!)

6. Expressions

Player Count: 2-5
Ages: 14+
Time: 15 Minutes
Type: Cooperative Guessing

Many of the games on this list as cooperative word guessing games; this is a number guessing game!  This has a lot of deduction as players can either guess a card a player might be holding (like cooperative go-fish) or give a clue (which feels a little like The Crew).

This is basically a cooperative go-fish game with elements of deduction/clue-giving (ala The Crew).  It’s probably the second most thinky game on this list (after Message From The Stars).  But this is easy to pull out, quick to explain, and quick to play at only 15 minutes! It does take a few times to get the hang of it, but people seem to want to play again!

5. Da Da Da

Player Count: 2+
Ages: 8+
Time: 15-30 Minutes
Type: Cooperative Classification/Guessing

This is an odd duck of a game. Players take a bunch of black and white pictures and collectively classify them using only a few words, like “DA” and “BLUMP”.   Basically, the group is coming up with a language for describing shared traits using a few very simple words.  These few words are the ONLY communication that players are allowed!

In the first part of the game, the players collectively classify all the pictures together using only those few words (like “DA” and “BLUMP”) as they point and move pictures.  In the second part of the game, new pictures are introduced and the players have to try and figure out, using only the new language of those few words, the new thing.    As long as you have a group that doesn’t annoyingly repeat the weird little words ad naseum, this is a fun game … it’s almost a linguistics experiment!  

It sounds like it can’t work, but my group really enjoyed it!  This is one you might want to try before you pick it up; some people will be annoyed by it, some people won’t get it, but some people will love it!  Our groups loved it!  Maybe yours will too!

4. Link City

Player Count: 2-6
Ages: 8+
Time: 30 Minutes
Type: Cooperative Guessing/Classification

This is a game that I didn’t like as much as everyone else, but it was such a hit for everyone else, I had to put this on the list!   One player (the Mayor) puts city Locations out, and the other players have to guess where he would place them based on the locality to other Locations in the game!

The Mayor rotates every turn, so a new player has to decide what Locations go where!  It’s all about building the municipality, but with some real silly decisions!

My friend Kurt loves this game and we’ve played it a number of times when he has come to visit!  If this sounds like fun, I suggest you give it a try!  A bunch of people I know and like really like this game!

3. Spotlight

Player Count: 1-5
Ages: 6+
Time: 15 Minutes
Type: Cooperative Searching

This is such a neat game!  It’s a very simply premise as players search a shaded picture for certain figures, counting them up!   Each player needs to find them independently on their own sheet!  If they find “enough” together, they can stay ahead and win!

The sheer fun of this game is the clever sheets that are have darkened plastic.  When you place a white surface underneath, the picture comes apparent!  See the “fully darkened” picture above … and the picture with a white spotlight below!  

There is no batteries or magic technology here; it’s just a white surface underneath making the plastic easily viewable!

This game has worked really well in so many situations!  I have played with little kids (like 5 years old) and older adults, and big kids, and even though this “looks like a kid’s game”, people really love the Spotlight mechanism!  It’s just so cool!

2. Wilmot’s Warehouse

Player Count: 2-6+
Ages: 8+
Time: 30 Minutes
Type: Cooperative Memory/Cooperative Guessing

Wait, this is a cooperative memory match game?  Yes, and it works surprisingly well!  This is probably Sara’s favorite game of all the games on this list! 

Players draw tiles from a bag and cooperatively “come up with a story” for the shape and place it in the warehouse.

After placing a bunch of tiles down, players must try to cooperatively remember what tile was what by trying to match other tiles to it!  It’s wacky and the stories people come up are really funny!    It’s surprisingly goofy, but it’s really easy to explain and jump into! See our review here to see see why Wilmot’s Warehouse is much better than you expect!

1. That Escalated Quickly

Player Count: 2-8
Ages: 10+
Time: 15 Minutes
Type: Cooperative Guessing

This was a bit of surprise as our #1 choice for the best cooperative party games of 2024, but it just kept coming to the table all this year!  And we all loved it! Players get asked a silly question like: “What do you tell a vampire to get him to turn you?”  (See back cover above for more questions)  And then everyone gets 1 (or 2) cards from 1-10, and everyone has to answer that question so that 1 is least likely to get turned, and 10 is most likely! But without revealing their number! (Much like Adventure Party from earlier)

The guesser has to take all the answers and sort them from lowest to highest .. if they get them all in order, it counts as a point!  (You can have upto one mistake)  

Like all good party games, the points don’t matter, and you just keep playing, not really caring if you win or not!  This is a mass market party game from The Exploding Kittens people; I picked it up at Target, so it’s really easy to find!  Check it out!  Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as we did!