Category: Co-op Games

Freelancers: A Crossroads Game

| OTSG Staff

Congratulations! Humanity is dead! The bad news is that all they left behind is their garbage and a broken gig economy. That’s why we need freelancers like you who are ready to take any job, no matter how loathsome. As a freelancer, you will delve into ruins, brave the wilds, and slay the hordes of hideous creatures that litter the dark forgotten corners of the world. All so you can gather loot and return home, ready to blow it all and start over again the next day. It’s a lousy gig, so it’s perfect for the likes of you.

Freelancers: A Crossroads Game condenses the fantasy RPG campaign experience into a single night of fun and mayhem. Create a character, roll funky dice, and blaze your way through multiple stories set in a world of magic, monsters, and murder. Better yet, no game master is required, as a magical companion app does all the storytelling for you! Immerse yourself in fully-voiced, industry-leading audio as you play. Explore hundreds of branching paths in five highly replayable campaigns. Mix and match a multitude of species and jobs to build your own unique character. Pick up and play, simple rules, low commitment and no prep.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 7 Players
  • 90 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.12

Forgotten Waters

| OTSG Staff

Forgotten Waters is a Crossroads Game set in a world of fantastical pirate adventure. In it, players take on the role of pirates sailing together on a ship, attempting to further their own personal stories as well as a common goal.

The world of Forgotten Waters is silly and magical, with stories designed to encourage players to explore and laugh in delight as they interact with the world around them. It’s a game in which every choice can leave a lasting impact on the story, and players will want turn over every rock just to see what they find.

Forgotten Waters features five scenarios and a massive location book that provides players with tons of choices wherever they go.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 7 Players
  • 120 – 240 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.10

Fabled: The Spirit Lands

| OTSG Staff

The End of Times is coming. The Gods have ruled over the human and spirits worlds for æons, but soon the time will come for them to depart into oblivion. On the verge of the Universe facing its rebirth, the Gods will entrust its reigns to the worthiest among the sage brotherhoods of humans. The greatest contest has begun, one neither world has ever seen before!

In Fabled, your brotherhood explores the fabulous lands of the spirit world. Your sages follow winding paths and visit fabled places along the way. Mighty allies assist them in their journey. Your ultimate goal is to gather books of wisdom, as they contain the magic essence of the Universe. The most prized of all are the books of Sun. The brotherhood to collect the most will receive the reins of the Universe from the Gods.

You have two ways to experience the game: competitively or opposing the Spirits — a game-controlled brotherhood created by the Gods. The Spirits may be faced solo, cooperatively with other players, or each player for themselves.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 40 – 75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Dwarves, the: Big Box

| OTSG Staff

The Dwarves face the dark threat of Orcs, Trolls and Älfar. To defeat evil they have to join forces and coordinate their actions. Based on the series of novels by Markus Heitz, the cooperative game for 2 to 6 players aged 10 and up throws players into various scenarios, in which they have to spend their action points wisely each turn, to gather equipment, fulfill missions, use their special abilities, travel the country and fight back the ever-advancing menace before their land succumbs to darkness.

The Dwarves Big Box combines 2012’s award-winning base game, the large Saga Expansion, the New Heroes Expansion, the story expansions Combined Might and The Triumph of the Dwarves as well as the Älfar Expansion in one appealing, highly re-playable package.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.07

Dungeon Degenerates: Hand of Doom

| OTSG Staff

Dungeon Degenerates: Hand of Doom takes place in the Dark Fantasy Realm of the decaying Eastern Provinces of the Würstreich. Players take escaped criminal adventurers on unsavory missions through four distinct regions, each with their own monsters & encounters. As the players explore the Würstreich, danger levels rise continuously across the map. Players must complete their mission before the Hand of Doom descends on the board, unleashing evil magic on the land.

Dungeon Degenerates is a co-op game where players can form parties or split up throughout the game at will; there is no obligation to stick together. Game play is 1-3 hours based on mission. Dungeon Degenerates has an epic RPG campaign feel in an open world sandbox board game, and you bring your experience & items from previous missions. There are multiple missions & objectives of varying difficulty with multiple ways to approach each mission.

Dungeon Degenerates is set in a cohesive & fixed world with multiple distinct regions which feature unique encounters & thematic monsters. Encounters allow multiple interaction choices; you do not have to fight everyone you see. Play features an open experience system allowing for character customization with new skills. You are always in danger – the town is not an artificial safe zone – combat is dangerous. There are various modes of travel – players cooperate to choose their route & pace, or split up & fend for themselves. Dungeon Degenerates features streamlined combat with tactical depth; each player rolls dice only once on their turn, using standard 6-sided dice only. There are over 100 monsters with unique abilities & artwork.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 360 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.64

Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game

| OTSG Staff

The master of Ravenloft is having guests for dinner – and you are invited!
Evil lurks in the towers and dungeons of Castle Ravenloft, and only heroes of exceptional bravery can survive the horrors within. Designed for 1-5 players, this boardgame features multiple scenarios, challenging quests, and cooperative gameplay.

Each player selects a hero; a ranger, rogue, warrior, cleric, or wizard. On their turn, each player can explore further into the dungeon (turn over new tiles), move through the already explored parts of the dungeon, and fight monsters. When a new dungeon tile is revealed, there is typically an encounter of some sort, and new monsters to fight are added. Slain monsters reward the players with treasure, and experience points, allowing them to level up and increase their skills during play. Players must cooperate to stay alive, slay the monsters, and achieve the goal of their quest. Each scenario has a different goal – from retrieving a relic, to slaying a vampire lord.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Captain Is Dead, The

| OTSG Staff

Imagine that you are one of the crew in your favorite science fiction TV show. Now imagine that in the last 10 minutes of the show things have gone so badly that the captain is dead and you and the surviving members of your crew have to pull together and save the day yourselves!

The Captain Is Dead is a co-op game for 2 to 7 players. All you have to do is get the ship’s engines (aka “Jump Core”) back online and you win, but because there is a hostile alien ship trying to destroy you, that is easier said than done.

You have an impressive star ship full of useful systems that will help you fend off the aliens, and get the Jump Core back online. Each system gives you an advantage while it remains online. The assault from the hostile alien ship tends to keep knocking those systems offline however. So you need to balance your time between keeping the ships system’s online, fending off the alien threat, and completing your objective.

Each member of your crew has special abilities and skills. You need to work as a group to maximize the potential of each role. If someone tries to be a hero, you’ll all die.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative Game
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 7 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.39

Borderlands: Mister Torgue’s Arena of Badassery

| OTSG Staff

Borderlands: Mister Torgue’s Arena of Badassery! is a co-operative combat-action board game.

You and a team of Vault Hunters enter Mister Torgue’s Arena of Badassery to face off against his collection of skags, bandits, and assorted psychos. You can play a one-off battle filled with explosions, slaughter-splosions, sauce-plosions, and loot-splosions!!! Or play a series of deadly fights in campaign-mode that will see your Vault Hunter level up between games. Visit vending machines to buy better gear, advance your character using unique skill trees, equip epic new guns, and enter the next game even more BADASS than before!!! Just make sure your tough enough to take on the final boss, an Ultimate Murder-Machine, hellbent on sending you back to the borderlands as moist and meaty skag-snacks.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Cooperative Game
  • Modular Board

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

Big Book of Madness, The

| OTSG Staff

So far your first year at the Elementary College has been slightly disappointing. They taught you to light a flickering flame at the tip of your finger, but other than that you’ve spent much more time reading books than learning powerful spells as future great wizards like you should.

So when you heard about the Big Book of Madness hidden in the great school library, you couldn’t help but to sneak in and peek in this intriguing tome in spite of your professors’ warnings. When you slowly lift the cover of the terrible book, dozens of dreadful creatures rush out, threatening to destroy the world itself! This was your mistake, and only you can fix it now! Learn from the library to fight back against the monsters, and try not to sink into insanity…

The Big Book of Madness is a challenging co-operative game in which the players are magic students who must act as a team to turn all the pages of the book, then shut it by defeating the terrible monsters they’ve just freed.

Each player has their own element deck that they build during the game and use for several purposes, such as learning or casting a spell, adding a new element to their deck, destroy or healing a curse. Spells allow you to support your playmates, improve your deck, draw cards, etc. — but the monsters from the book fight back. Each comes with terrible curses that are triggered every turn unless you dispel them in time. They will make you discard elements, add madness cards to your deck, or lose spells…

If you manage to turn six pages and defeat all of the monsters, you win the game!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative Game
  • Hand Management
  • Player Elimination
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.68