Tag: reviews

Burgle Brothers 3: Future Flip. A Solo and Cooperative Review

This is my official first true game of 2026! It came in mid January 2026!

Burgle Bros. 3: Future Flip is a cooperative exploration/grid movement game for 1-4 players. You and your fellows are doing a heist, but it’s in the future! You have to hack the main mainframe and get out to win! This was on Kickstarter in July 2024 and promised delivery April 2025; it arrived mid January 2026, so it’s more than a few months late.

This is definitely a little outside the theme of the previous Burgle Bros games!  Burgle Bros (the original) is a small game about doing a heist! The second one, Burgle Bros 2, was a bigger game, but still a casino heist!  See our review here of that.  Although this game, Burgle Bros 3: Future Flip has the same DNA, with floors to explore and tiles to flips and enemies to evade, it does feel a little different.

Let’s take a look!

Unboxing and Gameplay

This is an interestingly shaped box: see above for the curved corner!  The corner doesn’t seem to get in the way (I have opened and closed it multiple times and it hasn’t been a problem), so it does look cool but it doesn’t cause issues.  Also, see can of Coke for persepective.

Each player chooses one of the 10? 14? (if you got the Kickstarter, you got a few more characters) characters that comes with the game.  You’ll note that each character has a special ability, as well as number of actions (clock) and hand limit (hand).  This is a cooperative action point game; each player will get so many actions on their turn.

The wooden meeples correspond to the players.  Weirdly, they chose NOT to have the character cards be the same color as the wooden meeples?

In fact, if you aren’t careful, you may get flummoxed when you can’t find your character!  Where’s the character meeples for the two characters above???

It turns out each character has TWO sides: geared and disguised, and the meeples  ONLY correspond to the disguised side.  See above.  I am pointing this out because it might trip you up a little in your first play.   

Each character also has their own personal gear: note the little character symbol in the upper left of the gear cards.  These are special cards that are one-use abilities during the game.

There are also plenty of generic gear you can pick up after you hack a SysOp; it’s your reward for a successful hack!

The SysOps are various flavors (green, red, and OMEGA PROTOCOL): these are the baddies roaming the floors of the building trying to keep it under control.

The floors of the building are represented by neoprene mats; one for each floor!  And yes, I believe these come standard with all versions of the game!

The Patrol cards (above) control the movement of the SysOps: see above as they set the destination of the SysOp (D3 or D4).   Note that there is a different pile for each floor.

As the characters explore the floors, various tiles come out; see them above!

These are all kept in a nice bag (really, it’s nice and it fits all the tiles well).   The reason for the bag is that the tile you choose depends on either the floor you are on, whether your geared or disguised, or various other things!  This is different from other Burgle Bros games where you just put the tiles out and flip ’em when you PEEK or MOVE.  Here, in Burgle Bros 3, you have to draw a tile and flip it to the appropriate side!  And yes, that’s why it’s called Burgle Bros 3: Future Flip!

As the game unfolds, the floor unfurls and you can see where alarms, walkways, coridors, etc are.   

One of the most important things in the game is to stay out of the SysOps ways as they roam the floors!  Each player has some “cool” and some “stealth”. (eee above: the blue cube are “cool” cubes, and the masks are “stealth” tokens).  While you are cool, you are in your disguised mode but if the SysOps moves to you, you lose 1 or 2 cool cubes!  Once you “lose all your cool”, you flip to the geared side!  And now, when they move to you, you lose stealth! If you are ever reduced to zero stealth, ALL PLAYERS LOSE THE GAME!

The nice little summary cards list all the things the players can do: PEEK at a tile next to you (to avoid setting off an alarm maybe), MOVE to a tile and activate it (because you need to reveal stuff quickly), CHARM (to get some hack cards), LINK and SWAP (to share gear or hacks) or use your Tool.

What’s this CHARM thing??? That seems new???  You can CHARM the co-workers of the building (hey, most people don’t like working for evil corporations and will help you with a little coercion) to give you HACK cards.  Well, they are called PROGRAM cards, but these are the cards you use to HACK the SysOps!

To win the game, you have to HACK the final SysOp on the Mainframe space!  See two such evil baddies above!  Note how many Program cards you will need to hack the final SysOp!  (There are some other preconditions: both floors have to be in OMEGA PROTOCOL and you have to be on the Mainframe space and you have to have all the Program cards!)

Once the main SysOp has been hacked, if all players make it back to the Air Ducts (see above), we all win!  Shared victory!! If anyone loses all their stealth, we all lose!!

Really, this production is fantastic.  I feel like they fixed a few problem we had in Burgle Bros 2!  We’ll discuss that more in the What We Liked Section below.

Overall, great production.

Rulebook

This was a very good rulebook.

It gets an A on The Chair Test: the rulebook fits perfectly on the chair next to me, it stays open, and it has a big, easy-to-read font.   There are also plenty of examples and well-notated parenthetical boxes.  See above.

The Components list is what you want: pictures of all components with an annotation underneath,

The set-up is perfect; it spans two adjacent pages, so you can set-up without having to spill over into other pages!  It’s got a picture for set-up, and it’s well marked.

In general, this was a very good rulebook.

I am on the fence on wether this should have had an Index; this is a pretty straight-forward game, so I am not sure it needed one.  But it would have nice to have an Index to differentiate things like MOVE vs ENTER and a few other concepts.  The rules are all there, not always quite where I expected them, but they didn’t take too much time to find.

This was a good rulebook.

 

Solo Play

Interestingly, Burgle Bros 3 lists solo play as a Variant (see above)  But I loved this!  They specified the  solo mode perfectly.  This is how I want to play solo modes!  Two-handed solo!  Thank you !

See above as I am set-up for a solo (two-handed, playing two characters)!

Your characters start on the Air Duct space, getting ready to explore!

I have to admit, I didn’t enjoy my solo game.  Many, many times, I got stuck.  It’s clear you don’t want to go near the SysOps, because you lose cool/stealth.  Sometimes, you just get stuck in a corner; you could move over the SysOps, but then you lose your precious cool.   The overall theme for this game is patience.  Sometimes, your turn is almost nothing.  It’s unfortunate, if you don’t move on your turn, there’s usually very little you can do.   Sometimes you can CHARM, sometimes you can LINK/SWAP.  But many times your turn is “well, I’d better stay here or the SysOp will move over me”.

I lost my first solo game pretty badly.  I got stick in corners too frequently, and the luck of the dice and Patrol cards just went sour.

I was very frustrated.

 

Cooperative Game

The cooperative game went a little better, but not much.

The same problems that plagued the solo game plagued the cooperative game.  Sometimes, a character would just get stuck in a corner and couldn’t do anything.  They’d have maybe one viable action, but have to basically just waste their turn.  They’d get stuck because a KEYCARD space came out, or the pattern on the floor cornered a character, or the SysOps simply always was coming towards you!  It’s even harder to predict what the SysOp will do when 3 people play after you!  Will you lose your cool???

The best part of the game was the endgame.  Once all the tiles had been revealed, then we could be smart and try to figure how to get out of the building!  In the endgame, we had fun as we tried to puzzle out the best way to use the spaces on the board!!

Unfortunately, I didn’t like the process of GETTING to the endgame.   It just felt so  … reactive.  All we could do was “react” to the state of the board on our turn.  There was a little bit of strategy about where people might go, but sometimes the board layout or the SysOps pattern just stopped you from doing anything.  The game felt like … stuff was just happening to me and I could do very little about it.

I hate to say it, but the game just felt too random.

What I Liked

Rulebook: this is an amazing rulebook; it’s so well done.  The parenthetical notes were just icing on the cake!

Meeples: In Burgle Bros 2, we joked that puting the stickers on the meeples was a legacy game!  Don’t mess up the stickers!  Here, in Burgle Bros 3, they got it right: have the meeples come pre-noted.  See above.

Bag:  The bag is well-done.  It would be easy to screw up how this bag worked, but they didn’t.  it’s easy to pull tiles from it and “shuffle tiles” inside.

Neoprene Mats:   The neoprene mats work well, and they fit back in the box.  (This was another potential issue from Burgle Bros 2: the mats fit weirdly).

Two Share Actions!  I adore that there are TWO kinds of sharing actions!  If you are on the same space, you can SWAP!  If you are both far away, but on a LINK space, you can still share stuff!  Most cooperative games only have one notion of sharing, and I really really liked this!  In fact, it made the endgame so much more fun because we had multiple ways to get Program cards to people to do the final hack!  

Production: In general, the production is fantastic modulo one or two issues.

Endgame: Once all the tiles were out, you could be smart. I loved how the endgame played out.

What I Didn’t Like

Frustration.  Many times, you feel like you can’t do something on your turn.  Sure, you have to be patient, but it just felt there were too many turns where “the smart thing” to do … was to do nothing.  In fact, the frustration was so palpable in the cooperative game and I noticed us getting testy with each other.  I think this is a function of the frustration level!

Colors?  Why aren’t the character cards color-coded to match the meeples?   This seems a strange decision especially because the meeples are kind of small!  The color is the main feature you can see! Making the character cards all the same color makes it harder to distinguish who is who.

Reactions

Andrew liked this the best; he was always thinking of ways to get around stuff.  He gave this a 6 or 6.5, which is actually quite high for him.

Sara liked it okay, but she got frustrated a lot.  She gave the same rating: 6 or 6.5, maybe leaning towards a 6.

Teresa generally liked it.

Rich had to most trouble with it.  He found it too frustrating and too random.  The solo game he’d give a 5, and maybe maybe a 6 to the cooperative game.

 

Conclusion

Burgle Bros 3: Future Flip is an amazing production; the rulebook, the cards, the meeples, are all great.  In order to enjoy this game, you have to be patient.  You have to be able to suffer turns where you do nothing.  If that doesn’t sound like fun, you won’t enjoy this game.   In fact, the game can be down right frustrating when you get stuck.

The best part of the game is the endgame; if you can make it to the point where the board is unfurled, then you can be clever and win the game and get out!  Unfortunately, in order to get to that point, you have to suffer through the random flips and turns which may lead to frustration when you feel only reactive.

This game was a little divisive in my group; some people liked it, some people didn’t.  Hopefully this review will help you decide if this is for you.

The Case For Adding Player Selected Turn Order as a Mechanism to BoardGameGeek

For turn order in many traditional board games, many games use the simple tried-and-true model that “play proceeds clockwise around the table”. The turn order is dictated by where you sit. It turns out, in many modern cooperative games, we have seen a rise in a new mechanism called Player Selected Turn Order which changes this up!

What Is It?

Player Selected Turn Order is a mechanism by which players in a (almost always cooperative) game select as a group the order in which they take their turns. Players together choose the order of play within a turn! This cooperative mechanism gives the players more agency as they can choose the order in which they takes their turns, so as to reinforce another character, set-up another character for a combo, or just get out of another player’s way. Surprisingly, there is no official name for this mechanism!

We have written a few articles about the mechanism over the years:

  1. Player Selected Turn Order In Cooperative Games: This is a high-level article from many years ago surveying the landscape. See https://coopgestalt.com/2018/02/06/player-selected-turn-order-in-cooperative-games/. The same article was put on bgg, and there were some interesting follow-ups. https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1934592/player-selected-turn-order-in-cooperative-games
  2. Fastball Special: This is an article discussing why something like Player Selected Turn Order is necessary in cooperative games so you can set-up combos like Wolverine and Colossus’ Fastball Special: see https://coopgestalt.com/2016/07/15/fastball-special/
  3. Seven House Rules For Cooperative Games: This is article talking about some House Rules which make some games more fun; #7 is Adding Player Selected Turn Order to a Cooperative Game. See https://coopgestalt.com/2020/09/20/seven-house-rules-for-cooperative-board-and-card-games/

A game that most people know with Player Selected Turn Order (even if that’s not what they call it) is Marvel Zombicide: Heroes’ Resistance. In this game, the players control 4 Marvel heroes (always 4 heroes), and the heroes are allowed to go in any order they want.

“Spider-man gets out of the way so Hulk can smash! If Hulk smashes enough, Wasp can move and attack other zombies, otherwise, she can finish off the the zombies that will eat J. Jonah Jameson!”

By allowing the players to choose the order they activate their heroes, they can strategize together and also react to the results of the previous heroes’ turn! They can plan strategies and back-up strategies by choosing the order the Heroes play.

  • Player Selected Turn Order makes sense in solo games as well as cooperative games; for example in Heroes’ Resistance, the game requires that there always be 4 heroes in play, so the solo player gets to make activation order choices just like the cooperative game.

Coarse-Grained vs Fine-Grained

There are two flavors of Player Selected Turn Order: coarse-grained and fine-grained. The difference only shows up when a player can do multiple actions on their turn.

Consider Heroes’ Resistance: each hero gets 4 actions to perform on their turn, but they must complete all 4 actions before the next player can go!! This is coarse-grained Player Selected Turn Order: each players must take take their entire turn before the next player can do anything. It is called coarse-grained because the turns are “coarse” and large; all actions must be taken before proceeding.

In games with fine-grained Player Selected Turn Order, each hero gets some number of actions, but these actions can be interspersed among the players!

An example of a game with fine-grained Player Selected Turn Order is Set A Watch: Forsaken Isles (or any of the Set A Watch games). In these games, each player rolls some dice, and each die can be “activated” to do something (used for damage or activating a special power). When it is the players’ turns, they can choose to activate a die in whatever order they want! The Golem can take out the front heavy hitter with his 12, and he can keep going, or let someone else go. Maybe after everyone else has gone, the Golem can use his last two dice to play clean-up! It’s up to the players to decide the order they will activate their dice (or powers)! No one has to “complete a turn”, players just activate their dice in any order they want!

Basically, with fine-grained Player Selected Turn Order, the actions of the players can be interspersed however they want; there’s no notion of a player completing their turn before another. See above as each character has 3 dice to activate, and they can be activated in whatever order the players’ choose!

It’s called fine-grained Player Selected Turn Order because the player’s full turns are broken up into a finer sub-actions, and these sub-actions can be activated in any order the player’s choose.

No Official Mechanism?

Given how prevalent cooperative games are now, and given how many modern cooperative games have Player Selected Turn Order, it’s surprising that BoardGameGeek (the world’s authority and go-to place for board games) has no notion of this mechanism when it describes game!

When you go the mechanisms of a game, say Heroes’ Resistance (see link here or picture above), you’ll see no notion of Player Selected Turn Order for this game! It’s Cooperative, has Variable Player Powers, but … does it have Player Selected Turn Order? We happen to know it does, but it’s not clear from the mechanisms page!

Proposal

We’d like to propose that BoardGameGeek add the Player Selected Turn Order to their list of mechanisms so that cooperative and solo games can list it! It probably makes sense to add both Player Selected Turn Order (fine-grained) and Player Selected Turn Order (coarse-grained) since they are technically important sub-genres of Player Selected Turn Order!

In the next section, we document about 30+ modern cooperative and solo games that have Player Selected Turn Order (with notes of fine-grained vs. coarse-grained, if known). This is definitely an incomplete list that we will keep adding to! We also include links back to some of our original reviews so that we “document” that the game has Player Selected Turn Order.

Some Games With Player Selected Turn Order

Arkham Horror: The Card Game. See bgg link here.
Battle For Greyport: coarse-grained PSTO. See link here.
Chronicles of Light: coarse-grained PSTO. See link here.
CO-OP: The co-op game: coarse-grained PSTO. See link here.
Daedaelus Sentence: fine-grained PSTO. See link here.
Darkest Night (1st Edition): coarse-grained PSTO. Currently the earliest example of PSTO? See bgg link here.
Descent: Journeys Into the Dark: coarse-grained PSTO. See bgg link here.
Etherfields: fine-grained PSTO. Thanks to Hans
Fateforge: fine-grained PSTO. Thank to Hans
Hacktivity: fine-grained PSTO. See link here.
Invincible: The Hero-Building Game: fine-grained PSTO. See link here.
Mansions of Madness: coarse-grained PSTO. See bgg link here.
Marvel Zombies: Heroes’ Resistance: coarse-grained PSTO. See link here.
Marvel Zombies: X-Men Resistance: coarse-grained PSTO. See link here.
… and so many Zombicide games
OathSworn: fine-grained PSTO. Thanks to Hans
Paleo: coarse-grained PSTO. See link here.
Reckoners: fine-grained PSTO. See link here.
Sammu-Ramat: fully coarse-grained PSTO in solo mode, stilted in cooperative mode. See link here.
Secrets of Zorro: fine-grained PSTO. See link here.
Sentinels of the Multiverse RPG: coarse-grained PSTO.
Set A Watch: fine-grained PSTO. See link here.
Set A Watch: Doomed Run: fine-grained PSTO. See link here.
Set A Watch: Forsaken Isles. fine-grained PSTO. See link here.
Set A Watch: Swords of the Coin: fine-grained PSTO. See link here.
Sharknado: I don’t think this ever came out? See link here.
Space Cadets: Away Missions: coarse-grained PSTO. Thanks to Scott R.
Slay The Spire: fine-grained PSTO. See link here.
Spark Riders 3000: fine-grained PSTO. See link here.
Spirit Island. fine-grained, as players play. See bgg link here.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre Slaughterhouse: coarse-grained PSTO. Thanks to Edgar
Viticulture World: coarse-grained PSTO (a little stilted like Sammu-ramat). Thanks to Lon.

Are there any we are missing?

Crime Unfolds: How Do You Express That?

Welcome back to Detective Month!  Last week, we looked at the storybook cyber-noir detective game of LA-1!  This week, we take a look at the Escape Room game of Crime Unfolds!  A Pop-Up Escape Game 3D: Immersive Crime Game!

Every few months, my friends Charlie and Allison and I get together to play games … usually Escape Room games! They are my Escape Room buddies! This month, we are trying out the Crime Unfolds cooperative Escape Room game! Nominally, we are detectives solving a crime!

We’ll discuss our first impressions and thoughts on the Crime Unfolds system. It also brings up a few questions to ask yourself about Escape Room games. Why do you like them? Or maybe … Why do you dislike them?

Requires an App

Crime Unfolds requires an app!   That is maybe the first thing you should know.  Some people love Apps with their Escape Room games, and some people don’t.  It’s really not clear by looking at the book that this requires an App.  It’s not a big deal, as Charlie went and got one real quick.

There are 6 cases interspersed in this game.  We started with case 1.  We also, like many escape room games, started with lots of “random stuff we know will be useful later”.

 

Solve The Puzzle vs. Express the Answer

Over the course of one night. Charlie and Allison and Richie embarked on the first case!  It’s supposed to take an hour … it took us more than two hours.  And we are experienced Escape Roomers?? What Gives?

The problem we had over and over was not “how we do we solve the puzzle” but “how do you express the solution”?  We easily solved a bunch of the puzzles, but inputting into the app was the main hurtle!

For example: At one point, we had “shifted” away from a screen that had the arrows for directionality, so we thought we had to express NSEW via UP/DOWN or North/South/East/West using letters on the command line?  We lost at least 15 minutes … when we realized the App had those arrows in another screen.  It was very frustrating!  We had solved the puzzle, but the app had made is less than intuitive to enter.

We were pretty frustrated after this game, but after thinking about it overnight, I have come to realize that most puzzle games are like this!  You have to do two things:

  1. Solve the puzzle
  2. Express The Solution

Solving the puzzle is usually the funner part, and some games make it very easy to express the solution.  We loved Doomensions (see our review here), as expressing the solution was easy; it always took the same form as a 3 or 4 digit code.    Here in Crime Unfolds, the solution expressed itself in so many different ways! Sometimes it was interacting with some widgets on the app!  Sometimes it was saying the right thing at the command line interface!  Sometimes it pressing the right buttons!  

Our frustration with Crime Unfolds was how to express the solution!  Many times during the game, we felt like we solved the puzzle, but couldn’t move forward because the solution wasn’t expressed in the way we expected it!

After cogitating on this some more, I realized this expressing the solution can be just as interesting as solving the puzzle!  To express your solution, you have to change your perspective!! What’s the best way to express this solution?  What’s the most thematic way to express this solution?  What’s the perspective of the player in the game?  All of these contribute to different ways to express the solution.   To be fair, sometimes the expression of the solution is poorly done, and that’s just a frustration of this genre.  I think if you reset your thinking that expressing the solution is part of the puzzle, then it can less frustrating. I realize how hard it can be to do in the heat of the moment, so it’s easy to say this. 

To enjoy Crime Unfolds, you will absolutely have to enjoy thinking about new ways to express a solution to a puzzle.

 

Pop-Up Cool!  But You Need A Magnifying Glass!

One of things that was very cool about Crime Unfolds was the pop-up scenes that came out of the book!  It turns out 6 rooms in the book, and you take a turns visiting some of these rooms in each case.  They look really cool!  See above!

Unfortunately, some of the text/symbols on the board are hard to read!  At one point, Charlie went and got his “fine work” magnifying glasses/helmet!  We also used our phones to zoom in so we could see things!  

The pop-up stuff works well, but be aware that you may have to really zoom on the board.  There is just a little bit of “Where’s Waldo” and “I can barely see that” in this game.

 

Conclusion

Did we like Crime Unfolds?  Yes and no.  We only played one case, but we think it is fairly representative of what this game is.  The pop-up system works and has a very “toy” and “fun” factor to it; that was something we definitely liked.   We liked solving the puzzles but found expressing the solutions frustrating.  I think, upon further reflection, that if you go into the game knowing expression the solutions is PART of the puzzle, that might help make that more enjoyable.   

I hope I can talk Charlie and Allison into playing more cases from this book; I think there’s some fun puzzles here, but I hope we can just get over the frustrations when expressing the puzzle solutions.

 

The Peak Team: Solo and (kinda) Cooperative Review

The Peak Team is a cooperative game for 1-5 players.  This feels like a pick-up and deliver game, as you traverse a map trying to reach flags; strictly speaking,  BGG doesn’t classify this as a pick-up and deliver (see here) but more hand management and pattern movement.

It’s also odd that the BGG entry lists the name of the game as The Peak Team, but the cover clearly seems to show The Peak Team Rangers?  Shrug?

This is a game about players working together to traverse a map and find animals!  The first few games, we joked, were like Pokemon!  Find them all!  You are traveling around a map to complete missions and, along the way, record seeing some animals!  A very fun theme!

Let’s take a look!

Unboxing

The box is a little smaller than normal; see above (with Coke Can for scale)

There are two rulebooks; basic rules and then advanced manual: see above.

There’s a little bit cardboard to punch out.  The carabiner hooks are pretty thematic for a game about traversing the wilderness.

There’s a really neat map: it has two sides!  One side for 1-3 players, one side for 4-5 players.  The map is easy to read and well-notated.

The most important piece in the game are the Supply Cards!  See above. These are nice linen-finished cards that are the heart of the game; they are multi-use cards that players discard for actions.

There’s simple Missions cards which note Missions a ranger might be undertaking.

There’s also some nice player aids.  Note that this game has 5 levels (!) of play.  We’ll discuss that later.

There’s some player mats (above) with unpunched tokens.

There’s some neat little wooden flags, wooden player tokens, and wooden marker.  These really look nice on the board. See above.

Overall, the components are pretty great; they are easy to-read, well-notated, and have a fun zingy quality to them.

Rulebook

We need to get this out of the way; this is one of the worst set of rulebooks I have read in a while.  They have three major failings.

First of all, these rulebooks completely fail the Chair Test!  Each rulebook is some sort of weird multi-fold rulebook that is impossible pull apart.  It’s not a rulebook with staples; it’s 4 pages in a weird quad-fold.  This is SO HARD to access!  I can’t really set it on the chair next to me, it totally droops!  The font is pretty small, so that doesn’t help.  It does have a lot of pictures, but that doesn’t save it.  This rulebook is almost unusable.    I can’t emphasize enough how horrible this form factor is.

Secondly, splitting this up into two rulebooks seems a weird choice.  The solo rules are in the second rulebook, but the solo mode requires you knowing all about how base game plays.  Each of these rulebook is clunky enough with it’s weird quad-fold, but now, when I go looking for rules, I have to scan two horrible quad-fold rulebooks?

I think abstractly, I like the idea of slowly building game that gets harder and harder, but breaking all those rules into two rulebooks (with rule text scattered everywhere) just makes it that much harder to learn.

Finally, the rules just seem poorly organized and missing some edge cases.  I feel like they did everything they could to make the rules on as few as pages as possible, with a tiny font, and tiny examples you can barely read.  And the solo mode is the worst; the way they solo rules are set out, you can’t “really” play the solo mode until you absorbed ALL the rules of the 5 base games.   The solo mode was just so poorly specified, I had to just make a few judgement calls to move forward.

Let’s be clear: most of the rules are in the rulebook (modulo a few edge cases), so you can pick-up these rules and get through a game.   The set-ups and components lists are fine.

This was a horrible set of rules: the form-factor was terrible, the decision for multiple rulebooks seemed a mistake, and the poor organization was frustrating (especially the solo mode).  BUT you can learn the game.

Once you know this game, you can look back on learning the game as a distant nightmare.  I got through it.  Done.

The real question is; once you know the game, is it a good game?  That’s an interesting question!

Gameplay

The crux of the game is going around the board trying to get your missions (notated by a flag on the board) done.  You get your mission done by moving to your flag.

You discard supply cards to move along paths (each card tells you which path you can take and how far: see above).  These are multi-use cards; you can also discard the card to “record” an animal!  Find them all!!!

You can see a game in mid play (above) as the flags notate where each ranger needs to go!  And you can also see the paths: each one different.  The colors of the Locations indicate which animals are in the area; if you have an animal card of the right color for your spot, you can discard it and see it!

To win, you need to get all your missions done AND see all the animals!

The game graduates from level 1 to level 2 to level 3 to level 4 to level 5!  Each new level adds new mechanism(s) which make the game more challenging: more bad stuff, more good stuff, more mechanisms, more choices!  By the time you get to level 5, you are playing the full game with Special Missions, Weather Events, special Powers, Wildlife with special powers, and road blockers!

Solo

So, The Peak Team does have a solo mode; thank you for following Saunders’ Law!  See above as the Advanced Manual has an entire section on it.

Unfortunately, this solo mode is a “variant” of the base game: you have to read the full rules for the base game (for ALL FIVE LEVELS) to play the solo game.   See above! This was very frustrating.   I muddled through the base game rules for level 1 and had to figure out which rules did/didn’t apply for the solo game.

The solo rules are there (see above) and I did get through them, but the experience with this rulebook was (again) sub-optimal.

The solo game has the solo player take control of 3 rangers on the board.  See above.

The solo player then puts out a grid of 12 cards (3×4 for row-major).  See above.  This is a shared hand (among all three rangers) for the rangers to do stuff.  Note how you can see some of the cards, but not all of them!  The hidden cards will be revealed as you take other cards below, but you still have enough information to make some plans (as you can see the cards at the top).  Cards MUST be taken from the bottom of some column to play it.

The game starts with each ranger having a starting mission; they need to go to that Location to complete their Mission!

To get more missions, some ranger has to end his turn on Ranger station, and then Missions can be doled out. Note that each ranger can “only” have two missions at a time!

Once the solo player decides he’s done, he can stop and go to the next round, exposing new missions.   Remember, however, that all missions must be completed to win, so the missions simply move up to the next day!  And if too many missions are unsolved between rounds, you also lose.

The solo player soon learns to do the bare minimum to not take any penalties, because he can keep cards from previous round!  See above: We have an extra card leftover from the previous round, so the next round will have 13 cards (instead of 12) to be able to do more!

You start the game of Level 1, the simplest mode.  Once you feel comfortable with that game, the next level adds a few rules and makes the game more challenging.   I generally played about two per games per level; the first game was a learning game where I wold lose horribly, but then the second game typically felt like a comfortable win.  I think I played 12 games overall in the solo mode!

I want to make sure this is clear; I wanted to play all those 12 games in the solo mode!  This was a real fun solo mode!  I felt like I had lots of choices (but see House Rules below for more discussion), and I really enjoyed traversing the board to get all my missions done!  There’s a lot of fun decisions; When do I travel?  Who travels?  Do I discard 4 symbols to get a wild so I can force a travel?  Do I pick up an animal because I am here, or do I wait?  Should I force a completed mission so I can have space for a future mission?  Because I am making decisions for 3 different rangers on the board, it always felt like some of the cards I had were useful to at least one of them!! But, it goes without saying that the game is definitely subject to the whim of the cards you get.

It turns out, because this rulebook is such a stinker, that I played a lot of rules wrong.  As I played my 12 games, I’d realize “Oh, I got that wrong” and “Oh, that seems dumb”.  By the time I played my 12th game, I think I had the rules correct.  But I also realized places I cheated, and frankly, some of my cheats made the game more fun.  I’ll note those in House Rules below.

I liked this solo mode a lot.  I was excited to show my friends the cooperative mode!

Cooperative Mode

So, in many ways, the cooperative mode is a very different game than the solo game.

Each player takes the role of ONE ranger and will only have 4 cards to “do something” (keeping leftovers from previous rounds)   The cooperative game uses a form of cooperative drafting; each player gets 4 cards to distribute, passing 2 cards to their left and 2 cards to their right.   During this drafting phase, there is NO TALKING.  So, each player has to just look at the 4 cards they get, then try to decide what your neighbors need.  See above as Teresa passes 2 cards to me (her left neighbor) and 2 cards to Sara (her right neighbor).

Note: This is the same number of cards (4 x the number of rangers) as the solo game, but now the cards are evenly distributed among the players for their turns.

Abstractly, I thought this cooperative drafting would be a really neat idea!  But what happened was that me and my friends got very frustrated quickly.  First of all, there was no communication, so each player had to make choices for their friends.  What if it was the wrong choice?  I am now choosing what cards my compatriots play!  Let’s be clear; this means I AM BEING TOLD WHAT TO PLAY.  Because I have no choice in what cards I get, I have to play what I get.  Sure, this is a cooperative game.  Sure, my friends want to help me. But when I am playing, I feel like I lost some agency along the way; I can only play what I was given!  Even worse, what if my friends had terrible cards?

In the solo game (see above), I could usually apply my cards to at least one of 3 rangers on the board.  But now, in the cooperative game, each player is stuck with ONLY 4 cards, and may have a turn where they can do absolutely nothing.  With one ranger and four cards,  each player is much more at at the whim of the deck.

And what if my friends, when drafting, chose different paths for me?  My friends can’t talk, so they might choose different directions for me to go!  This feels like a dysfunctional family!  We can’t talk about what we can do, so we just do something.  That’s really not fun.

Another interesting part of the cooperative game; each player has a wild action, but you can’t use it directly; only your compatriots can use it (by asking).  You can always refresh your token by discarding 4 symbols.  It was kind of neat that you had this option asking someone else, but it was just so expensive to refresh.

So, my friends and played two Level 1 games one night.  We lost horribly the first game.  And frankly, we only did a little better the second game.  Nobody really wanted to play any more.

Besides the dysfunctional nature of the limited communication, we often found ourselves either overly constrained or simply at the whim of the cards and couldn’t do anything.

Overly And Arbitrarily Constrained

What do I mean by overly and arbitrarily constrained?  It often feels like you only have one choice or no choices many times during the game.

For example, when playing the Missions from a Ranger Station, you choose a person to take the mission and THEN choose the next mission!    You simply are stuck with the missions in the order given!  First of all, this severely limits your choices.  Second of all, it doesn’t seem thematic … I am at the ranger station giving out missions: I can’t see them all?  This just feels like an arbitrary constraint that does nothing but increase the randomness and make the game harder.

Another place: I can only have one animal token (with possibly special powers) at a time.  Why?  This seems like an arbitrary constraint just to force you to use the other animal powers before getting more, even if they aren’t useful.  It just seems like you have to “throw away” some animal tokens sometimes just to get the power of the next one.  What a waste!  I can’t even have two of these tokens at a time?  Dumb!

Another place:  For quite some time, I was under the impression that you could discard an animal to get it because the rules said “if you are on a location in the same region”.  My original reading of this was regions like in Pandemic Iberia, so that at (for example, see above) Location 6 I could get EITHER the deer or the lynx!  Nope!  It’s the color that makes that determination (and it is in the rulebook) … even though 6 is in BOTH the regions.  I think this an artificial constraint; couldn’t it have been BOTH?  Give me more choice, don’t take choice away!!!!

Another place: The ranger station can only pass out missions at the end of the turn if you end there.  ONLY AT THE END.  If someone is on a ranger station, can’t you just distribute missions?  If someone is on a Ranger station at the start of their turn, what if that were their turn?  So, now to get missions distributed, you have to waste turns making sure someone ENDS their turn on a Ranger Stations when thematically, it seems like it should be an entire turn, or also be the start of the turn.   This one really made me mad; it seems very arbitrary.

House Rules

For the solo game, because the rules were so bad, I ended making a lot of calls to just move forward.  As I played more and more and understood the rulebook better, I got to know what the rules really were.   The more I learned the rules, the more annoyed I became with the game because of the arbitrary and overly restrictive constraints.  Here’s some House Rules that made the game more fun.

  1. If any Ranger is at a station, they can distribute missions.  It does not have to be the end their turn there.
  2. If you plan to distribute 3 missions, you may look at 3 missions and then decide how to distribute them.
  3. (optional) you can have at least 2 animal tokens with abilities

These are really House Rules more for the solo game.  This is (mostly) how I played the solo game, although I did play by the rules at the end … and I enjoyed the game a lot less when I played the rules they way they were meant to be played.

I have to admit, I think the cooperative mode just didn’t work for my group at all, so I don’t know if house rules would fix this game for me and my friends.

Conclusion

I am surprised how poorly the cooperative game of The Peak Team went for my group; so much so, that I can’t really recommend the cooperative game.  The dysfunctional communication rules and artificial and restrictive constraints just frustrated my group.  I can’t really call this a full review, because we never even got past level 1.  But it’s hard to move on to later levels when none of my friends thought the cooperative game was fun; they didn’t want to play again! My group was pretty unanimous with 5/10 for the cooperative game.

The solo game, on the other hand, was quite fun!  I found myself playing over and over and over and having fun playing 12 games to get to Level 5 of the game!  I “accidentally” had some House Rules (because the rulebook is so bad) that made the game more fun; with my House Rules, I’d probably give this an 8/10.  As-is, the solo game is still fun, but it’s too artificially and overly constrained, so it would be 7/10 as written; still enjoyable, but could be better.

I wanted to like this more.  I can’t recommend the cooperative game, but maybe that’s just my group.  Maybe you and your group will like it better.

Does Adding Zombies Make Everything Better? A Review of Good Dog, Bad Zombie (Solo and Cooperative)

Welcome back to 2026! This is the last of the games on the cusp of 2025/2026! We received Good Dog, Bad Zombie in late December 2025, but we couldn’t get it to the table until January 2026! So, we are considering this a 2026 release for our internal lists!

I have a friend CC who once conjectured that “Adding Zombies to anything makes it better!” He has since recanted this absolute, but it does bring up the question: does adding zombies to a game with cute dogs work?

Good Dog, Bad Zombie (Second Edition) is a cooperative pick-up and deliver game that was on Kickstarter back in May 2024. It  promised delivery in March 2025; it was about 9 months late.    I had backed this because it looked fun, but I didn’t know anything about the first edition of the game.

My copy (with some expansions) arrived in late December, but I couldn’t get it to the table until January 2026.

Let’s take a look!  We’ll only look at the base game.

Components and Gameplay

Good Dog, Bad Zombie comes in a smallish box: see Coke can above for scale.

Each player takes the role of one dog saving the humans!    

Each dog has its own personality and special powers which make it unique.  Interestingly, this special power can only be activated by a certain instant card in the game.

Note that there are a lot of dogs to choose from!  Each player gets a dog standee and a sheet.

This is a pick-up-and-deliver game where dogs have to find the humans and guide them back to Central Bark (yes, you heard me, Central Bark).  See the board above.

The bones on the map indicate clues about where the humans are!  The dogs have to traverse this post-apocalyptic city full of zombies and SNIFF at the locations with bones to find a human!

Once a dog SNIFFS at a Location, “something happens!”   The player reads the card apropos to the location and either makes a choice or has to roll a 20-sided die!

Most of the time, the human appears right where the dog was SNIFFING and then the dogs can guide that human back to Central Bark!! See above as the dog and human (yellow) are just one space away!  Just make sure to keep Humans away from Zombies!

There’s a couple of ways to get the stupid humans to safety at Central Bark!  The dog can BARK at them to move (see the BARK card middle above) or HERD them and move with them (see the HERD cards left and right).  The iconography is very clear … and kinda funny.  The HERD action has a sheep icon and the BARK action has a dog barking; they are very clearly notated.

To get stuff done, each dog has two action per turn.  They can RUN (to move one space), LICK (to get two more cards), SNIFF (to look for a human at a bone) or play a card (which allows them HERD, CHEW, BARK, RUN far, and a few other things).

This is a pick-and-deliver game as dogs have to “pick-up” humans and deliver them to Central Bark!  It’s kinda funny that you can either HERD humans or BARK at humans to move them … which is a little different than most pick-up-and-deliver games!

If a dog DOES deliver a human to Central Bark, the dog gets a thank-you bonus from the humans: see some above.

Of course, there are zombies to slow you down.  The dogs can, thematically CHEW on the zombies to get rid of them, BARK at the zombies to move them away, or HERD them off the cliffs or rivers to get rid of them!   

Unfortunately, every turn brings a new Zombie into town … the players roll the 20-sided die and that’s where a a new Zombie appears!  See the numbered locations above!

The zombies really start piling up later in the game (see above).  Whenever a new zombie appears on a Location with a zombie, that line of zombies all move over one space  towards Central Bark … which may cause a Zombie to move into Central Bark!  Now, of course the dogs can deal with the Zombie on their home turf, but every time that happens … the  dogs to become more feral!

To win Good Dog, Bad Zombie, the doggies need to save 6 humans before the dog pack turns feral!  (See Human track above).   The Feral Track (also above) increases every time a zombie invades Central Bark or startles a dog (appears on a dog)!   Basically, the dogs stop caring about humans if they become feral! 

The components are cute and everything is well-notated.  Some people may not like the art, but I think the dogs in particular are pretty cute and thematic.    The art fits the vibe of the game, which is kinda cute and not-too-horrific zombies.

Rulebook

The rulebook is good.

The rulebook gets an A on The Chair Test: It opens up and stays open on the chair next to me, the fonts are big and readable, and the pages don’t droop over.  It’s very easy to consult this rulebook on the chair next to me.

The Introduction and Components are well-labelled; there are pictures with annotating text for all the components.

The set-up is well-done: it’s across two adjacent pages, so it’s easy to leave the rulebook open while you set this up.  

Everything is well-labelled in the book (even using alternating colors in a table when describing the actions: see above).

And the rulebook ends with a nice Reference page.

I had no problems with this rulebook. There’s no Index, but this game is simple enough to not need one.

Solo Play

So Good Dog, Bad Zombie does have a solo mode: see above!  Congratulations for following Saunders’ Law!  See above for a list of exceptional rules for the solo mode.

Unfortunately, it’s not the way I choose to play this solo.  First of all, it’s not a true solo mode: you would have to have two dogs in play but then they share a hand.   There are a few more exceptions; it’s not a big deal, but I would rather just play this two-handed solo, like a 2-Player game.

One of the purposes of solo play for me is to learn the game game so I can teach the game to my friends. The more exceptions and changing rules there are for the solo game, the less useful the solo mode is for me.  In this case, it’s probably easy enough to use their solo mode, but as it is, it’s just easier for me to play solo as two-handed solo: play two 2 dogs, and alternate between them as if I were playing a 2-Player game.   

I had a fine time playing this solo.  The dogs are cute, the dog cards are cute, and the actions seem very thematic (LICK, SNIFF, RUN, BARK, HERD, CHEW).  I learned the game quickly.  I didn’t need need more than one game to learn this solo … it’s pretty easy to learn.

I don’t know how often I’ll come back to the solo game; it’s pretty random.  That 20-sided that gets rolled at the end of every turn can be brutal and harsh, or just lucky.  A few bad rolls and the game can be over very quickly.    It might be too light for me for a solo game that I revisit.

I could see maybe, maybe, while I am waiting for some friends, playing a quick game of this solo. It is quick: The box says 45-60 minutes; it seems more like 30 minutes in a solo game.

Cooperative Play

My friends jumped right into this game: they loved the cute dogs.  We played a 3-Player and 4-Player game.

The luck turned on us quickly; we started with a simple game, but still just barely won!  That 20-sided die just turned against us!  If we started even a little harder, we probably would have lost.  Again, this is just because we rolled badly when we spawned zombies.

The thing is; we had fun.  It’s such a light and simple game and it’s very cute: it’s easy to pull out and teach.

Each player’s turn is fairly quick and there’s not a lot of Alpha Playering.  The cooperation comes mostly from talking about what the dogs should do (high-level cooperation), as this is mostly a multi-player solitaire game: each player does their own thing.  But there is a HOWL mechanism that allows you to generate cards for other players!  This can be critical for saving those dumb humans!  “I don’t have a HERD or BARK to save my human! Can someone please HOWL so I can maybe get one???”  It’s not a major mechanism, but it does help encourage a little more cooperation.

We all had fun saving the humans.   

Things You May Like

Ease of everything!: The game is quick, it’s easy to set-up, it’s easy to teach, it’s easy to play.  It’s simple enough to get into quickly, but there is some cooperation in either high-level discussions or HOWLs. 

Cute. The dogs components are super cute, especially if you like dogs.

Adding/Subtracting Players: At one point, we just “added” Andrew into our game halfway into it because we just can!  The game is self-balancing (as each player always does some good stuff, then always adds a zombie), so you just add a new player and start playing!  This is a phenomenal attribute for a game!  This means you can play this at a convention, and not worry about adding/subtracting players!

Things That You May Dislike

Some art: Some people may not like the art of the board and think it looks like a 10-year old made it.  I liked it and thought it was thematic and fun, but it may really turn some people off.

Randomness: The game has a high-degree of randomness depending on what that 20-sided rolls every turn.  You may get unlucky and have zombies marching into Central Bark every turn, or you may get lucky and have the zombies always appear pretty far away.  It really depends on how you roll? 

Conclusion

I liked Good Dog, Bad Zombie and so did my friends.  It’s easy to set-up, teach, play, and tear-down.  Even though the game can be a little random, it’s a quick game … so even if you get screwed, it won’t take up your entire night.  And it’s still fun.

The two best scenarios for playing this game are probably:
1) An end-of-the-night or “I-am-brain-fried” game.  You just want a simple game to play with your friends, and even if you are a little tired, this is a great simple game to get out.  It’s cute and fun.

2) Convention Game.  You are playing in a situation where people may come and go quickly.  It’s very easy to add/subtract people from the game.

Overall, we had fun and would play this again.  We’d probably give it a 6.5/10 for solo play, (it’s not as much fun solo) but maybe 7.5/10 for cooperative play.  

If you love love love dogs, this probably drifts to an 8 or 8.5/10; the dogs are pretty darn cute. 

In this case, adding Zombies to the game with cute dogs DID work.

Top 10 Cooperative Board and Card Game Expansions of 2025!

Welcome to the end of 2025!  There were some great games that came out, but also some great expansions that really contributed to the world of cooperative games!  As usual, we qualify our expansions are one of three types:

  1. Stand-Alone Expansion: Some games you thought might be on the Top 10 Cooperative Board and Card Games of 2025 might have just ended up on this list because they are stand-alone games that can be played without a base game, but at the end of the day they also expand a base game!
  2. Makes The Game Cooperative: Some expansions take a competitive base game and make the game fully cooperative with the expansion! We saw a number of these type of expansions on the Top 10 Games That Can Be Played Fully Cooperatively!
  3. More Content: Some expansions just add more content (more cards, etc.) to the base cooperative game!

We also continue with the newer characterization: Does It Require Another Expansion? 

Honorable Mention: Origin Story

Expansion Type: Makes The Game Cooperative
Solo Mode: Well, you could play the 3-character co-op mode as a solo player, but there’s already a 3-character solo mode in there.
Requires Another Expansion?  No

This is an odd duck … because it’s not a real “official” expansion.  This is a homebrew set of rules to make the really wonderful game Origin Story into a cooperative game!  See link here for rules.

We played Origin Story, admired how well it works, especially with the powers, strategizing a limit of 5 rounds … and the artwork is amazing. While playing, we couldn’t help to think “Being a Super Hero game, is there a way to play cooperatively?” We fervently decided a new mode of gameplay should be added: a cooperative mode! Over a month or so, we developed some simple rules to make an optional cooperative mode for Origin Story. These rules probably need a little more play-testing, but frankly, we all enjoyed the game in a whole new way with this cooperative mode. Now, as well as playing the current mode to be the best Super Hero and win, all the Super Heroes can now work together to save the planet in a cooperative mode!

A Super Hero game should be cooperative: see this free set of rules here.

10. Marvel Champions: Agents of SHIELD

Expansion Type: More Content
Solo Mode: No new solo mode, just the original
Requires Another Expansion?  No

More than any other game on this list, I play this with my buddy Junkerman (see above).   He loves Marvel Champions, even more than me!  (So much so, that he has his own blog about it: see Aspect Expressions Blog here!)   Marvel Champions is a game where you get the expansions because they offer you characters or some kind of adventure!

In this case, we get Maria Hill and Nick Fury as characters, running them through an adventure of 5 Scenarios as Agents of SHIELD!

I think what sold me more than anything else was the fact that Nick Fury gets a Flying Car!  Once I saw Nick Fury had that, you couldn’t stop me from playing him!  A Flying Car!! Agents of SHIELD is just more content in the Marvel Champions universe; good stuff.

9. Thunderstone Quest: Twilight Souls/The All-Consuming Horde

Expansion Type: More Content
Solo Mode: Needs The Barricades Mode Expansion for solo
Requires Another Expansion?  Yes: To play solo or cooperatively, you need The Barricades Mode Expansion 

If Junkerman is my Marvel Champions buddy, then Nathan and Caroline are my Thunderstone Quest buddies!   I have played most of the recent Thunderstone Quest expansions with them!  See above as we finish The All-Consuming Hive, having rescued peoples from a living dungeon!

It’s kind of gotten ridiculous how many Quests there are (see above).  But, these expansions still offered something new and expanded the game and made it more fun!

It’s gotten a little ridiculous (I know I have already said that), but I still like to play Thunderstone Quest solo or cooperatively (see above as a I play Twilight Souls solo).  You can still use these two new expansions in the base competitive game, but if you want to play solo or cooperatively, don’t forget that you need the Barricades Mode expansion!

8. Flock Together: Birds of a Feather Eggspansion

Expansion Type: More Content
Solo Mode: No new solo mode, just the original
Requires Another Expansion?  No

This is the easiest type of expansion to recommend; it just adds more of everything you already like to the game!  This eggspansion (be prepared for lots of Chicken puns) adds some new cards, some new players boards (so you can play up to 6) … but, most importantly, it adds 6 new predators with 6 new chicken puns (see above) … Chew Bawka?  Oi!

… and 6 new player chickens (with even more chicken puns)!  If you liked the base cooperative game Flock Together (see our original review here), this is just more stuff of the stuff you already like!  You like Chicken Puns, right?  See our review of the expansion here!

7. Skytear Horde: Campaigns

Expansion Type: More Content, Standalone Expansion
Solo Mode: No new solo mode, just the original
Requires Another Expansion?  No

I never know whether this series should go on my Top 10 Solo Games of 2025 or my Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2025!  This year, because I was able to get it played cooperatively in a some good sessions, I am counting is a cooperative (standalone) expansion!

This expansion is mostly just new cards!  If you like Skytear Horde (see our original review here), this just gives you more cards … more content … for this cooperative tower defense game.  

There is a campaign book in here that is both good and bad.  It’s not particularly well-written, but once you get how the campaign modes work, I think they add a lot to the base Skytear Horde game!   See our review here where we discuss the good and bad of Skytear Horde: Campaigns!

In fact, I conjecture that this campaign mode could be a phenomenal way to teach the game!  I taught my friends the game using the campaign mode, and they really responded well to this!  Basically, the game comes out piecemeal in campaign mode, making it easier to digest.  For this to work, however, you really need someone who knows the game  to teach this mode.  Check out or review of Skytear Horde: Campaigns if you want more information!

6. Leviathan Wilds: Deepvale Expansion

Expansion Type: More Content
Solo Mode: No new solo mode, just the original
Requires Another Expansion?  No

This really is just a more stuff you already like expansion!  If you liked the original game of Leviathan Wilds (see out review here of a game that made our #3 on Top 10 Cooperarive Games of 2024), this just gives you more of the stuff you like!

There’s 7 new Leviathans, and oof, they seem creepier than the original Leviathans! And of course, rage decks for each Leviathan.

We also get a new climber!  The Edge!  

This is really just more stuff for Leviathan Wilds! Nothing groundbreaking!  (Ha, pun intended).  See our review of Leviathan Wilds: Deepvale Expansion to see if you might want to pick up this expansion!

5. Santorini: Riddle of the Sphinx

Expansion Type: Makes The Game Cooperative
Solo Mode: Yes
Requires Another Expansion?  No 

More than any expansion that came out this year, this expansion is a puzzle.  It doesn’t even require THAT much from the base game Santorini; mostly just the building pieces and some minis!  It’s also a very different kind of game than the original Santorini!

I played it both solo and cooperatively.  It’s much easier to play this solo; each scenario is just a puzzle you are trying to solve!  The puzzles are about placing city pieces out, using god powers, and trying to get more city pieces (as city pieces are scarce)!

I was able to get some cooperative games played, and as long as everyone promises to NOT be an Alpha Player, they can work well!   This expansion isn’t for everyone, as not everyone is going to like the very puzzly scenarios The Riddle of the Sphinx presents!  But if a puzzle building game using the pieces of Santorini sounds fun to you, check out our review of Santorini: Riddle of the Sphinx to see if this might be an expansion you enjoy!

4. Unmatched Adventures: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Expansion Type: Stand-Alone Expansion, Makes The Game Cooperative
Solo Mode: Yes
Requires Another Expansion?  No, but you can play with any Unmatched set.

Of course, we had to eat pizza before we played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Unmatched Adventures.

Our favorite part of this expansion is that it adds two more scenarios to the Unmatched Adventures system!  Recall that we loved Unmatched Adventures (see review here), but our main complaint was that the box only came with two scenarios … now we have two more! 

I am not personally a TMNT fan, but I really enjoyed the new heroes and villains.  My friend Jon (above), who is a huge TMNT fan, really liked the game.  I think knowing the IP might move this game to a 10/10 for some people: it really does capture a lot of TMNT feel (with the sewers being a fun way to travel around the city)!  See our review here to see if this is something you might like!

3. Dice Throne Adventures: Unchained

Expansion Type: Makes The Game Cooperative, More Content
Solo Mode: Yes (true solo)
Requires Another Expansion?  Yes: this is an expansion for Dice Throne Adventures (and I am also assuming  you have one of the base Dice Throne character boxes)

Firstly, this is an expansion that just adds more stuff: more Minions, more Loot, and another boss to fight in Dice Throne Adventures!  And yes, this is an expansion to an expansion!  The original Dice Throne Adventures (which Unchained expands) took the base Dice Throne game and made it solo and cooperative!

But this expansion fixes three major problems!  Firstly, there we no solo one-shots in the original Dice Throne Adventures!  Unchained allows the solo player to play a one-off little solo Adventure!  Unchained adds the Minion Rush solo mode (see above), which allows the solo player to take a new character and try it out in a limited little adventure!

Secondly, Dice Throne Adventures had the problem that the adventure is way too long and too involved.  Unchained fixes Dice Throne Adventures by adding a one-shot cooperative adventure, which is a condensed little Minion dash/Boss battle!  There’s 6 new maps (see one above) that allow the cooperative players to go through a little adventure in one game session!

Finally, Unchained fixes the “slow upgrade” problem of Dice Throne Adventures! It seems to take forever to upgrade your cards in Dice Throne Adventures, but in the new Minion Rush and One-Shot Adventures, you get a new One-Shot Loot chart!  See above! And this time, Loot goes directly into your hand, so you feel the effects of upgrading quickly!

Overall, I think Unchained is an essential upgrade for Dice Throne Adventures!  See our review here to see if you agree!

2. Marvel Dice Throne Missions

Expansion Type: Makes The Game Cooperative
Solo Mode: Yes (true solo)
Requires Another Expansion?  No (but I am assuming  you have one of the base Dice Throne character boxes)

This expansion takes the base Dice Throne and adds two-sided Missions to the game.   These missions are usually more exploration on first side (with mini fights against minions) and then fight the big bad boss on the other side (see Doctor Octopus).   You can also choose to do longer campaigns with a notion of experience points to help you upgrade.

This game supports true solo so you can take your favorite Dice Throne character through as many missions as you want!  You might have noticed that the Missions are VERY Marvel character specific (it is called Marvel Missions), but there’s no reason you couldn’t take any Dice Throne characters on these missions!

I enjoyed the heck out of this as a solo game (especially with Wolverine), but my friends bounced off the cooperative game! I think the mistake there was in NOT letting them  try out their hero in a quick head-to-head mode; I think that would have made all the difference!  See our review of Marvel Dice Throne Missions here! In the end, I personally loved it, so it had to made near the top of the list!!

1. Kinfire Council: Winds of Change

Expansion Type: Makes The Game Cooperative, More Content
Solo Mode: Yes (two-handed, with special rules*)
Requires Another Expansion?  No (but you might want the Kinfire Council upgrade kit with wooden bits, see far right)

Kinfire Council is a pretty cool worker placement game … that I would never want to play in its original form.  Wait, Why? It’s rife with back-stabbing, traitoring, and some indirect take-that!  The Councilors may side with the city or may side with the Cult trying to take over the city! The base game is all about intrigue within the city!   But, as part of the original Kickstarter, Kinfire Council also had the Winds of Change expansion which took out the base back-stabby/traitory traits, replacing them with both a solo and a cooperative mode!

With the Winds of Change expansion, players are city Councillors trying to stop the Cult from ruining their city!  Along the way, they vote, upgrade spaces, upgrade workers, arrest cultists, stop threats, build a tower for inspiration, and so many other things!  To be fair, the expansion doesn’t change the gameplay THAT much (there is a really neat base worker placement scheme here), but the cooperative mode made me and my friends feel that much more engaged!  “This is our city, darn it!  We’re not going to let the Cultists take over!! “

I was very surprised just how much I liked this game with the expansion!  Me and all my friends all liked it too!   We played over multiple game sessions over multiple game nights with multiple groups; it was so fun! We even added a little House Rule to make the game more fun, more cooperative, and more interactive!  See our review of Kinfire Council + Winds of Change to see what our House Rule is, and if this is something you might like!

I am kind of surprised this made my #1 expansion! It’s gone up in my estimation every time I have played it! It’s just that … I want to play it more! I am so excited by this, I am going to go out of my way to teach it at Dice Tower West this March! We’ll be playing the cooperative version with my House Rules if you want to play! I just loved how interactive the cooperative version was!!

Top 10 Solo Board and Card Games of 2025!

What makes a good solo game? I find them many times when I start playing solo games to learn games cooperatively for my friends. If a game starts to enchant me and I can’t stop playing it solo … there’s something to it! Most of the games on this list were games I played solo to teach my friends … but then I kept playing! Some of these games will end up on either my Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2025, but some of them may end up on my Top Cooperative Expansions of 2025, but one things for sure … they are all great solo!

My tastes are a little funny; see if you agree or disagree.

For more great solo games, see last year’s list: Top 10 Solo Games of 2024!

Honorable Mention. Broken Sword: Shadows of the Templar (Reforged)

This is a solo game I played quit a bit in 2025, but it can’t “officially” make this list for a number of reasons.  For one, it’s a video game!  Broken Sword: Shadows of the Templar is a point-and-click solo adventure video game … (See our discussion of point-and-click adventure games here in Top 10 Point-And-Click Adventure Board Games here)! This game is sometimes what I want when I want to play solo: it’s an all-consuming adventure game with story and exploration! 

My physical copy arrived about November 2025, so I can still count it as 2025 (even though my digital copy arrived in 2024, so that’s another reason).   I know, it doesn’t really belong on this list, but these point-and-click adventure video games totally scratch my solo game itch sometimes!  And I spent a fair amount of time playing it solo in 2025!

10. Wroth

What a strange journey Wroth was!  This is a solo, competitive, and cooperative area control/area majority game, which is a real interesting mix of game modes!   Unfortunately, the solo play is hard to get to because you have to learn the base competitive game BEFORE you can play the solo/cooperative mode!

Along the way, I discovered I actually liked the competitive game but disliked the cooperative game!   And somewhat paradoxically (because the solo game is the cooperative game), the solo game ended up being a really fun puzzle!  After almost selling the game (because I disliked the cooperative mode so much), it was the solo mode that prompted me to keep this game.

Wroth also has one of my favorite covers of the year!   Check out our journey with Wroth to see if this is a solo game you might like! 

9. Earthborne Rangers: Legacy of the Ancestors

This is an odd entry for a few reasons!  Firstly, this was the expansion for the original Earthborne Rangers that was part of the first, original Kickstarter!  Even though I ordered this expansion many moons ago (from the first Kickstarter: see our review here), this expansion didn’t arrive until 2025 (and even BGG says it’s a 2025 release date)!

This probably should go in my Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2025, instead of here in my solo list … but the thing is, I only ever played it solo!  Even though you can play 1-4 players with Earthborne Rangers, I think one or two players is the best count for Earthborne Rangers! In this case, one player was best! 

In some ways, the abundance of storybook games (see our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2025) just reminded me what a great exploration and storybook game this is!  I got to relive the fun of exploring in this system  in this exploration and story-filled game! I got the explore … The Arcology!

8. Storyfold: Wildwoods

Storyfold: Wildwoods is both a perfect entry and an odd entry to this list.  Why is that?

In name, this is a solo game only!  It’s about a little girl and her animal companion roaming and exploring a dark and depressing forest.  There is a little bit of worker placement, a little bit of dice, and little bit of story, and a lot of dark experience!  It’s a solo game!

I ended up playing this solo game as a two-player game, as team solo!  In other words, me an my friend Teresa operated the solo game as a team, with both of us working the solo position!  We would operate the single position, but discuss tactics and strategy together.  I argue that this is still a solo game, but you can just choose to be on team solo together!  See our review of Storyfold: Wildwoods to see if you agree!

7. Santorini + Riddle of the Sphinx

Riddle of the Sphinx is an expansion that makes the  Santorini base game solo and cooperative.  

Of all the games on our list this year, this is the most thinky puzzle-like game; you have to figure out how to build and acquire resources in an environment of scarcity.  The gods offer special bonuses and resources as you burn through them.  

This game stayed on my solo table until I had to go to Dice Tower West! Although I enjoyed the cooperative game as well, I think this really engaged my solo gamer brain, and I loved moving the characters around to try to solve the building puzzle in an optimal way!  Take a look at our review of Riddle of the Sphinx to see if this is something you might enjoy!

6. Unstoppable

Unstoppable is nominally a solo game or 2-player cooperative game … but almost all my plays were solo!  Honestly, it feels more like a solo game than a 2-Player game anyways?  Honestly, that co-operative mode does feel a little pasted on; I mean, you can’t even share money…

 This is a deck-building game with some card-crafting going on!  Cards slip into sleeves and upgrade your cards, all while you are still trying to build a deck!  

There’s some really interesting mechanisms going on in here, as the things you battle flip and give you good stuff!  Overall, I got to play through all the scenarios in the base box and really enjoyed this deck-builder.   One question you may want to ask yourself: would you prefer Unstoppable or Astro Knights (both deck-building games)?  See our review for more discussion!

5. War Story

This was such a unique adventure to play through solo.  This is all about being part of the French Resistance in World War II, and it’s pretty brutal.  You shoot Nazis, see most of your team die, and try to survive a wartime environment.

Even crazier, all of this happens in a Choose Your Own Adventure book situation!  This is a game where your choices really do matter; everything you do affects the final outcome and how well your team does!  Do you show mercy on the Nazi your captured?  How do you silence the little boy so he doesn’t alert the authorities?  Everything you do matters!

The game comes with 3 adventure books, as a full adventure unwinds over three big sessions (and each session affects the others)!  After playing all the way through solo, I was emotionally exhausted but strangely fulfilled!  Take a look at our review of War Story: Occupied France to see if this unique experience is up your alley!

(This is a game that has a 2024 release date on BGG, but try as hard as we could, we couldn’t get it until 2025, so we count it as 2025)

4. Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game

I ended up enjoying the solo mode for this much more than I expected!  For a cooperative trick-taking game that has a lot of similarities to The Crew, its one big difference is that it has a solo mode!  And it’s very very good!   If you love Lord of the Rings, this is an easy recommendation.  Even if you only “like” Lord of the Rings, it’s still a great solo game!

Over the course of several weeks, I ended up playing solo through all 18 chapters!  Each chapter has a nominal play-time of 20 minutes … but if you fail a chapter, you have to keep playing it until you win!

The production on this game is amazing, the solo game is amazing, it’s quite thematic, and the 18-Chapter campaign was so much fun!  It’s easy to get this to the table … as even though I was a little sick, it was engaging enough to forget I was sick for a week.   I made it through all 18 chapters solo, and it was a blast.

See here for our review of Lord Of The Rings, The Fellowship of the Rings: The Trick-Taking Game to see if this something that might appeal to your inner solo gamer!

(This is a game that has a 2024 release date on BGG, but try as hard as we could, we couldn’t get it until 2025, so we count it as 2025)

3.  DC Super Heroes United: Batman Hush

DC Super Heroes United: Batman Hush is a great game for both cooperative and solo.  In the end, though, I probably played it a lot more solo than I did cooperatively!  In fact, I couldn’t stop playing it solo!

I ended playing just about every combination of heroes and villains from this base box, as a solo game!  Now, you have to understand that I strongly prefer playing Marvel and DC United solo as 2-Player multi-handed, where I operate two characters and alternate between them as if it were a 2-Player cooperative game.   I find the “official” solo mode of the United games just too contorted.

It was such a blast to play DC heroes like Batman and Robin together solo!  See above.

I couldn’t stop playing this solo!  I kept trying more and more!  I even started pulling out some Marvel United and combining DC United and Marvel United together!  See above at Batman hangs out in Stark Labs! I got such a giggle imagining Bruce Wayne critiquing Tony Stark’s tech!

See our review of DC Super Heroes: Batman Hush to see if this is something you might like as a solo player.    This probably would have been out #1 solo game of 2025, but the next two games offered such unique solo experiences, they had to be just above it!

2. Arydia

It was very hard to choose between #1 and #2 on this list; either of them could have been #1!  I also feel bad not putting Arydia  in our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2025!  In the end though, I only played this solo, but I had a heck of a great time!

Arydia is a huge adventuring/dungeon crawler game with tons of content: maps and cards!  See above!  And the components are just fantastic!

This game, with its unique map(s) system(s) and combat stayed on my table for a straight week as I couldn’t stop playing playing!  I wanted to see what would come next in this world!

This is an adventure-laden dungeon crawl that reminded me a lot of the old computer game  Ultima IV: it had combat, little maps, big maps, and a big adventure!   I had such a wonderful time playing this solo!  Check out our solo review of Arydia to see if this is something you might like!

1. Star Trek: Captain’s Chair

At the end of the day, I slightly prefer space over fantasy, so I think that’s why Star Trek: The Captain’s Chair ended being the #1 solo game of 2025 for me!

This is such a neat deck-building game, but calling it JUST a deck-building game seems to be an insult!  There’s so much to this game that it actually almost took me the whole year to absorb it, get it to the table, and play it!  Make no mistake, this is a big and complicated game with lots of rules!  The rulebook is very very good, but I joke that it feels like a legal document!

One major feature of the game is that there are two solo modes: the Cadet Training Mode (see rules above) aka easy mode, and the normal solo game aka hard mode!    The easy mode gives you a chance to learn the systems of the game in a simplified scenario! 

The Cadet Training Mode also a great way to learn a new Captain’s Deck!  Another great feature of this game is that every Captain in the game (see above) has a unique play style that is encapsulated in a different Captain’s deck!  Sisko is different than Picard who is different from Koloth!  See the six different Captains above!

In the end, it’s the normal solo mode (which has its own rulebook!) that makes this game a wonderful challenge.  An AI runs another captain playing against you; see above as I play Picard facing off against AI Koloth!  This solo mode is challenging and interesting and has a ton of variety as each Captain is so different!

This is a large, sprawling, solo game with ships warping to planets, planets being taken over, landing parties landing, crew members beaming to ships, crew members on duty, drafting new people, cargo, allies, and ships on your way to being the better Captain!

It’s hard to recommend this game for many reasons: the base game is actually competitive (the solo modes are add-ons), the game is pretty complicated with a legalese rulebook, and apparently it’s sold out everywhere as I write this!  Despite all that, I had a heck of a time playing Star Trek: Captain’s Chair as a solo player! It was such a unique experience that it had to be my #1 solo game of 2025.  See our review here to see if this might be something you enjoy!

Top 10 Cooperative Board and Card Games of 2025!

Welcome to the end of 2025! This is our top 10 games that were from 2025*! The best of the best!

This was a slightly weird year for cooperative games, if only because it’s not 100% clear when some of our favorite games came out! Some of the games on our list were “officially” released in 2024, but as a real playing customer, we couldn’t get them until 2025. This is also a reminder that we here at CO-OP Gestalt pay for every single game we get as a real consumer! We receive absolutely no consideration of any kind from Publishers for free review copies of games or expedited delivery or anything like that! We just play cooperative games because we love them so much that we want to share them!

Some games you might think would be on this list might have made our Top 10 Solo Card and Board Games of 2025 or our Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2025!

There’s some great cooperative games that came out this year, let’s take a look!

Honorable Mention: Tales From The Red Dragon Inn

Plays Solo:  Yes (two-handed or with a special companion)
Player Count: 1 to 4
Ages: 13+
Length: 90-120 minutes

So, this is an example of game that we picked up on the second Kickstarter; it really did officially come out in 2023, but the second Kickstarter delivered to us in 2025.  So, we are counting this unofficially as a Honorable Mention for 2025 … because it’s so good!  

This is dungeon crawler game that is fun and quirky, but it has a well thought out combat system!  

Despite it having a Variable Turn Order system (we have so many opinions on Variable Turn Order), this game is a fun dungeon crawler.  We joked that this should be called Lighthaven!  It’s like Gloomhaven in many ways, but so much more light-hearted!  Take a look at our review to see if this is a game you might like!

10. The Dark Quarter

Plays Solo:  Yes (operate two characters)
Player Count: 1 to 4
Ages: 18+
Length: 120+ minutes

This is more of a story than a game; I was originally hoping for more of a detective game set in voodoo-laden New Orleans, but this is more of an adult crime novel set in a voodoo-esque New Orleans. 

This is a game with lots of plot points that unfurl like an adult crime thriller on HBO or Netflix or Apple TV.  As you going through the game, you are enjoying the story as it happens, and you get to make some choices along the way.  Rather than watching an HBO crime drama, you are part of it!

An App runs this; this is one of four Storybook games in our Top 10 this year!  This is less interactive and more about coming along for the story!  The Dark Quarter  also very very 18+ with adult language and adult content.  If you want to immerse yourself in a crime story in New Orleans, there is nothing else like it! Just be aware that it’s very story-driven, but maybe not too much game. Take a look at our review to see if you might like it.  My friends and I enjoyed the experience, but others didn’t, which is why this is only #10.

9. Wandering Galaxy

Plays Solo:  Yes (very special mode: true solo, but has two sidekicks)
Player Count: 1 to 6
Ages: 14+
Length: 60+ minutes

This is the third in the series of storybook app games from Plaid Hat: the first two being Forgotten Waters (which made #8 on our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2020) and Freelancers (which made the #4 spot on our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2022).  These are all silly games where players go through an adventure together!

This particular silly adventure is set in space!! An app (website) controls your progress through the story, as it offers voice-acting as it reads little vignettes aloud!  This is a space-based game where players roam the galaxy in search of adventure, using some worker placement and deck-building along the way.

This is a very cooperative game, as players must operate many positions of a star ship together (like the crew of the Star Trek Enterprise with helm, weapons, … etc!)   This is one of four Storybook games that made our Top 10 list this year!  This one concentrates on the humor and the voice-acting of the app to tell the story!  See our review to see if Wandering Galaxies is a game you might like!

(This was also a game where we got the physical copy very very late in December 2024, but the app didn’t “really” work until 2025, so we count this as a 2025 game)

8. Vantage

Plays Solo:  Yes (true solo)
Player Count: 1 to 6
Ages: 14+
Length: 120-180 minutes

Vantage is one of the four storybook games on our Top 10 this year!  It’s a very divisive game, which is why it’s lower on the list! Some people love it and some people hate it!! Why?  Vantage weaves in and out of different definitions: Is it a storybook game? Is it an exploration game? Is it an adventure game? Is it a campaign game?  Take a look at our review of Vantage here (What Vantage Is and Isn’t) to see if this is something you might like.

At the end of the day, me and my friends had fun exploring this game world with it’s beautiful art and very different worlds.   The solo experience is good, but I believe this is a better shared experience as a fully cooperative game, as players read to each other and explore with each other.  This is a gorgeous and well-produced game that you may love too!

7. One-Hit Heroes

Plays Solo:  Officially no (see the cover), but there are two solo modes in rulebook
Player Count: 2 to 4
Ages: 10+
Length: 20 minutes

This game made our list this year because it felt like I could bring it out to both gamers and non-gamers, and both sets seemed to enjoy it!   This is a simpler game that only last 20 minutes (but you can keep playing if you like the little campaign); it’s all about battling some bad guys together!  It’s major premise is that if you take one hit, you die (much like real life)!  So, you have to work together to keep out to harms way!

I was able to play the game with my nieces, and they had fun!  They aren’t really gamers, but they were good sports who enjoyed the experience!

This is a light, bright, fun and somewhat innovative cooperative game.   I am glad to have some lighter, simpler games to teach my gamer and non-gamer friends and family.  See our full review here of One-Hit Heroes to see if you might like it!

6. Secrets of Zorro

Plays Solo:  Yes (true solo)
Player Count: 1 to 4
Ages: 10+
Length: 45-60 minutes

The Secrets of Zorro is the surprise hit of the year for my groups!   We played it over several weeks of game nights because it was such a fun and thematic cooperative worker placement game!

The cooperative worker placement works so well in this game as you move to places for upgrades, visit the local tavern to get rumours and tactical info, visit the blacksmith for stuff, visit your home for “stuff our Dadleft us”, and just try to get ready for the craziness of the night mode!

This is a game that embraces Player Selected Turn Order (one of my favorite mechanisms)!  It is a thematic and interactive romp through the mythos of Zorro!  Check out our review of the Secrets of Zorro to see if this is a game you might like (we also suggest you have House Rule that makes the game more fun and more thematic and more cooperative).  This is a Hidden Gem!

5. The Lord of The Rings, Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game

Plays Solo:  Yes (very different solo mode)
Player Count: 1 to 4
Ages: 10+
Length: 20 minutes (per episode)

As we head into the top 5 games, realize that any of these could have been our #1 game!

This little cooperative trick-taking game took all my gaming groups by storm!  My friends in Las Cruces played though the whole campaign!  Me and my friends played it over and over and over at Dice Tower West!  My friends in Tucson loved it!  Everybody who played this loved it!

Everyone seems to agree that this is a very thematic game, with characters from The Fellowship of the Rings having specific thematic goals to meet as you play.  The game unfolds over many episodes, and each episode is a piece of the story of The Fellowship of the Rings!  I was told by my friends (who love Lord of the Rings) how thematic the story and episodes were!

This made the #2 spot on our Top 10 Cooperative Trick-Taking Games, and it is a fantastic game!  It is very easy to get into and everyone I played this with seemed to love it!  Check out our review here to see if this is a game you might like!  

(This is also a game that BGG lists as 2024, as I think it was released in Germany first; but I tried like crazy to get a copy and could only get one delivered to me in 2025 in the USA!)

4. Tales of the Arthurian Knights 

Plays Solo:  Yes (very different solo mode)
Player Count: 1 to 4
Ages: 12+
Length: 45 minutes per player

This is the fourth and final storybook game on this list.  This was far and away my friends’ favorite game of the year!  They liked it so much they went out and bought their own copy almost immediately!  

This is a game all about exploring the world of Camelot (and yes, it can be a silly place with lots of Monty Python references) while reading flowery text from the Book of Tales!  See above!  Of all the Storybooks on this list, this is the more prosy!  This would easily make our Top 10 Cooperative Storybook Games!

It’s hard to believe that this is actually a competitive game FIRST, and that the cooperative and solo modes are actually add-on modes!  Regardless, the only way me and my friends play this Storybook game is solo and cooperatively!  And it works so well!  My friend Teresa actually borrowed my copy to play at her Mom’s birthday party and they adored it!  Take a look at our review of Tales of Arthurian Knights to see if this is something you might like.

(This is also one of those games that BGG lists as 2024 but we tried like crazy to get a copy, and we could only get one delivered in 2025, so we call this a 2025 game!)

3. Invincible: The Card Game

Plays Solo:  Yes (true solo and two-handed solo)
Player Count: 1 to 4
Ages: 14+
Length: 60 minutes (well, it’s 2x that)

Invincible: The Card Game (not the confused with other Invincible games) is a re-implementation of Astro Knights (the cooperative Deck-Building game: see here and here).  Does this re-theming and re-implementation work?  Absolutely!

Cooperatively, everyone gets to take the role of a Superhero in this very thematic deck–building game!  This is also the best iteration of the Astro Knights system, partly because it add the Assist keyword which really brought out extra cooperation as we played!! 

See our review of Invincible: The Card Game to see if this is something you might like!  Oh yes!  And you can even mix this with Astro Knights if you wish! 

2. Ham Helsing

Plays Solo:  Yes (true solo and two-handed solo)
Player Count: 1 to 4
Ages: 10+
Length: 60-90 minutes 

I really did not expect Ham Helsing to be so high on my list, but this game was so much fun!  Ham Helsing is a comic-book universe (of which I knew nothing about until I played this game)!  The art and cards in this game follow the style of the original artist Rich Moyer, and I gotta say, it works!  This is basically a cooperative boss-battler game where each player takes the role of a character from Ham Helsing!

This is a card-crafting game where you can upgrade your cards by adding clear plastic to them!  See above!  This is definitely a gimmick, but it’s a gimmick that works!  It’s fun to upgrade and choose your little cards and slide them into the sleeves!

Between the clear cards, the cute art, and the acrylic standees, this game’s production is gorgeous!  There is also a sense of humor that underlies all of this, giving it an air of extra fun!  Take a look at our review of Ham Helsing to see if this is a game you might like!  We loved it!

1. DC Super Heroes United: Hush

Plays Solo:  Yes (so many ways, but just play two-handed)
Player Count: 1 to 4 (5, depending on the mode)
Ages: 14+
Length: 30 minutes (well, usually longer)

As I wait for my kickstarter of the original DC Super Heroes United (which was #1 on our Top 10 Anticipated Cooperative Games of 2025) to deliver (which looks like it won’t deliver until 2026), CMON gave us an early sneak peek of the system with DC Super Heroes United: Batman Rush.   Surprisingly, I had never read Batman: Hush (a well regarded Batman story by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee), so this gave me a reason to finally pick up and read it!  It was great!  


DC United: Hush is a beautiful game; it is basically the next small evolution of the Marvel United system that we love so much!

The game contains equipment (one of the newer additions to the game system, which does make the game feel like you have a little more choice), plus a few new kinds of cards. It’s the next (and probably best) evolution of this system!

But most importantly, it add DC heroes like Batman and Robin and DC Villains like Hush and Joker and Harley Quinn!

This game was on my table for weeks as I played through all the combinations of heroes and villains both solo and cooperatively!  My friends and I played cooperatively, and this system just works so well as a group game!  People can choose the heroes they want!  And re-use symbols!

One of the best parts of this game is now you can play with DC and Marvel universes together!!  I got such a giggle when Batman and Robin were on SHIELD HQ battling Marvel’s Taskmaster! See above!

This game was on my table for weeks and I still want to keep playing it. I knew it when I got it, and I know it now as I write this: DC Super Heroes United: Batman Hush is my game of the year, not only for being a great game, but also introducing me to the Batman: Hush story!

Origin Story: Adding a Cooperative Mode

Origin Story is a competitive trick-taking game for 1-4 Players. It has a Super Hero theme, as people grow into their Hero forms over 5 rounds. At its core, it is a trick-taking game: Players gain tricks for victory points, gain powers for special abilities, and emerge slowly over time. The player with the most Victory Points after 5 rounds wins.

We played Origin Story, admired how well it works, especially with the powers, strategizing a limit of 5 rounds and the artwork is amazing. While playing, we couldn’t help to think “Being a Super Hero game, is there a way to play cooperatively?” We fervently decided a new mode of gameplay should be added; a cooperative mode! Over a month or so, we developed some simple rules to make an optional cooperative mode for Origin Story. These rules probably need a little more play-testing, but frankly, we all enjoyed the game in a whole new way with this cooperative mode. Now, as well as playing the current mode to be the best Super Hero and win, all the Super Heroes can now work together to save the planet in a cooperative mode!

Communication

We loved the cooperative trick-taking game  Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game! It inspired us to make these rules!  See our review here!   It just works so well as a cooperative trick-taking game!  Just like LOTR, the Origin Story cooperative game keeps the basic limited communication rules; you can’t ever talk about what’s in your hand.

About the only rule in LOTR that we didn’t like was that you couldn’t really consult each other about which characters to take; there’s not SUPPOSED to be any conversation about who takes which character, because it might give away info about your hand.  It doesn’t really give away that much, and we really enjoyed the discussions and interactions that happened, so we inserted a house rule saying we COULD discuss the characters in the LOTR trick-taking game.

So, in Origin Story Cooperative Rules, players are allowed to discuss who should go into Hero mode and Secret Identity mode; you may have full conversations.   The Origin Story cooperative game encourages a little more discussion than the competitive mode, but to be clear; you still can’t communicate what’s in your hand (unless you are forced to by a power).

Ruleset

We really liked the idea that a  Super Hero game should be cooperative.

See rules below. The current version is 1.0.0. As we get feedback, we may update this.

Version 1.0.1: Some disambiguation, added notion of notating travel with markers
Version 1.0.2: Added note, making sure each player takes control of a marker

OriginStoryCooperativeMode-1.0.2Download

Star Trek: Captain’s Chair. My Solo Game of the Year.

Star Trek: Captain’s Chair is a solo and 2-Player head-to-head game in the Star Trek universe (from publisher Wizkids).  I bought my copy online sometime in early 2025 (I don’t even remember when; March? April?), but the game was so daunting that I was scared to open it up.

Look above to see a full solo game set-up!  Gulp!

I literally spent almost a year learning this game!  See above as I JUST set-up the game, to get a sense of it!  I ran out of time, so I had to tear it down before I even played it!  In fact, I think I set-up the game at least three times before I actually played it!

What is this thing and why is it so daunting?  To call it JUST a deck-building game with Victory Points seems to do the game an injustice, but at its core, it really is a deck-building game; if you get the highest score you “win”.

Let’s take a closer look.

Unboxing and Gameplay

The Captain’s Chair is about a half-sized box. See can of Coke above for scale.

Each player takes the role of one of six Captains from Star Trek: see the Captains above.  And NO Captain Kirk is not in this set;  you have to get one of the Expansions (due out sometime in Q4 last time I looked).

The Captains each have their own little deck hubby hole in the box.  See above.

There is a metric ton of cardboard in this box.  

Most of the cardboard is is tokens and the 6 player boards for the 6 captains.  See above. 

To be fair, I think you WILL have to throw away the Punchout Skeletons to fit everything in the box (what are Punchout Skeletons?  See here).  It hurt me a little to throw these away, but the game just barely fits in the box, and all the Punchout Skeletons do is puff up the box.  So, you will have to throw away them … see a video of me doing it here …

https://www.youtube.com/live/aMSZ3QDeQYM?si=4z8aaQzBlCOyjh8V&t=1073

Like I said, this is, at its core, a deck-building game.  So, you have all sorts of cards that you can buy/accumulate into your deck!  See above all the Common cards: Allies, Cargo, Persons, Ships, Incidents, Locations, and Encounters!  These are “generally” the plain cards you will acquire to build your deck.

But there are lot more very thematic rules than just “build a deck!!” You can acquire ships, and warp them around!

Very thematically, you take control of a Location if you have enough landing parties and/or ships there!

Each Captain has their own very special deck of cards, which only THEY may use!  These cards in the Captain’s deck represents their “style”.  So, even though a Captain can buy/acquire Common cards, a Captain’s deck is a thing unto itself; it slowly unveils itself.  The Captain’s deck (see above) start with Available cards, slowly adds Reserve cards (as the deck cycles), then you can develop Development cards as you see fit!   

Captain Picard, for example, is all about getting Allies!  His Mission (each captain has a base mission which shapes his play-style) is to beam 3 Allies onto a ship!  See above.

Koloth the Klingon has a very different play-style; he is all about getting Ships into play and controlling planets! 

The game also has the notion of the Duty Officer; if you play one, it will allow you some extra activities.

For example (see above), if Ryker is your Duty Officer, he can use one of his Activations (as well as his Play if needed).   There is this notion of “deploy” which allows you to put ships, duty personnel, and other things into play so you get that extra Activation possibility on your turn!

If you deploy the Enterprise-D above, you can use it’s Activations!  (Right now, Picard is fulfilling his Mission of getting 3 Allies beamed aboard!)

There’s also an interesting notion of “play”.  For example, the Set A Course card above has two choices for how to play; you can either use one of your 3 Actions (represented by the blue isolinear chips) to play for the “major” action, or you can just play the card as-is for the lesser play ability (but it doesn’t take one of your 3 Actions).

You can take Control of Locations (see above).

As you play, you need to advance your Specialty tracks.  There’s many ways to advance your Specialty track as you play (it’s all on the cards), but the higher the Tracks are, the bigger the multiples for end-scoring.  See above as Picard has advanced Research (blue) to space 4 (for a multiply of x2), Influence (yellow) to space 3 (for a multiple of x2), and Military to space 0 (for just x1).  

At the end of the game, you look at the bottom right of the cards and they will get you victory points! Right now, Picard would get 3 cards times 2 =6 Victory Points for the Research, and  5 cards times 2=10 Victory Points for Influence.

Of course, some cards just give straight Victory Points.  See above.

Whosoever has the most Victory Points wins!

The gameflow is controlled by the 27 Stardate cards (see above).  Depending on what mode you play (solo easy, solo hard, 2-Player), these cards control how the game unfurls.  They usually just act as a timer (you put Victory Points on the card and when the Victory Points run out, you move to the next cards until the game is over), but they also keep the game flowing by wiping the market occasionally and wiping the Neutral Zone of uninteresting planets.

Over the course of the game, your Captain will warp ships, launch away parties, try to take control of Locations in the Neutral Zone, acquire Tech or Allies or People or Ships or Encounters to meet their Missions in an ultimate attempt to get the most Glory (what we have been calling Victory Points)!

Honestly, there are still plenty of subsystems and rules we didn’t talk about; there is so much to this game!  There is alternate way to lose via a “Burn” if you get too many incidents, there are special Encounters which feel like cool Star Trek vignettes, and many other cool things that if you know Star Trek, you’ll say “That’s very Thematic!”

Rulebook

This is one of the best rulebooks I have read in a while.

First of all, the rulebook gets an A on the Chair Test!

The rulebook opens up, stays flat, and is easy to consult.  The Font is very readable, but they somehow mix the thematic font of Star Trek for headings with a readable font for rule text, and it works.  There’s tons of pictures scattered in with the text, there’s tons of examples!  The rulebook also uses color and italics well!  Seriously, maybe this is an A+ on the Chair test!

The Components pages are great; pictures are notated.

The Set-Up (even though it spans 4 pages) still is done well …

With both a Common Set-up (above above) and a per-player set-up (above).

The rulebook ends with a good summary of symbols.

About the ONLY thing this rulebook does wrong is that it doesn’t have an index.  It has a table of contents and a Keywords in Detail section, but for a game this complicated, an Index is essential.

Other than the lack of an Index, this is almost a perfect rulebook.  I have to be honest, the rulebook almost reads like a legal document (because there are so many rules and systems), but everything is in there and well-explained.

Ways To Play

So, there are three major ways to play The Captain’s Chair (four if you count the unofficial cooperative mode, which we’ll discuss in the Appendix).  The “main mode” is the 2-Player head-to-head mode; this is the way Star Trek: The Captain’s Chair is meant to be played—Captain vs. Captain.   Even though this is a thinky and complex deck-building game with Victory Points, there is some take-that in the 2-Player game, as you can do things to mess up your opposing Captain.  Honestly, it really depends on the Captain(s) you choose; Koloth will have a very different play-style than Picard, who will have a different play-style than Sisko.

For solo play, there are two solo modes built-in:  The Cadet Training Mode, aka The Easy Mode and the Official Solo Mode aka the Hard Mode.   That’s what’s so great about this game; you can choose the mode that fits you!

The Cadet Training Mode

The Cadet Training Mode is probably the best way to learn the game!  Honestly, I can’t imagine jumping into the head-to-head game without learning the easy solo mode first.  See above for the rules for this mode on page 28 of the rulebook.

My first game (strictly my third game, since I set it up 2 times before I ever played!) was The Cadet Training Mode! See above.

The basic idea is that you are fighting an opponent that has “1 of everything”; you are fighting a faceless and nameless opponent.  

Basically, you are just playing turn after turn by yourself and trying to discover how all the mechanisms of the game work.    You don’t operate another Captain or anything like that.  There are enough systems in the game where you “affect” the other Captain, so when you would do that, it’s just a faceless, nameless opponent who has “one of everything”.   For example, how many landing parties does the faceless, nameless opponent have on the planets above?  One each!

This solo mode flows pretty well.  You don’t feel the glaring stare of your opponent as you learn the game; you just try stuff out to see how everything works.

My first solo game scored 69, so apparently I didn’t know how to play just yet.

 My second solo game was much better as I got a 121.  

This solo mode is the way to learn the systems of the game without the immediacy of an overwhelming opponent.  Recall, we suggested that Kinfire Council + Winds of Change sorta has an easy solo mode and a complex solo mode!

The rulebook even suggests this is a great way to learn the deck of a new Captain!  Recall that each Captain has a VERY different play-style, so this is a great way to take the new deck through its paces!

As you can see from my two scores (69 then 121), after my second game on Cadet Training Mode, it was getting too easy.  This  solo mode is a great way to learn the game, but it wouldn’t be much of a challenge now that I know the deck.  I need a new challenge.

Starfleet Command Training Program

The Hard solo mode has its own rulebook!  See above!  This rulebook, called the Starfleet Command Training Program, outlines how to play Star Trek: The Captain’s Chair in a truly complex and challenging solo mode!  This rulebook is also very daunting (at 20 pages), but it’s really not that bad (the second half talks about different modes and a 5-year mission).

One major change is that you have a different set of Starfleet cards to control the pulse of the game. See above.  

The real difference is that you are fighting a real Captain!  See above as Koloth and Picard battle!

You operate one Captain “normally” like you did previously; see as Picard gets set-up normally.

The Captain you are battling has a  very different set-up!  You still use the deck of the other Captain, but now an AI will control how that Captain operates!

There are two Control cards for each AI Captain; these are the AI cards that control what the Captain does on his turn!  Depending on what card you draw, the directions on these AI cards tell you what to do!  (Things at the top of the card take precedence over things lower on the card if there’s any question).

Basically, play alternates between the two captains; the solo player will take his turn normally, but then the solo players uses the AI to operate the other Captain!

See that big number 2 on the Starfleet card above?  That tells you how many cards the AI Captain will get to draw and resolve on his turn!

So, Koloth above draws two cards from his deck and consults the AI cards to see what those cards do!

As the game goes on, it gets pretty complicated!  Koloth is all about getting ships out, and you can see that his AI respects that .. and (see above) as he has so many ships and worlds under control in the later game!

Solo Captain and AI Captain alternate until the game end is triggered by the Star Fleet cards! Whosoever has the most victory points, wins! (If you want to be funny: I Captain goes, then AI Captain goes!)

Just like before, you count the Victory Points to see who wins.

To be clear, this is a pretty complicated AI.   There’s lots of things you have to look up as you play! Where do you send ships? Landing parties?  There’s also a notion of most valuable to me and most valuable to you that controls preferences of cards.  Sometimes determining which cards the AI prefers is pretty exhausting.  I found that it feels like the solo rules do a pretty good job of covering all bases and preferences, but it can feel hairy the first few times you try it.

This is NOT a quick one hour solo game.  This is probably at least a 2 hour game, especially your first few times.    You will find your head buried in the solo rulebook as you try to remember/discover/rank what actions/cards the AI prefers.  It gets easier as you play, but it is very daunting.

I want to be clear that I like this solo mode, but it is not easy.  

Legalese

These rulebooks are very very very good, but I kind of feel like a lawyer when I am playing.  What do I mean by that?  I have to study the rulebook to make sure I have a handle on everything; I want to say I spent a good hour (or more!) reading the rulebook the first time!!!  There are very specific rules to handle just about every exceptional case, but you have to understand how to apply the rules like a lawyer might have to understand how to apply the law.

This might sound like a negative, and for some people it will absolutely be a negative; those people will hate this game: “it’s too complicated, it’s too much, there are too many rules”.  You know if that is true for you.

But if you like a system where things are very well-specified and you don’t mind burying your head in the rulebook a lot, then this is a great game.

Theme

This game feels very thematic.  If you like Star Trek, you will see and feel the theme in this game.  We’ve said that this is a deck-building game, but all the other supporting systems of this game make it feel like Star Trek: duty officers, warping ships, developing cards, acquiring Allies, Cargo, Ships, sending out landing parties, taking control of planets … it feels very Star Trek.   This is arguably the most thematic Star Trek game I have played?

Conclusion

Star Trek: The Captain’s Chair is a daunting beast of a game.  The rulebook feels like legal document, there are many complex systems within the game, and the rules are complicated.  Yet, this is probably the most thematic Star Trek game I have played!  Each Captain’s deck matches their play-style, making them different and interesting to play!  The actions and cards feel like they are right out of Star Trek!  This feels like a love letter to Star Trek.

As a solo gamer, I love that there are two solo modes built in!  The easy solo mode provides an onramp to learn a new Captain’s deck (because they are all so different)!  The complex solo mode provides challenges for the future!  There are 30 different ways to permute the Captains in the complex solo mode (6*5=30 because order matters; which is the AI and which is the player). This gives plenty of ways to try different permutations for quite a bit of variety!  I also happen to know that at least 2 more expansions are planned, so there’s more content coming!

Sure, there’s a 2-Player head-to-head mode … which I may never play.  As a solo gamer, I am very happy with what this is. 

Be aware that this is big complex game with lots of rules and a legal document for  rulebook.  If that doesn’t scare you away and you love Star Trek, I think you will love this game.  I do. 9/10.  I think this would be a 10/10 if it had a good cooperative mode; I really want to be Picard and Sisko fighting the Borg! Or the Dominion!  So, the Appendix below …

Appendix

There is an unofficial cooperative mode: see link here.