Top 10 Cooperative Cthulhu Mythos Games!

Welcome to the end … of Cooperative Cthulhu month! We’ve seen three brand new cooperative Cthulhu games in the last month! How do these stack up against old favorites? It seems fitting to end Cooperative Cthulhu month with a Top 10!

This list is a composite of about 20 different people’s opinions! It was compiled over the last month to try and capture what a community of board gamers think of cooperative Cthulhu games! The data wasn’t clear in some cases, so I made the best judgment I could based on all the ratings I saw! In the end, my preferences tended to shape the final list!

10. Elder Sign

At its core, Elder Sign is really just a dice game, kinda like Yahtzee. But it’s the expansions that keep Elder Sign alive and thematic! Players explore someplace creepy, a museum, an ice flow, the oceans, … and uses dice to help resolve things!

This one may have made the list for nostalgic reasons, but there are so many expansions that keep this game fresh and alive through the years!

A lot of people put this on their list, even if it wasn’t their favorite Cthulhu-esque game! This is a favorite that still comes out from time to time!

9. Cthulhu Rift

I was surprised how much my friends who have played Cthulhu Rift liked it! Not many have played this, but those who had liked it and its roll-and-write simplicity!

Like any good Cthulhu game, players must fight cultists, navigate Arkham, find clues, and plug portals! It’s surprising how well this works in a roll-and-write (kind of) games.

Take a look at our review of Cthulhu Rift to see if you might be interested in this! This is a bit of hidden gem, but all my friends who played this have liked it!

8. Roll For Great Old Ones

Roll For Great Old Ones was one of our favorite cooperative roll-and-write games from the Top 10 Cooperative Roll-And-Write Games! It’s actually quite thematic for a roll-and-write game in this universe!

Every turn, players roll the dice and “COPY TWICE” and mark things off their sheet! Summon creatures! Perform rituals! This is a fairly complicated roll-and-write with lots of stuff going on. See one of the the great laminated sheets above! Everyone has their own sheet as well with different powers!

Even though this is a little more complicated that Cthulhu Rift (previously mentioned at #9), I generally think Roll For Great Old Ones is the better game. See our review of Roll for Great Old Ones here to see if this is something you might like.

7. Eldritch Horror

Although I have never played Eldritch Horror, a lot of my friends spoke up and gave Eldritch Horror a nod! For some of them, it replaces Arkham Horror 2nd Edition! It’s nominally a little shorter and less dense!

It’s also a little different theme! Rather than wandering the streets of Arkham looking for Cthulhoid type creatures, you are more like Indiana Jones wandering the earth! This is an adventure game in the Cthulhu-esque universe with epic combats and thematic treks across the globe!

Some people still prefer Arkham Horror 2nd edition, arguing that Eldritch Horror is not THAT much shorter or THAT much simpler. But, some people prefer Eldritch Horror for that epic sprawling adventure! Either way, it deserved a space!

6. Mansions of Madness: 2nd Edition

I have a complicated relationship with Mansion of Madness. The first time I played the 1st edition of Mansions of Madness, I absolutely hated it! The 1st edition is a one-vs-many game as one player runs the mansion, and the other players play against him! This antagonistic atmosphere really put me off the game.

I did pick up the 2nd Edition of Mansions of Madness on a whim, and I am glad I did! In the 2nd Edition, an app plays the role of the Mansion and the players all work together fully cooperatively to survive! Some people may not love the idea of an app running the bad guys, but I it does work.

Over the years, I have played some fun games of Mansions of Madness, usually on Halloween! The game is creepy and thematic as the app boths runs the game and plays creepy music! There’s a ton of content for the game and I have come to have some really good creepy times playing in this creepy Mansion! Also, a lot of my friends also gave the same props to Mansions of Madness, 2nd Edition.

5. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Arkham Horror: The Card Game is probably the most divisive game on this list, which is why it is only #5! Some people loved it, and claimed it as their #1 game, and some people said how much they didn’t like it, and other people said that Marvel Champions has completely replaced The Arkham Horror Card Game for them! It’s very similar to Marvel Champions in terms of gameplay, but arguably the Arkham game has a lot more story!?

Still, a small group of my friends in Las Cruces get together and play this regularly! They LOVE it! There’s a ton of story! There is SO MUCH content with new adventures for this game! If you find yourself drawn to this, you will have plenty of content to choose from! Just be careful, as there is a 1st edition and 2nd edition (and newer one which is still compatible with 2nd).

4. Horror on the Orient Express

For a newer game, Horror on the Orient Express went over quite well with my groups! This is basically Cooperative Cthulhu Clue as players work together to solve a mystery while traveling on the Orient Express!

Players have to uncover facts to find out who are the Cultists in your group, with a kind of Clue-like vibe!

At the same time, players must fight Cthulhoid type creatures racing along with the train in the Dreamlands! It doesn’t matter if you solve the mystery if you can’t keep the train and its passengers safe!

There’s an awful lot to this game: it will require a substantial time investment. And there’s a ton of content and expansions! But, like some of us, if you love the idea of an Agatha Christie mystery novel taking place in a Cthulhu-esque world, this is a perfect game for you! See our review here of Horror on the Orient Express to see if this might be a game for you and your group!

3. Death May Die

Death May Die is not the most popular game in my gaming circles, but the people who love it, love it! This was far and away the favorite Cthulhu game of a number of people, which is why it’s so far up the list!

This was far and away Adrian’s favorite game! And I am pretty sure it is one of Mike Heller’s favorite Cthulhu games too!

2. Mythos Tales

This one might surprise you … some of you have probably never even heard of this! Mythos Tales is basically Sherlock Homes: Consulting Detective themed with Cthulhu Mythos! Of course, there’s a very good chance you’ll go insane solving the mystery, but that’s par for the course for most Cthulhu games!

Part of the reason this game ranks so highly is that it hit some of us so hard … in a good way! My friend Joe, at his job as a teacher, was able to engage at-risk readers with this game! The idea of reading stories, looking at maps, and investigating this world was so much fun! It turns out, if you gives someone a reason to read (investigating horror), then they want to read!

This is, unfortunately, long out-of-print, but it’s pretty easy to get a used copy. If you like the idea of being a detective in the Cthulhu world, using Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective mechanics, this is the perfect game for you! (Make sure you get the 2nd edition if you can; if not, make sure you get the errata).

1. Arkham Horror: 2nd Edition

Arkham Horror: 2nd edition has a special place among me and my friends! That’s why it’s #1! It was arguably the first cooperative board game many of us have played, and we embraced all the content for it! I think I personally have all the expansions for it! You’ll notice Arkham Horror: 3rd Edition is nowhere on this list … frankly, most of us saw no reason for investing in the 3rd edition since we still had and loved the 2nd edition!

At the time of this writing, a newer revised 2nd edition called Arkham Horror: Remastered will be coming to Gamefound. It will curious to see how well this does in our hearts and minds!

At the end of the day, Arkham Horror: 2nd edition is one of me and my friends favorite games of all time. Sure, it’s long. Sure, it’s overly thematic. Sure, it’s complex. But me and my friends have had so many fun hours playing Arkham Horror: 2nd edition, it had to be in the #1 spot!

Top 10 Cooperative Replacements for Traditional Board and Card Games

We’ve all played that game of Monopoly that lasted 6 hours, or that game of Scrabble where everyone was yelling at each other, or that old traditional game where we all hated each other at the end! In the modern world of board and card games, there’s no reason for this! There are now many cooperative games that can replace the hate with joy! These are ten modern cooperative games that can replace some of old traditional board games with a more interactive and friendly game.

This list is ordered by how “obvious” a replacement game is! The games at the bottom of the list has obvious replacements, but the higher up the list you go, the harder it is to find a cooperative replacement! The top positions will really make you think about how hard it might be to replace those!

10. Monopoly -> CO-OP: The Co-op Game

If Monopoly is all about making money and crushing your opponents in a game that’s way too long, CO-OP: The Co-op Game is all about making just enough money to keep the co-op (a cooperative store and place of business with Customers) alive, while still keeping the place fun! The game is over quickly (no 6 hour game here), as players must learn to cooperative and reinforce each other’s actions! There’s actual “cooperate” actions, where players run Car Washes together to make money, or have Drum Circles to attract customers! At the end of the day, players must still make enough money (like Monopoly) to win, but it’s the delicate balance of money vs. fun that makes this so much more enjoyable than Monopoly!

CO-OP: The Co-op Game also embraces Player Selected Turn Order (see link here) allowing players to embrace the fairly modern concept choosing turn order as you play. As opposed to everyone hating each other at the end of Monopoly, high-fives end of the game when you save the CO-OP in CO-OP: the co-op game!

Disclaimer: the main designer of CO-OP: the Co-op Game is a major contributor to this web site CO-OP Gestalt, so take this with a grain of salt. But we’d still rather play CO-OP: the Co-op Game rather than Monopoly!

9. Poker -> Ace of Spades

Everyone knows how to play Poker … but sometimes it’s not the vibe you want! A “friendly game of Poker” is never truly friendly … until now! Ace of Spades is a 1 or 2-Player game where players cooperatively use poker hands to fight bad guys!

There’s a “river” of cards, shared among the players! Each player needs to form the best Poker hands they can to do damage to the current bad guy!

There’s a series of bad guys you must fight! If you can make it to the last one and defeat him, you cooperatively win! Take a look at our review of Ace Of Spades to see if this might be a good game for you!

8. Scrabble -> Word Weaver Adventures

Scrabble, at least in my family, was a vicious game where players vied for bonus spaces, and sometimes played stupid words just to block others from playing words on bonus spaces! There were heated arguments about words, but also deathly quiet!! The quiet around the table was deafening as players had to think, and there was so much analysis paralysis as player turns took forever! I love word games, but I hated playing Scrabble.

Word Weaver Adventures transcends all those petty issues! The game is gorgeous and encourages talking and communication! The vibe is open and flowing! And players all work on their words together at the same time, so turns don’t take forever! Players are all doing simultaneous word selection!

Everything I like about Scrabble (spelling words by myself, feeling smart using bonus spaces) is in Word Weaver Adventures, and everything I hate about Scrabble (turns too long, tense vibe) is absent from Word Weaver Adventures! See our review here of Word Weaver Adventures to see if this is something you might like!

7. Carcassonne -> Mists Over Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a fun tile-laying game that’s been out for a while! Carcassonne is now considered a “classic”, uttered by many people in the same breath as Monopoly and Scrabble! It’s actually a great game, but if you are looking for a cooperative version of this, the Carcassonne people have you covered! They already have something called Mists Over Carcassonne!

Mists Over Carcassonne makes the game cooperative by adding a new element: ghosts! When tiles come out, you have to worry about capturing ghosts by enclosing them using fairly standard Carcassonne rules! If too many ghosts comes out, players lose as a group!

This is a cooperative victory point game where players have to earn enough victory points (as a group) in order to win, while still keeping the ghosts at bay! Mists Over Carcassonne is a great cooperative tile-laying game, while still preserving all the things you love about Carcassonne! Take a look at our review here to see if Mists Over Carcassonne is something you might like!

If you are looking for more cooperative games that might replace Carcassonne and its tile-laying, take a look at our Top 10 Cooperative Tile-Placement Games!

6. Yahtzee -> The Reckoners

So, Yahtzee is all about rolling those dice! Keep what you want, then re-roll! Keep what you want, then re-roll one final time! Sure, it’s fine, but there’s no real interaction among people as you play; you just get the best score you can! What if you could use the Yahtzee ideas to fight bad guys? And play together at the same time??? That’s exactly what The Reckoners is! A cooperative game about fighting the bad guys together, using Yahtzee-like dice! It’s even based on a fairly well-known book by Brandon Sanderson!

The dice: this is really just a Yahtzee game, but the dice are SO nice!

The dice in this game are just gorgeous! Rolling them is a real treat! Players move around a board, looking for weaknesses and fighting bad guys together! There’s even a fine-grained Player Selected Turn Order going on that makes this so cooperative! (See link here discussing fine-grained Player Selected Turn Order).

After playing with this amazing production, you can’t go back to Yahtzee again! See above! The players are all interacting, cooperating, and rolling dice together for the common purpose of taking out bad guys! Playing talk to strategize, figure out how to use their dice as a group, and generally beat-up bad guys! Take a look at our review of The Reckoners here and it’s expansion here to see if you might like this more than Yahtzee!

Another set of games which can replace Yahtzee are roll-and-write games! See our Top 10 Cooperative Roll and Write Games for another angle on Yahtzee replacements!

5. Apples to Apples -> Just One

Apples To Apples is a fun party game that had its heyday 20 years ago! One player would be the “judge” and everyone else would try to play a card to “play to the judge!” It introduced the idea of the judge player to many people, but it was still competitive! Some of my friends would get angry if the judge didn’t choose their cards! And people would get frustrated if they got crappy cards! Apples To Apples became an instant classic, but it has faded out for my groups because of the frustrating problems.

Just One took the judge idea and made it cooperative! Now players were working together to get the judge to guess the one word (word 2: Frankenstein!) Players could be creative and think of any word they want! They tried to think out-of-the-box so as not to collide with other words! Now, no one was getting mad that their word wasn’t chosen!! People would laugh when you only had one clue, and people would generally high-five when the judge guessed the word! Just One is all the great things of Apples to Apples without its baggage! Just One is a shared experience that has worked every time I have played it! This recently the #1 position on our Top 10 Cooperative Games To Play At Gaming Conventions!

4. War -> Regicide

War is the game I remember playing at sleepovers when I was a kid. You’d take a normal deck of cards and just play all night. So easy! Cut the deck in half, each player gets a half! Flip the top card; whosoever has the highest card wins both cards! A tie? You resolve with 3 more cards, then flip again! I remember so many sleepovers and just playing this all night long.

Later on, you come to realize that War is just random. If only there were a cooperative game of fighting you could play with just a deck of cards! With a little more strategy! There is! Regicide! Regicide has the vibe of War very much; you have to do enough “damage” to bad guys (not each other), take cards, and you have to worry about losing cards!

Regicide has the benefit of using any plain deck of cards, and had the vibe of War! It is, unfortunately, more complicated than plain War, but it is a good cooperative game you can play with a plain deck of cards! See here for the free rules of Regicide! Or, you can order a deck with the rules and get the cool art!

3. Spades, Hearts, or Bridge -> The Crew: Quest For Planet Nine or The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

Spades, Hearts, or Bridge are standard trick-taking games that many people grow up with! Bridge even has its own groups! My Mom had Bridge ladies over all the time for tournaments! It was serious business to play Bridge! My Mom was actually quite good, but it was hard to keep up with her! In fact, you couldn’t keep up with her! She would destroy you!! If only there was cooperative trick-taking I could play with Mom instead of Bridge!

There is! The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine, or its second version The Crew: Mission Deep Sea are cooperative trick-taking games where players of all skill levels can play together! Even though none of us are as good as my Mom at Bridge, we can all still have fun playing this together, and still get that trick-taking game vibe my Mom loved so much!

There’s actually quite a number of cooperative trick-taking games that can take the place of Spades, Hearts, or Bridge! See The Top 10 Solo and Cooperative Trick-Taking Games here! But The Crew is our favorite replacement!

2. Risk -> Spirit Island or Horizons of Spirit Island

Original version of Spirit Island from the Kickstarter: signed by R.E. Reuss!

There’s a rather infamous story in my friend circle from High School about me giving Joe a bloody nose during a game of Risk! Yes, Risk is random, Risk is mean and vicious, but it’s the standard area-control game for most people! If you don’t want to risk giving bloody noses to your friends, then maybe there’s a better area-control game than Risk?

Spirit Island is game where players work together to control areas to to kick-out invaders! Players have to strategically inhabit the lands and keep control of lands (much like area control)! Spirit Island is an incredible modern hit, making our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2017 and, as of this writing, the #11 game OF ALL TIME on the BGG list of games!

There’s even a slightly lighter version of Spirit Island called Horizons of Spirit Island! And it’s available at Target!! Spirit Island is a very complex game, and jumping straight into Spirit Island from Risk maybe a bad idea, but jumping into Horizons of Spirit Island from Risk is probably the right way to start with it! Horizons of Spirit Island is simplified enough to get you going and see if you might like it! Take a look at our review here of Horizons of Spirit Island to see if Spirit Island can replace Risk for you!

1. Chess -> Santorini: Riddle of the Sphinx

Chess is a hard game to replace. People either love or hate Chess, usually because games are so imbalanced when one player is clearly much better than the other. What if there was a way to take advantage of all that Chess knowledge to solve puzzles together?

Santorini: Riddle of the Sphinx is all about moving pieces around the board, getting into position, and strategically setting up the next turn! It has a very “Chess” feel as players move pieces around the board to solve a puzzle! Let’s be clear, Santorini: Riddle of the Sphinx is absolutely a puzzle! The board sets up a puzzle and players have to solve it as a group or solo player!

This absolutely feels like Chess as move you characters around the board and solve the puzzles presented! Every Chess player I know thinks of board configurations like “puzzles to be solved”! Santorini: Riddle of the Sphinx absolutely has that board configurations as “puzzle to be solved” vibe, but working together in a cooperative game!

See our review here to see if you think Santorini: Riddle of the Sphinx might replace Chess for you! This is probably the most oblique replacement on our list, which is why it is #1! Let’s be clear; you need both Santorini and Riddle of the Sphinx expansion to play this!

Top 10 Cooperative Games To Play At A Gaming Convention!

As RichieCon 2026 approaches, we are reminded that not all cooperative games are created equal! A convention hall (or equivalent thereof) usually has a very different atmosphere than a home or a store. A convention tends to be a noisier, you may play with people you don’t know, and maybe you’ve been up too long so you are tired! In this convention environment, some cooperative games work better than others! For each game we list below, we indicate WHY we think this is a good cooperative convention game!

Unfortunately, a convention is a place where the Alpha Player Syndrome can manifest more easily (as you tend to play with strangers who you don’t know or trust), so we choose games where the Alpha Player is kept at bay by something! Each game we choose will also somehow address mitigating the Alpha Player!

The order for this list matters less than other top 10 lists; these games are mostly just good cooperative games to play at conventions! Here’s my current Top 10 Cooperative Convention Games! Every single one of these I would be happy to play with you and/or teach you at RichieCon 2026!

All of these games will be at RichieCon 2026!

#10 Kinfire Council + Winds Of Change Cooperative Expansion

Ok, this is a weird one, but follow me here! So, this is a long game! It’s kind of complex! The base game is nominally a really good worker placement game, but it’s just too chaotic and fragile as a competitive game. There are a lot of rules, so if you are playing competitively, it makes it a lot harder to ask questions and address issues! The cooperative expansion (Winds of Change) makes the game more interactive and a lot more fun! The complexity is not nearly as overwhelming because players are all working together to play! The game is a lot for a convention, but if you can get someone to teach it to you, the game is more tractable (which is why it’s only #10 on this list and not higher).

The Alpha Player is kept away because the game is very multiplayer solitaire! Each players has their own set of workers and upgrades that, frankly, are too much for others to follow! This game has a lot of choices, and players tend to negotiate to help each other and not get in each others’ way too much. We also strongly suggest that you play with the house rule that you may also share a resource as an errand. See our review of Kinfire Council + Winds of Changes for more discussion of this and some house rules!

I have taught this at Dice Tower West, and to at least 4 different game groups, and it was always a joy! It also made the top position of our Top 10 Cooperations Expansions of 2025!

#9. Marvel United or Marvel United: X-Men or Marvel United:Multiverse or …

Marvel United is a great convention game for many reasons; it’s easy to teach, easy to play, but still quite cooperative! The game is usually under an hour!

The idea that each player uses the symbols of the previous player’s card is genius! Most people love this simple idea that they haven’t seen elsewhere!

Another reason this is a great convention game is because anyone can play the hero that they want! Who’s your favorite Marvel Hero? You can probably play them! The three Seasons of Marvel United have almost every hero from Marvel that you might want to play! Play the quirky Ant-Man! Or the powerful Venom!! Or play the baroque and mysterious Dr. Strange! Or play Wolverine!

The only reason this is just #9 on the list is that Marvel United is slightly susceptible to the Alpha Player since everyone can see each other’s hands; this makes it slightly easier for the Alpha Player to slide in and tell everyone what to do. I personally haven’t had any issues like that, despite having probably played 50 or more games! Each player is generally playing multiplayer solitaire, so that tends to keep the Alpha Player away!

Marvel United had made so many top 10 lists here at CO-OP Gestalt: here’s just a few! Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2024! Top 10 Solo Games of 2025!

#8. Good Dog, Bad Zombie (2nd Edition)

Good Dog, Bad Zombie is a light game that’s easy to jump into at a convention! It’s easy to play, easy to explain, and people can jump in and out very easily as the game is playing!!

Players play as dogs keeping the dumb humans away from the zombies! The dogs are adorable and will probably immediately bring you into the game!

This is a pretty light game with a touch of randomness, but when you are tired and just want a light game (where you can easily add people or take them out), this is a great choice! It’s quite cute too! See our review of Good Dog, Bad Zombie here to see if this is something you want to play at a convention!

#7. Tembo: Survival of the Savanna

Tembo is a very cute game about moving elephants along in the Savanna! The players work together to move the elephants to different watering holes, eating trees along the way, and keeping the herd away from the Lion and Lioness!

This game has amazing art from Vincent Dutraite, and the elephant meeples (elepheeples?) just pop on the table! My friends all adored the cute vibe this game exuded!

But this is still a fun little game for 1-4 players. I am actually expecting to teach Max and Cassidy this game at RichieCon 2026! They will really enjoy this I think! As will you; it’s a quick, cute game that’s easy to teach and you can be done in under an hour.

The Alpha Player is kept in check because there’s a notion that each player’s perspective informs how the tiles must be played on the board, and the Alpha Player can’t necessarily see all that! Each player must play tiles along their perspective! This is a unique way to keep the Alpha Player away!

See our review here to see if Tembo is the right convention game for you!

#6. Aetherspire

Aetherspire is really great at a convention because it is looks so interesting on the board!

The structures you build look so cool! Each player’s turn is fairly multiplayer solitaire, so the Alpha Player can’t sneak in. The game is easy to describe, but it moves well and has some interesting and unique ideas. In the end, it’s the 3-D structures you build that make this game pop in a convention!

Take a look at our review here to see if Aetherspire might be a game you like to play at a convention!

#5. Boaromia: The Cooperative Festival Game!

I can almost guarantee you’ve never heard of this game! It had a very small Kickstarter, and it’s a little rare! But the boisterous energy of this game matches the boisterous energy of a convention!

Players move around a music festival, trying to make sure they see their favorite bands, but making sure to eat enough, pee enough, and drink enough! Along the way, players will stop and see other bands with their friend and just have a good time!

This is a game about having fun together as you traverse a music festival. It’s goofy, the names of the bands are goofy, the characters are goofy, and the game is just goofy. But this is a great game that works for 3 to 8 players! It’s rare to get a game that works for so many players!

I know the Alpha Player can’t really invade this game; I tried playing it solo and there’s just too much going on for the Alpha Player to tell you what to do! Everyone has to see their own favorite bands, and that scheduling can really only handled per player! See our review here to see if this might be a game you are interested!

#4. The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine or Mission Deep Sea

I have played The Crew (either one) in so many environments, and it has always worked! Missions are short, and it’s really easy for people to hop in or out of this game! You may start with 3 people, add 2 more, then drop to 4! This is just the nature of conventions; people come and go, and The Crew can easily accommodate that! And the game is fun the entire game, even with people coming and going! And you can play as long as you want!! The Crew is also a cooperative game that works well at 5 people, and sometimes it’s just harder to find good cooperative games that work at 5! What a great game; it’s never failed me! The Crew has also made our Top 10 Cooperative Space Games, and the Top 10 Cooperative Trick-Taking games!

The Alpha Player is kept at bay because this is a game of hidden information; the Alpha Player can’t tell you what to do because he can’t see everything! While I personally like The Crew better than most trick-taking games, I can’t deny there was a more popular trick-taking game that works so well at a convention … see #2 below!

#3. Fate: Defenders of Grimheim

There are multiple reasons Fate: Defenders of Grimheim works so well in a convention! For one, the rules are simple to teach and easy to internalize: it’s a tower defense game! Defend the homeland in the middle!

For another, the board is so well-labelled! Everything you need is well-labelled on the board with big enough fonts to read!

For another, the game feels very multiplayer solitaire, but in a good way. Every player is upgrading their own character with their own rules and their own cards, so everyone feels like they are getting powerful! The Alpha Player is kept at bay because each player is too busy concentrating on their own deck; the Alpha Player can’t see what everyone is doing with their own very different deck!

A game of Fate: Defenders of Grimheim starts off very multiplayer solitaire, as each player defends a different direction, but as the game progresses and more shared area is threatened, the game becomes much more cooperative! This is a great dynamic for a bunch of strangers because they can slowly get to know each and slowly become more cooperative as the tension increases!

See our review here to see if Fate: Defenders of Grimheim might be right for you! Oh yes! I have also taught this at Dice Tower West and it went swimmingly!

#2. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Trick-Taking Game. Also, The Two Towers!

This is a cooperative trick-taking game set in the first book of the Lord of The Rings. There are 18 very thematic chapters that people play through!

I know this is a good convention game because I saw it being played non-stop at RichieCon 2025 and Dice Tower West 2025! People just seem to love this game!

Everyone seems to love the simplicity of this game! Like other games on this list, the game does scale so you can jump in and out (a little, the game is best at 3 or 4), but it’s been my experience that people just want to keep playing! See our review of Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Trick-Taking Game here!

The Alpha Player is kept at bay because this is a limited communication and limited information game; the Alpha Player can’t tell you what to do because he can’t see everything!

And don’t worry RichieCon 2026 people; the next game in the (The Two Towers) will also be available to play at RichieCon 2026!

#1. Just One

I have never had a session of Just One fail me! I have played with gamers, non-gamers, and casual gamers … and it has always worked! This simple party cooperative game is easily to explain, easy to play, and addicting to keep playing! People can drop in and out without any consequences, and it can play small numbers (like 3 players) all the way up to 9 players (with a little cheating) and still work flawlessly! This word game has a simple premise: everyone choose one word to make the guesser guess the secret word. That’s it! If any words are the same, they are eliminated, so players must think outside the box sometimes to get thing working! Each round is quick, and people can easily join or drop!

The Alpha Player is kept at bay because players simply aren’t allowed to communicate during the word choice phase! There’s no way the Alpha Player can sneak in because he simply can’t talk! (And if he is talking, he is cheating!)

Just One has made our Top 10 Cooperative Games You Can Play Online and also our Top 10 Cooperative Party Games!

Top 10 Anticipated Cooperative And Solo Games of 2026!

It’s always fun to look ahead and see what might be coming! We’ve backed a bunch of Kickstarters this year, but which ones are we most excited to see?

As we look forward, we also look back to see which games we anticipated, which delivered, which we liked, and which we didn’t! We’ll start with some games from 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 … which believe it or not, some games from 2021 still haven’t delivered!

2021

The only game left from 2021 that hasn’t delivered is Onimaru. We have received no updates in the last year and few months; it’s pretty clear they took our money and ran away. This is a sobering reality check! We love Kickstarters and all the great games we can get, but there are charlatans out there who want our money.
This is the only thing from 2021 that hasn’t delivered. And I don’t think it ever will.

2022

Rat Queens to the Slaughter has had some major ups and downs, as the original creator “took back” the project after it was flailing. We are seeing updates pretty frequently with lots of new art and cards, so I think we will one day see this deliver. One day, maybe even 2026.
This is the only thing from 2022 that hasn’t delivered.

2023

Dark Quarter arrived, but the app didn’t work until later in this year? It’s been a long wait for this. We liked it, but it wasn’t quite what we expected: it’s more of an immersive experience than a detective story. See our review here to see if Dark Quarter is what you might want! We did like it enough that it made our Top 10 Cooperative Games from 2025!
Everything from 2023 has now delivered!

2024

Santorini Pantheon Edition and Santorini: Riddle of the Sphinx! This arrived sometime this March 2025, and we really liked it! It made our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2025 as well as our Top 10 Solo Games of 2025! See our review here to see if this is something you might like!
Luddite came in and we definitely enjoyed it! It’s a cooperative roll-and-write that definitely tells a story! It made our Top 10 Cooperative Roll-And-Write Games! It was such a fun experience! See our review here of Luddite to see if you might enjoy it!
X-Men Marvel Dice Throne and Marvel Missions came in this year! I loved it solo, but my friends didn’t like as much cooperatively. See our review here, but check out our Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2025!
Once Upon A Line is running very late. There is some movement, and it sounds like all the translations are done. It’s very likely we will see this in 2026! This is the ONLY game left that from 2024 that hasn’t delivered yet.

2025

Floe + Monsters Unleased: It’s taking a while for this. I have to admit, I have been a little frustrated that they did more development than I expected for a game that was “supposed to be basically done”. It still hasn’t delivered, even after promising a June 2025 delivery.
Fable Fury: This delivered sometime in November. It was a beautiful production, but me and my friends didn’t like the game. I didn’t do a review because I couldn’t even finish a game with my friends. Beautiful game, great art, wonderful production, but too random.
Horror On The Orient Express: We see lots of activity and updates, but it clearly missed its August 2025 delivery! I am confident we will see it deliver, maybe 2026.
Aetherspire: This one kind of makes me mad; I haven’t gotten my copy at the time of this writing (early December 2025), but in late November I saw two copies at my FLGS! I may see it in December 2025, I may not! If I had just WAITED, I could have picked this up from FLGS. The developer apologized online, and I get it, but it is still frustrating since I paid real money to back his Kickstarter, and others see the game first. UPDATE: it arrived Dec 18th. I don’t know if i can get a review out before the end of the year. UPDATE UPDATE: See our review of Aetherspire here!
One-Hit Heroes: One-Hit Heroes delivered to me in early 2025, and it was a hit with everyone I played it with! See our review here! It also made our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2025!
Invincible: The Card Game: This re-theming of Astro Knights into the Invincible universe delivered to use in September 2025! We liked it; it made our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2025! In some ways, it’s the best version of the Astro Knights system (esp. with the Assist keyword)! Check out our review to see if this might be for you! Get the main mat, but probably stay away from the player mats.
Unstoppable: This cooperative deck-builder game for 1 to 2 players delivered in early 2025! Nominally, it’s for 2 people, but it’s really a solo game. This made our Top 10 Solo Games of 2025 and was a real unique treat! See our review of Unstoppable here!
DCeased: A Zombie Game! This kinda delivered, but not really. The main delivery, which is full of games, it still in production. But an early version of DCeased: Gotham City Outbreak went on sale on Amazon!
LA-1: It’s close to being done. The updates have closed for shipping addresses, and the updates seem to indicate shipping is happening. I suspect we’ll see this in early 2026.
DC Super Heroes United: This is in the same boat as DCeased. The main, huge order of games hasn’t delivered, but they did put up one of the games on Amazon: DC Super Heroes Batman Hush. DC Batman Hush was our favorite game of the year! See our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2025!

On to our anticipated cooperative games of 2026!

10. Journeys Afar: The Ketsueki

Platform: Kickstarter Journeys Afar: The Ketsueki
Promised Delivery: December 2026
Summary: Welcome to Journeys Afar, where infinite worlds filled with boundless possibilities are connected by a single road: the Ketsueki. Along this path, brave heroes venture forth, each journeying to distant, mysterious lands. On their travels, they explore sites of great importance, acquire powerful items, make offerings to benevolent spirits, sharpen their skills, battle fearsome ronin, and form lasting bonds. But in the end, only one will be remembered as a legend.

Journeys Afar: The Ketsueki is a sandbox game of epic adventure, where the journey matters more than the destination. Each player is a unique hero from a distinct world. Your world defines everything in the game: encounters, quests, threats, upgrades, and special rules that reshape every session into a new experience. As heroes travel across The Ketsueki, they impact the worlds they visit and discover who they truly are.

This is a competitive game, not co-op, but I’ll probably be playing it all solo (there is a solo mode). Everything I have read about this game makes me feel like it SHOULD be a cooperative game, so maaaaaaaybe I’ll try to get some cooperative house rules going. This game, as an open world, just looks AMAZING! I am super excited to get it solo, and you MAY just see some cooperative rules on our site for this game after we give it a solo go!

9. StarDriven: Gateway + Invasion

Platform: Kickstarter StarDriven: Gateway
Promised Delivery: Jan 2026
Summary: In StarDriven: Gateway, 1-4 players each control their own starship and crew while determining the fate of distant colonies near an ancient alien gateway. The game can be played competitively, co-operatively, or in solo mode depending on which episode you select at game set-up.

Your objective is to be the most renowned and respected Crew by gaining the most points. You gain points by increasing your reputation with the Council Worlds, promoting your Crew, researching Anomalies, recruiting Freelancers, and completing Missions. All of these brave endeavors will score you points and lead to your victory. Running your starship entails assigning crew to different stations on your ship board, which allows you to assign dice to those stations to activate ship actions. Move and explore space, encounter raiders, face anomalies, and use your crew abilities and skills to fulfill mission requirements and activate their bonuses. Manage your ship’s power, weapons, and shields, and recruit and promote crew members to enhance your ship and achieve objectives to ensure your side prevails

This is #9 on the list because it is only cooperative with the Invasion expansion that comes with the Kickstarter! Usually a game that has an expansion to make it cooperative isn’t great cooperatively, but we had fantastic luck with Kinfire Council with the Winds of Change expansion making it cooperative! Honestly, we backed this because we had such a good time with games my Mike Gnade: his Set A Watch series just knocked it out of the park for us (see here, here, here, here, and here) … so if he is doing this game, I’m in! The Set A Watch games made so many of our Top 10 lists! The ultimate was when Doomed Run made our #1 spot on Top 10 Solo Games of 2024! A co-op game in space by Mike Gnade? I’m in!

8. Honor’s End

Platform: Kickstarter Honor’s End
Promised Delivery: Sep 2026
Summary: Honor’s End is a 1–4 player cooperative deckbuilding adventure set in a medieval world overshadowed by a mysterious truth. You can play it as a standalone session or as part of an episodic campaign that gradually unlocks new content and challenges.

Players must band together to overcome escalating threats. By wielding hero, action, and equipment cards, they’ll strike at their foes while fending off dishonor—brought on by danger dice rolled each round by their enemies.

Each knight chooses a path of Valor, Fortitude, or Wisdom, building a deck that shapes their abilities and tactics. Enemies, forged from the traits of Wrath, Deceit, and Despair, create unpredictable and unique battles every time you play.

Victory demands more than raw power. Success lies in balancing honor, clever deckbuilding, and shrewd use of the Temple and Monarch reward tracks. Defeat all three enemy champions to claim victory—or watch your honor slip away.

This is a game where the gameplay sounded interesting despite the art. I don’t love the art I have seen, but it’s all thematic. This cooperative campaign deck-builder looks like it will be a lot of fun with some possibly unique gameplay.

7. Exoterra: The Giant Mech

Platform: Kickstarter Exoterra
Promised Delivery: Aug 2026
Summary: Welcome to the universe of ExoTerra, a sandbox strategy game with tactical planning, deep customization, and enemies who are complex and highly challenging.

ExoTerra is played cooperatively over the course of many sorties in a campaign. Each Player takes on the role of a Pilot in charge of requisitioning equipment, personnel, supplies, and, most importantly, Jackets – massive humanoid weapon systems, to be customized and fielded in battle.

Leveraging a new system of enemy generation, battles should always feel different, even if facing the same enemies. This is accomplished through several factors of enemy customization that force players to assess each situation individually. You can rely on your experience from past battles, but must be able to change your strategy on the fly based on the variables of the mission.

This looks like an amazing Mechs game! I was on the fence on this one, but it just looks really neat. And I think the idea of customizing your Mech is what finally sold me. That and cooperative play!

6. Viking Route

Platform: Kickstarter Viking Route
Promised Delivery: Oct 2025 (ya, they didn’t make this. It will be 2026)
Summary: In the co-operative game Viking Route, your heroes sail a magical Drakkar to the World’s Edge and beyond. Influenced by magical ravens sent by Odin to steer your course, and by the winds of Fate, you will face powerful and monstrous creatures out of the Norse mythos to fulfill your quests and prepare you for the final challenge to defeat the greatest enemy of the Gods and prevent Ragnarok!

Viking Route uses a compass-and-magnets movement mechanism first introduced the game The Faceless. The main game piece — the Drakkar — is represented by a compass, and multiple magnets (representing ravens and wind) are manipulated by players to steer the course of their ship.

Magnets and compasses? In a cooperative game? Yes please! This game looks really interesting and definitely has a high toy factor! Let’s hope the game underneath is good as well!

5. Ghostland: The Game

Platform: Kickstarter Ghostland
Promised Delivery: March 2026
Summary: Jurassic Park meets Ghosts in this Co-operative boardgame about a theme park gone mad! It’s opening day at Ghostland, a theme park that contains actual ghosts! However, havok has immediately broken loose, and the ghosts are attacking guests left and right. It’s up to you and your friends to stop the ghosts, build Field Generators to contain them, and finally face off against the most sinister ghost in the park, the infamous Rex Garrote!

Each players picks a character that is unique and contains their own stats and abilities to help you not only survive the theme park, but hopefully save the day as well! The game is played in rounds where players move arounds the park, fight ghosts, buy items, or try to build a Recurrence Field Generator.

Once players have successfully built three Recurrence Field Generators they will summon the big bad himself, Rex Garrote, for them to defeat! But if the park’s human population reaches zero, it’s Game Over!

Ghosts in an amusement park? And a co-op to boot? Who needs a Scooby-Doo game, because this sounds like it might scratch that it! This may or may not be a Birthday present for my friend CC! He loved amusement parks and horror-themed games! I just hope I don’t like it better than him or I may keep it!

4. Sail: Legacy

Platform: Kickstarter Sail Legacy
Promised Delivery: August 2026
Summary: Assemble your crew, captain your ship, and take on the high seas in this legacy co-op trick-taker!

In Sail Legacy, you and your best matey will go on an adventure across thirty unique missions. Upgrade your ship, outfit your characters, and tune the deck itself to avoid a watery grave!

Sail Legacy evolves from the core Sail game mechanisms as you cooperatively use “must-follow” trick-taking to take on the unforgiving ocean — and the mythical beasts that call it home. Based on the combination of symbols in the trick, you’ll steer the ship, charge ahead, or fire the cannons. Throughout the game, you’ll tweak your pirate’s asymmetric player powers. Will you have a well-balanced team or specialize in one area?

We really liked the original 2-Player Trick-Taking game Sail; it made it pretty high on our Top 10 Solo and Cooperative Trick-Taking Games! This one takes that formula and transforms into an Legacy games where maps changes and components may change forever! It’ such an interesting idea; I am really looking forward to this!

3. Companion Quest

Platform: Kickstarter Companion Quest
Promised Delivery: Dec 2025 (ya, it’s not making that; we’ll see it in 2026!)
Summary: Companion Quest is a cooperative game for 1-4 players, who take on the role of gnomes, tasked with preventing Gu’Gu from causing chaos. Players will collect magical Energy Cubes (dice), tasty Snacks (resources), and fantastical Companions (abilities) along the way. Each Companion has unique abilities that allow players to manipulate their dice to overcome the challenges they will face.

Complete quests before the Mischief Meter reaches the end of the track and things spiral out of control!

This looks like an epically cute dungeon crawler in a small but beautifully cute package. The BGG pages lists this as 30 minutes and 10+ ages, so I suspect it will easy to jump into! Sometime you just want a fun and fast and cute dungeon crawler!

2. Abyss Echo: The Forbidden Rite

Platform: Kickstarter Abyss Echo: The Forbidden Rite
Promised Delivery: April 2026
Summary: Step into the shadowed halls of Miskatonic University, where fate and madness echo behind every closed door.

Abyss Echo: The Forbidden Rite is a deeply immersive narrative game that weaves branching storylines, dice-driven uncertainty, and evocative physical artifacts — blurring the boundary between reader and protagonist. Here, you are both yourself and the 1920s student investigator, their fate and sanity intimately entwined with your own. Guided by cryptic letters, you’ll piece together elusive clues, test the limits of science and reason, and confront choices that might reshape reality itself.

This looks to be Cthulu meets escape room a little bit! I am usually not huge into Cthulu, but the components look stunning … and I love mystery stories! Cthulu, mystery, escape: count me in!

1. Doom Guard

Platform: Kickstarter Doom Guard
Promised Delivery: May 2026
Summary: Doom Guard is a cooperative board game for one to five players, who don the mantle of Earth’s mightiest heroes and villains as they are forced to work together in order to protect Earth from total annihilation!

Defeat the minions of Cthulhu, fight the spread of corruption, and beat back the forces of evil through 45-60 minute scenarios that can be played individually or as part of a complete campaign.

This looks like a really neat super heroes vs Cthulu game! I like the art and the vibe and I am really excited for this! I have always wanted super heroes in my Cthulu mythos, and now I have them! This is a smaller endeavour (“only” $103, 000), so let’s hope it delivers! UPDATE: They delivered the PDFs to backers (Dec 16th?) already! A good sign!

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:

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!
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!
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!

Top 10 Solo/Cooperative Trick-Taking Games

Trick-taking games are a genre that’s been around for ages: Bridge, Hearts, and a more gamery games like Rage! We’ve now reached a point where there are a lot of solo and cooperative trick-taking games as well! To be cooperative, every single one of these games has a pretty severe notion of Limited Communication … if you could just communicate anything, most of these games would become trivial! So, most games on this list have very constrained notions of communication! Interestingly, most of these games also have a very constrictive player count, so we take note of that as well! Let’s take a look below!

(We also note that two of these are in German, which required me getting a translation, and a third was mostly German but luckily included English rules!)

10. Park Life

Player Count: 1-4

This cooperative Trick-Taking game is a little misleading because, depending on the version of Park Life you get, there’s a very different trick-taking game!

The Deluxe Hedgehog version (above) has a different version of a trick-taking game …

.. than The Deluxe People Edition (above)!

Both games have a solo game, but the game is a little better with more people. These games are at the bottom of this list because they seem the least developed: they are very cute and have some interesting ideas for trick-taking games, but feels like they could use a little bit of either explanation or work.

Still, you may play these and fall in love with them because of the cute art!

9. Lindyhop

Player Count: 2-Player Only

This game presents is an interesting theme, as a trick-taking game recreating a dance from 1928 (from the African American communities of New York City). Two players “dance” with each other, with trick-taking simulating the back-and-forth/give-and-take as players try to “groove” together.

Players traverse a path together, picking up tokens if they land on exact spaces. See above.

Players play cards and the difference in card value is how far they move! The art is gorgeous (see above) and very thematic: there are even special powers on some of the cards!

The only reason this is a little lower on the list is because there is really only one opportunity to strategize: at the beginning of the game! But it’s a fun little romp that’s easy to bring out.

8. Claim with the Expansion Claim: Alliances

Player Count: 2-Player Only

Claim by itself is a 2-Player only competitive trick-taking game.

But, with the Claim: Alliances expansion (see above) this becomes a cooperative trick-taking experience!

This is one of the games that was originally in German, luckily I was able to find English rules online!

Since the way to play cooperatively is to use the Alliances expansion, you first have to learn the base game! The game proceeds in two phases, both powered by trick-taking! In the first phase, you play tricks to try and recruit cards for the next phase. The winner of each trick gets the named recruit, and the loser gets the “random” top-deck recruit! The second phase has the players trying to win factions (using trick-taking): whomever wins the most factions, wins!

In the cooperative game, some Alliance cards are added to the mix. During the recruit phase, the winner has to take an Alliance card, which includes bad guys and commanders, and at some point, both sides must have a commander whose factions they MUST win!

This is a little lower on the list because you have to get the base game under your belt before you can play the expansion. But there are some cool ideas in here, including the two phase system and some special powers on some factions!

7. The Fox in the Forest Duet

Player Count: 2-Player Only

This is a 2-Player trick-taking game where players play tricks to move around a forest map collecting gems.

The art is cute and the game is pretty light. The Communication Limitations are fairly draconian once you have your cards (you can’t even discuss strategy), but you can discuss strategy between rounds. We had fun playing it; it’s a lighter game that isn’t crazy rule heavy.

6. Trick ‘n Trouble (Fangt Doc Crazy!)

Player Count: 3-Player Only

What???? A 3-Player only game???

This is a bit of a surprise as a 3-Player only cooperative game! It has kind of a spooky (silly spooky) theme!

Players try to fulfill tasks based on the cards from “won tricks”: The players have a tableau of tasks to fulfill (see above).

The “trick” in this game is that some of the cards are double-colored, and you can use them as you wish.

This was a surprisingly fun little game, even if the 3-Player only count is a little different. Like most cooperative trick-taking games, the limited communication permeates and you can’t really talk about the cards in your hand.

5. Sail

Player Count: 2-Player Only

I’ve been able to get Sail to the table a number of times with Sam and Kurt over the past year! It’s a fun theme as you use trick-taking to help move a ship towards its final destination!

Winning a trick means “usually” moving the boat in your direction (towards you), but there are many different things that happen along the way!

Can you avoid the Kraken? Can you move forward when you really need to?

Using trick-taking as a means to move the ship forward is real interesting mechanism! If you like Sail, be aware that Sail Legacy is coming to Kickstarter soon!

4. For Northwood

Player Count: 1-Player Only

Yes, that’s right, this is a solo trick-taking game! It sounds like this can’t work, but it works really well! The tricks are “conversations” with fiefs, and you try to make fiefs “friendly” to you by winning them over with conversation! It’s a pretty thin theme, but it works pretty well as a trick-taking schema.

This is a tiny little game with super cute art!

There are special powers you can activate!

Winning is a victory point threshold, as you count how many friendly fiefs you obtain (and count the stars)! Because this is a solo-only game, there is no notion of Limited Communication! This is a really unique little game that I had to scour all the gameshops to find! I think there were reprints, so I believe this is back in stock!

3. Jeckyl and Hyde vs. Scotland Yard

Player Count: 2-Player Only

The two players cooperatively play the two sides of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, vying for control!

This is a fascinating idea, using trick-taking as a way to take control of the personality! To keep ahead of Scotland Yard, the two players must win tricks in such a way as to keep Scotland Yard off their tail!

The two players each play a different side of the personality!

I, unfortunately, was unable to get the English version for some time, so I ended up using Google translate to translate the German text to English! But this game was so cool, the art was so neat, and it had such neat ideas, I really liked it! That’s why, despite only having a German copy, this made it all the way to #3! (And I did finally get the English version: it is available more widespread now!)

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

Player Count: 1-4 Players

This game has taken my game groups my storm: everyone loves it!

I played it solo when I was sick, and had a wonderful time going through the whole campaign solo!

My friends in Las Cruces have played through the entire campaign as a 3-Player game and love it! See our review here! I played a bunch 3 and 4-Player games at Dice Tower West with my friends Becca and Tricia and had a ball!

The reason this game is so high on the list is that everyone seems to really enjoy it! The fact that it can play at so many player counts speaks volumes to the design team! The solo game is very different from the 2-Player game, which is very different from the 3 and 4-Player game, and yet all the different modes seem to work, and work well! The theme seems to come through fairly well! My friend Andrew was surprised this was #2 and NOT #1 on my list!

1. The Crew: Either The Quest For Planet Nine or Mission Deep Sea

Player Count: 3-5 Players (sorta 2-Player)

There are two different versions of this game, but they are essentially the same kind of game. Like Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking game, the game players differently depending on the player count. There is a 2-Player mode, but it’s very clumsy and probably not the way you should play.

Players play tricks, but have to fulfill missions in order to win the game! The missions give the game focus, and change every game!

Honestly, even though I have the physical copy of both games (which are arguably the same game), I have played this game SO MUCH on BoardGameArena! During the Pandemic, this was the goto game for me and my friends! It was so easy to just bring this out and play for hours. Something called The Crew brought us together; there is probably some deeper meaning there.

What makes this #1 on the list for me is the brilliant rule that you can communicate WHEN IT REALLY MATTERS! You have a token that allow you to communicate once during your turn, by sharing the lowest, highest, ot “only one” of your hand. This is so unique: all the other trick-taking game have very restricted communication, but essentially there’s none or high-level “strategy” communications. With this one mechanism, The Crew makes it feel like your CHOICES MATTER: It matters when you choose to communicate, it matters when you choose to hold off, it matters!

This is the #1 on my list because I have played it so much more than every other game, and it’s so easy to play online or in person, and you feel like your limited communiques matter.

Top 10 Solo Board and Card Games of 2024

What makes a good solo game? I find them when I typically start playing solo games to learn that game cooperatively for my friends. If a game starts to enchant me and I can’t stop playing it solo … there’s something to it! All 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 2024, some but of them will end up on my Top Cooperative Expansions of 2024, but one things for sure … they are all great solo!

For more great solo games, see last year’s list: Top 10 Solo Board and Card Games of 2023!

Honorable Mention: Solo Project PEGASUS Campaign for Marvel United

After getting Marvel United Multiverse Season 3 with all of its content, I was very taken with the Campaign Decks (see below and see review here), but I was saddened to learn there was no campaign for the Project PEGASUS saga (see above)!

So I spent many many weeks developing my own campaign using all of the Marvel United content! This is a print-and-play campaign for Marvel United! I played this campaign solo over and over and over again (multi-handed with 2, 3, and 4 characters) as I playtested all the the different combinations of characters! There is no game I played more solo this year than the Marvel United: Project PEGASUS campaign!

It’s awkward to put this on our list since I developed it, but I had so much fun playtesting it solo over and over for weeks and weeks, I had to acknowledge how much time and how much fun I had with this! If you liked the Marvel United Campaign Decks and wanted more, check out the free Project PEGASUS Campaign here!

10. Skytear Horde: Monoliths

Now, Skytear Horde: Monoliths is a standalone expansion in the Skytear Horde universe! This is a great little solo and cooperative tower defense game! But you might ask: “Why isn’t this on the Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2024 instead of this solo list?” That’s a very good question! It’s because, although this is a really good expansion with great components and cards, the game really works best as a solo game.

We tried it cooperatively (see our review here), and it was just okay. It’s significantly better as a solo game! It feels like most of the balance and playtesting was done as a solo game, so it can’t really go on our Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2024 list … because it really is best as a solo game.

It’s got some great components and some really great art! Take a look at our review here to see if this is something you might like!

9. Batman: Gotham City Chronicles + Solo/Cooperative Expansion

So, you can’t play Batman: Gotham City Chronicles solo without both the base game (which came out years ago) and the Solo/Cooperative Expansion (which came out this year)! In order to get to the cooperative game, I had to wade through learning the original base one vs. many game, then learn the solo game, to finally learn the cooperative game! Whew!

Now the cover of the Solo/Cooperative Expansion looks great! See above!

But there were some major production issues with the expansions as: 1) The English translation still had some scenarios in French! And 2) The binding on the solo/cooperative rulebook is terrible! It’s impossible to hold open! See above as I came up with a kludgy workaround for that! Objectively, I feel like I had to give this game a 5.5/10 since the production had issues!

Yet, even after all those issues (and the sheer complexity of the game), I still enjoyed being Batman in this solo romp around Gotham City! Subjectively, I gave it a 7/10 because I felt like I was Batman! Because of the production issues, this has to fall close to the bottom of the solo list, but I still enjoyed this overall! See our review of Batman: Gotham City Chronicles Solo/Cooperative Mode to see if this might be something you enjoy!

8. NYC: Emergency Room

This might strike you as an odd pick: A Medical Mystery game! I picked this up at Target and really enjoyed playing through the mysteries of the game! Instead of solving a boring old murder mystery (sarcasm here: I loved my murder mysteries), you are doing research, asking questions, running tests, and trying correctly to diagnose a patient!

There’s only a limited number of mysteries per box (see the envelopes above), but if you ever wanted to play a medical mystery and diagnose like Gregory House, this is the game for you!

I love my murder mysteries (remember: Suspects made the #1 spot on my Top 10 Solo Games of 2023), and this was a great spin on that genre! See our review here to see if it’s something you may like!

7. Everdell: Duo

I wasn’t expecting to like Everdell: Duo as much as a I did! My first playthroughs were a bit “clunky”, as the game has some fiddly bits and documentation issues you have to get through. But once you “get” how the game works, it’s quite fun! (I also never played the original Everdell)

To play solo, you have to man both the tortoise and the hare as they build their respective cities! See above! There’s a lot of thought about when you share, when you place workers, when you buy, and when you draw cards! You are looking for the combos to help both the tortoise and the hare! It might “seem” like both the hare and tortoise are playing multiplayer solitaire games, but as the game opens up to you, there’s more collaboration between the two than you might think!

That delicious (solo) collaboration plus the beautiful components and the cute vibe of the game put this on my solo list! I am just as surprised as you are that this made my solo list! My only concern (which is why it’s at #7) is that can be at the whim of the card draws, but most of the time there are so many ways to pivot around that! See our review here to see if this might be something you like!

6. Rise of the Unfolders: Tidal Blades 2

I didn’t know a lot about the original Tidal Blades when I backed this, but Tidal Blades 2 looked like a fun little cooperative dungeon crawler. Holy Cow! I was blown away about how good the gameplay were and how great the components were!

As silly as it sounds, they did such a great correlating the colors, giving bases for the monsters, and generally making the cards very readable!

But the coup de grace was the card system where you could choose a card, a row or a column, activating everything there! This was such a unique and different combat system, it really made this game stand out. The game is better with more people, but I had such fun playing through (most) of the campaign solo!

See our review of Rise of the Unfolders: Tidal Blades 2 to see if this game might be of interest to you!

5. Robinson Crusoe: Collector’s Edition (primer)

This is an odd duck of an entry; the Collector’s Edition of Robinson Crusoe arrived this years (3 years late, which made a lot of people angry) and had some amazing minis and components … for a worker placement game that probably doesn’t need them!

See above for one of the Sundrop worker placement tokens!! Did I really need this? Nah! But did I love it? Ya!

In the end, the reason this made the list (besides how stupidly nice it looks) was because of the Introductory Campaign Scenario Book! I love Robinson Crusoe, but I hadn’t played it in 5 years! The Introductory Campaign gave me an excuse to enjoy a nice 5-Game campaign in the world of Robinson Crusoe! Over about a month, I’d play a scenario on a weekend and just have a good old time in this world. Good times! It reminded why I like Robinson Crusoe so much!

Check out our review of the Collector’s Edition of Robinson Crusoe to see if this might be something you might like!

4. Marvel United: Campaign Deck. Dark Phoenix Saga

The Campaign Decks (see above) came with Season 3 of Marvel United: Multiverse. These decks takes all your Marvel United content (and I mean ALL of it) and gives you some “stories” or campaigns to run through.

The Dark Phoenix Saga is a campaign centered on the X-Men from issues #131-137 back in the Byrne/Austin/Claremont days. This campaign takes you through a story, lasting 5 battles (or more) as the X-Men fight the Hellfire club, others, and (spoiler!) deal with Jean Grey turning into Dark Phoenix.

This was a heart-breaking, soul-wrenching campaign as I played through one of my favorite Marvel X-Men stories! I can’t share too much, but it was a great solo experience over a number of days.

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See our review of the Campaign Decks to see if this might be something you might like! Some spoilers included, but they should be well marked!

3. Aeon’s End: The Descent

This one was a late comer and almost didn’t make our list! It came in late late November, just before Thanksgiving! I ended up playing cooperatively with my friends and had a grand old time, but the solo experience was truly phenomenal!

First of all, Aeon’s End: The Descent has true solo play (which makes it a lot easier to jump into)! And all the new Mages and ideas it adds to the system were … surprisingly fresh! Even after 8 years, this standalone expansion breathed new life into the Aeon’s End system!

But, at the end of the day, it was the new module called Friends and Foes that made this stand out so much! This new module adds new ways of winning and losing with some interesting ideas, but what it does best for me was mitigate the problems with Variable Turn Order!

Playing through the four Chapters of this narrative campaign was a thrill! The story was pretty good (once you got into it), and the new ideas generated throughout were fantastic. I played a different mage in every chapter and just had a ball figuring out how to play each new mage! Sure, you can play this campaign with many people, but I really enjoyed unravelling this story as a solo play. See our review here of Aeon’s End: The Descent to see if this might be something you enjoy!

2. Sammu-Ramat

Any other year, this probably would have been my #1 game of the year! I went back and forth a number of times, so this could easily be my #1! Sammu-Ramat is basically a cooperative euro-puzzle game; it immerses the players into Queen Sammu-ramat’s rule of Assyria in 9th century BC, as guided by her advisors.

It’s kind of a war game, as you fend off invaders, but it’s also a euro game gathering-resources games, but it’s also a logistics puzzle as you try to balance keeping the kingdom defended and fed!

You can play either a one-shot (which is a great way to jump in), but it really shines as a 5-game campaign where you leave the game state as set-up for the next game! This game was such a great surprise! I adored playing it solo, especially through a campaign (although it needs a little house-ruling). I really wish it could have made my #1 spot because it was so good. See out review of Sammu-Ramat here to see if this is something you might like!

1. Set A Watch: Doomed Run

This game has no right to be the #1 spot; this is a giant campaign game in the Set A Watch Universe. First of all, of the Full 7 Game Campaign games I played, I ended up playing two of them cooperatively! So, that means I only played 5 of the games solo!

And to play the campaign, you must have ALL The Set A Watch Content! And I mean all!! (Including the Outriders deck)! This means: Set A Watch, Set A Watch: Swords of the Coins, and Set A Watch: Forsaken Isles!!! See how it takes up one half of my table just to separate the different games above?

And Set A Watch also has the solo problem that “you must play 4 characters”, so that’s not ideal either: see above as I try to operate 4 characters!

Despite all that, this game spent 11 days taking over my table, and I had a ball playing through it mostly solo! Once you know Set A Watch, especially solo, it’s such a fun game! I know, this really has no right even being my favorite solo game of 2024, but I had so much fun playing it (mostly) solo, it has to be #1. See our review here to see if Set A Watch: Doomed Run might be something you enjoy!

Top 10 Anticipated Cooperative Board and Card Games of 2025!

As we look forward, we also look back! It’s fun to look ahead at the cooperative games coming up in 2025!!! We’ve been looking ahead since 2021 (see our Top 10 Anticipated Cooperative Games of 2021), but it’s always interesting to see the state of games from those previous years. Believe it or not, we still are waiting some games from 2021! Let’s take a look at some backlog!

2021:

Onimaru: There have been some pictures of pallets of boxes from the Warehouse, but we still haven’t see this yet. Maybe we’ll see this, maybe we won’t. I don’t know. It’s been since 2019 when this all this started (6+ years!!). As of now, this is the only outstanding game from our 2021 list.
Freedom Five: After being the #2 entry on our Top 10 Anticipated Cooperative Games of 2021, Freedom Five finally arrived … and it was very disappointing. Basically, we found it too random and too long, plus there were some production issues, so we ended up selling it. See our review here to see more details.

2022:

Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread: It’s been a while for this, but we did see a copy arrive at the Dice Tower, so we know that this is imminent. Based on everything from the Kickstarter, we should see this in early 2025. UPDATE: It arrived! December 30th, 2024! It’s a big mama! Look for a review coming soon!
Rat Queens To The Slaughter: There’s been some drama here as the original creator took the game back from the people who have failed to deliver! It’s unclear what happens next, but the creator wants to take charge of this himself … which is great, but it’s still really unclear when we’ll see this!
Union City Alliance: Huzzah! Union City Alliance finally arrived! And it was good! We liked it so much it made our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2024! See our review here of Union City Alliance to see if you might like it!

2023:

Dark Quarter: Promised Oct 2023. It is frustrating we haven’t seen this yet, but there has been lots of activity on the Kickstarter threads, so we believe we will see this early 2025. This is the only game still undelivered from our 2023 list.
Hacktivity: This delivered in June 2024 this year! And it was pretty good. It didn’t make any Top 10 lists this year, but I still liked it. See our review here of Hacktivity to see if you might like this!
Set A Watch: Forsaken Isles + Doomed Run: This delivered this year in about April 2024, and we absolutely loved both the Forsaken Isles (standalone game: see our review here) and Doomed Run (campaign game: see our review here)! Forsaken Isles made our Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of the 2024, and Doomed Run made the #1 spot as our favorite solo game from 2024! See our Top 10 Solo Games of 2024!

2024:

Cyberpunk Unfolds: This arrived in late summer 2024. It was ok but it was a little disappointing. See our review here for more details.
Defenders of the Wild: This arrived August 2024, on time. There was a lot to like in this game, but it just didn’t land for me or any of my groups. Take a look at our review here!
Santorini Deluxe and Co-op expanion: Promised delivery May 2024. Still haven’t seen too much activity. Hopefully it will arrive in 2025.
Weirdwood Manor: This delivered in June 2024 and was generally very well received by my game groups! See our review here to see if this might be something you might like!
Flock Together: This delivered in July 2024. My game groups tended to like this lighter co-op game. It made the #8 spot on our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2024! Check out our review here.
Luddite: Promised delivery December 2024. There has been progress, but we probably won’t see this until 2025.
Once Upon A Line: The Butterfly’s Breath: Promised delivery May 2024. They are still doing a lot of work (per the Kickstarter updates), but it’s not done yet, even from a development perspective, let alone manufacturing. We may see this at the end of 2025, but we suspect we won’t see it until 2026.
Leviathan Wilds: This arrived in April 2024 and really took my game groups by storm! We loved it (see our review here), and it made the #3 spot on our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2024!
Marvel X-Men Dice Throne + Co-op Missions! This promised delivery in Aug 2024. We still don’t have it. It looks like some people might get it before the end of 2024, but most people will be getting this in early 2025.
Marvel United: Multiverse: Season 3 of Marvel United arrived in late July 2024, and it brought so much delicious content! It made our heads explode! Read about the great Expansion Absorption Explosion here! We loved the base game Marvel United: Multiverse, we enjoyed the The Galactus expansion, we really dug the Inhumans expansion, and we loved the Campaigns! We even made our own campaign for Project Pegasus! Everything that came here peppers our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2024, our Top 10 Cooperative Expansions of 2024, and our Top 10 Solo Games of 2024!

All right! Let’s head into our 2025 games!

10. Floe + Monsters Unleased (CO-OP Expansion)

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Platform: Kickstarter Floe
Promised Delivery: June 2025
Summary: FLOE is an adventure-strategy game where players embark on heroic quests across an icy landscape. You’ll discover long-lost secrets on uncharted icebergs, sail the seas to find adventure and sunken treasure and delve into perilous caves to find precious crystals and battle fearsome monsters. Despite the dangers ahead, you won’t be alone in your travels. Always at your side, your loyal familiar may help gather resources or jump into the fray to turn the tide of battle. During their travels, heroes will also gain helpful allies, powerful abilities, and rare items. In time, heroes may also build shrines across the map, ensuring their legacy will be long remembered. However, always beware of the cold. Venturing into the icy wasteland is perilous: almost everything heroes do outside the safety of the village will cost them warmth. From time to time, they will need to return to the village to warm up, improve their homestead, purchase upgrades, and prepare for their next big adventure. Will you be the boldest explorer of them all?

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So, the base game looks amazing! But this game isn’t a co-op by default, which has us a little worried. But with the Monsters Unleased expansion, this will be co-op! This is #10 on our list because its unclear how good the co-op will be! Given the quality of everything else, we expect great things!

9. Fable Fury

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Platform: Kickstarter Fable Fury
Promised Delivery: Oct 2025
Summary: As unlikely heroes, you must explore unknown lands, fight unconventional enemies, dodge silly traps, and collect monster runes hidden within ancient shrines scattered across the realms. Once you have collected the 3 runes, unlock the portal to face the monstrous threat!

Choose your heroes and set out as a team to find the runes hidden in Shrines across three realms. Grab your coins, stock up on items at the Gift Shop, and jump into your first realm.

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The tag line of this game is Ridiculous strategic cooperative, rogue-like dungeon crawler: The art is very cute, and the game seems to have a sense of humor. We had such a good time with Slay The Spire this last year that maybe this will scratch the same itch! We are very much looking forward to this! I love the art! And the sense of humor!

8. Horror On The Orient Express

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Platform: Gamefound Horror On The Orient Express
Promised Delivery: August 2025
Summary: Horror on the Orient Express: The Board Game lures you into the luxurious Orient Express in the 1920s, taking you on a dangerous train ride into the realm of the Dreamlands. Everything is against you, from monsters attacking the train to murderous cults hiding among the passengers. Worst of all, an eldritch, blood-thirsty vampire hunting down everything that moves. Can you solve the dark secrets of the Orient Express before time runs out?

In this cooperative game, you and the other investigators try to survive on the doomed train. To win, you must hunt out the cultists to stop them from performing a hideous ritual and ensure the train reaches its destination. Each of you controls a character who can develop new skills, gather items, talk to the passengers, discover clues, and, ultimately, decide the train’s fate. You may even learn a spell or two!

Horror on the Orient Express: The Board Game brings the award-winning Call of Cthulhu horror and mystery TTRPG into the board gaming world. Special rules, ongoing character development, and awesome play pieces provide a challenging and exciting gaming experience. Your journey on the Orient Express will be something to remember!

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This games looks gorgeous and lures me back into the Horror/Cthulu mythos by being a little bit of a mystery too! Cthulu and a mystery? And a train? What more could you want!? And, let’s be honest, this looks gorgeous on the table!

7. Aetherspire

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Platform: Kickstarter Aetherspire
Promised Delivery: Jan 2025
Summary: The realm of Elementis, once a harmonious balance of earth, air, fire, and water, is now under siege. Elemental Aetherfiends have dispatched waves of invaders to drain our aethercore, the realm’s lifeblood, causing chaos to reign. You and your companions must build powerful elemental spires to lure away and defeat these invaders. As each spire grows stronger, it will unleash a devastating resurgence against the Aetherfiends. Can you restore balance before it’s too late?

Aetherspire is a cooperative 3D tile placement and tower defense game for 1-4 players. Build elemental spires and defend the realm in this stunning 3D strategy game!

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A 3-D Tile placement games and tower defense game? Sign me up! And I really like how it looks! I am excited to see how this comes to the table!

6. One-Hit Heroes

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Platform: Kickstarter One-Hit Heroes
Promised Delivery: March 2025
Summary: Pick a hero and fight for your life! One-Hit Heroes is a co-operative boss rush game where your team must defeat the boss without getting hit even once. The more bosses you defeat, the more your Armory improves as you unlock more card variety each time you play an Episode.

Each boss has a custom deck of moves to try and land hits on your team, but each of you have a unique hero deck with your own tools for blocking, dodging and damaging the boss.

Defeat bosses to be rewarded with card packs that you can tear open and draft from. Each card pack will let you power up and specialize your hero further for the rest of the Episode. But in order to defeat the final boss of each Episode, you’ll need more than just a refined deck – you’ll need to play your cards carefully and work as a team to survive long enough to win.

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This is a solo or co-op boss battler; it’s a card game about fighting, but avoid getting hit … as you only have one hit point! How do avoid all the damage but still manage to win? Rahdo really raved about this, and I too am excited for it!

5. Invincible: The Card Game

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Platform: Kickstarter Invincible: The Card Game
Promised Delivery: Jan 2025
Summary: Invincible: The Card Game puts you in the role of young superheroes as they struggle to become the new Guardians of the Globe. Working together as a team, each player gets to control an iconic character from the Invincible comic universe as you battle to protect Earth from escalating encounters with the series’ many supervillains.

In each battle, you start with a character-specific deck of cards and a unique special ability, then it’s up to you to build up your deck, charge your power, and choose your strategy wisely. Your enemy won’t be taking it easy on you, unleashing hordes of minions to take you down, launching attacks to destroy the city around you, and forcing you to adapt to their unique special abilities. How hard could it be? Well, all you have to do is stay alive, protect Earth, and defeat the universe’s most powerful villains.

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We loved Invincible: The Hero-Building game (see review here) and we love the Astro Knights games (see reviews here and here), so adding Invincible IP to the Astro Knights system seems like a good match! Astro Knights has the comicy feel and seems like a natural fit. It was somewhat surprising this Kickstarter didn’t do better: this only may made $111K, which seems small for a larger IP like Invincible. Still, we look forward to a cooperative deck-builder with Invincible!

4. Unstoppable

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Platform: Kickstarter Unstoppable
Promised Delivery: February 2025
Summary: On the city-planet of Ceres II, every alleyway invites a quick and quiet death. In the lush forests of Virenos, a single misstep could land you in the belly of a beast. The harsh wasteland of Mithras holds both grave danger and a great treasure for those who search its stacks of discarded rubbish. Amidst this chaos, you find yourself thriving, learning, and growing — a child of rank, touched by fate — but a new danger shadows the future of all three worlds. Gather your allies and sharpen your skills, for the darkest days are yet to come.

Unstoppable is a solo or co-operative roguelike, momentum deck-building game. Use card crafting and deck building wisely in the face of unlimited threats, maintaining action and card-draw momentum to become unstoppable!

This looks like such an interesting idea: a cooperative card-crafting game! It’s cooperative mode is limited to 2 people, so perhaps this will be best solo, but it looks really nice! I know some people actually backed out of the kickstarter (I am looking at you, Mike H.) because it was fairly expensive for what you got, but I was fascinated by this game and its premise, so I stayed in. Hopefully it will be good!

3. DCeased: A Zombicide Game

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Platform: Kickstarter DCeased: A Zombicide Game
Promised Delivery: April 2025
Summary: DCeased – A Zombicide Game is a cooperative game were 1 to 6 players control the last uninfected Super Heroes facing off against Zombie Heroes and the zombie hordes controlled by the game itself.

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DCeased: A Zombicide Game is the DC Universe’s answer to Marvel Zombies: Heroes’ Resistance and X-Men: Heroes’ Resistance. See our review of the Marvel version of those here and here! But basically, we really liked those games! So, we are very excited to be able play the DC Universe version of the same game! Let’s be clear: you are playing the DC Heroes fighting off the Zombie hordes! Some versions of Marvel Zombies actually have the zombified heroes fighting the good guys—that’s not what this is. Or at least, that’s not what I am looking forward to.

2. LA-1

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Platform: Kickstarter LA-1
Promised Delivery: Aug 2025
Summary: Most detective work done in the city of LA-1 takes place under the perpetual dark clouds that still linger from the bombs. Even so, you plan to work together to gather clues, interrogate suspects, and go on stakeouts in a world that is divided by class and dominated by status. Use your skills to solve the case before the all-consuming darkness closes in forever.

In the story-driven, co-operative adventure game LA-1, you take on the role of detectives working for Mace & Doyle Investigations who are helping one another to resolve cases in the post-apocalyptic city that was once Los Angeles. Each case can be played individually or as part of a campaign. Because of the multiple cards that can send investigations in different directions, it’s possible to play each case more than one time, having different situations and outcomes each time. But cases must be solved before the Darkness closes in on all the investigators.

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Here’s another Richard Lanius game that has me very excited! I love my cooperative detective games (see our Top 10 Cooperative Detective Games), and this post-apocalyptic detective game sounds really interesting! It’s story-driven and promises some really cool stuff. I also typically love Richard Lanius games (despite being so disappointed by Freedom Five), so I am super excited for this!

1. DC Super Heroes United

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Platform: Gamefound DC Super Heroes United
Promised Delivery: Aug 2025
Summary: The greatest Heroes in the DC universe unite to thwart the Villains’ plans in this fast-paced, family-friendly cooperative game with amazing figures!

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This is the DC version of Marvel United that we’ve come to love so much! We already know that we love this system so much, and it will be so much fun to delve into the DC Universe! And the crazy thing will be when we play with Spider-Man and Super-Man! Batman and Daredevil! Crossovers galore! CMON has a very good track record for getting the Marvel United stuff to us, so we think it’s likely we will see this in Aug 2025!

A place to talk about cooperative board and card games!

10. Elder Sign

9. Cthulhu Rift

8. Roll For Great Old Ones

7. Eldritch Horror

6. Mansions of Madness: 2nd Edition

5. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

4. Horror on the Orient Express

3. Death May Die

2. Mythos Tales

1. Arkham Horror: 2nd Edition

10. Monopoly -> CO-OP: The Co-op Game

9. Poker -> Ace of Spades

8. Scrabble -> Word Weaver Adventures

7. Carcassonne -> Mists Over Carcassonne

6. Yahtzee -> The Reckoners

5. Apples to Apples -> Just One

4. War -> Regicide

3. Spades, Hearts, or Bridge -> The Crew: Quest For Planet Nine or The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

2. Risk -> Spirit Island or Horizons of Spirit Island

1. Chess -> Santorini: Riddle of the Sphinx

#10 Kinfire Council + Winds Of Change Cooperative Expansion

#9. Marvel United or Marvel United: X-Men or Marvel United:Multiverse or …

#8. Good Dog, Bad Zombie (2nd Edition)

#7. Tembo: Survival of the Savanna

#6. Aetherspire

#5. Boaromia: The Cooperative Festival Game!

#4. The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine or Mission Deep Sea

#3. Fate: Defenders of Grimheim

#2. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Trick-Taking Game. Also, The Two Towers!

#1. Just One

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

10. Journeys Afar: The Ketsueki

9. StarDriven: Gateway + Invasion

8. Honor’s End

7. Exoterra: The Giant Mech

6. Viking Route

5. Ghostland: The Game

4. Sail: Legacy

3. Companion Quest

2. Abyss Echo: The Forbidden Rite

1. Doom Guard

Honorable Mention: Origin Story

10. Marvel Champions: Agents of SHIELD

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

8. Flock Together: Birds of a Feather Eggspansion

7. Skytear Horde: Campaigns

6. Leviathan Wilds: Deepvale Expansion

5. Santorini: Riddle of the Sphinx

4. Unmatched Adventures: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

3. Dice Throne Adventures: Unchained

2. Marvel Dice Throne Missions

1. Kinfire Council: Winds of Change

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

10. Wroth

9. Earthborne Rangers: Legacy of the Ancestors

8. Storyfold: Wildwoods

7. Santorini + Riddle of the Sphinx

6. Unstoppable

5. War Story

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

3. DC Super Heroes United: Batman Hush

2. Arydia

1. Star Trek: Captain’s Chair

Honorable Mention: Tales From The Red Dragon Inn

10. The Dark Quarter

9. Wandering Galaxy

8. Vantage

7. One-Hit Heroes

6. Secrets of Zorro

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

4. Tales of the Arthurian Knights

3. Invincible: The Card Game

2. Ham Helsing

1. DC Super Heroes United: Hush

10. Park Life