Tag: Cooperative Game

Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Board Game

| OTSG Staff

Do you stand beside Queen Catherine Ironfist and vanquish the lurking chaos? Do you help the power-hungry Mutare fulfill her plans and turn her into a dragon? Or, maybe you despise all of this and want, together with Sandro, to cover the whole world with the shadow of death? Move through the beautiful land of Antagarich, plunge into adventures and strategic battles with endless possibilities.

Heroes of Might & Magic III: The Board Game is an adventure-driven strategy game set in the cult fantasy universe. The game includes competitive, cooperative, and solo scenarios to battle and explore your way through. The adventure maps will be represented by tiles, with each tile divided into seven hexagonal fields.

Play different scenarios with different victory conditions, explore the adventure map to discover various locations, and play out epic battles using the unique miniature models that represent the iconic units from the original game. All battles will be performed with models on separate boards.

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 3 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.48

Hanabi

| OTSG Staff

Hanabi—named for the Japanese word for “fireworks”—is a cooperative game in which players try to create the perfect fireworks show by placing the cards on the table in the right order. (In Japanese, hanabi is written as 花火; these are the ideograms flower and fire, respectively.)

The card deck consists of five different colors of cards, numbered 1–5 in each color. For each color, the players try to place a row in the correct order from 1–5. Sounds easy, right? Well, not quite, as in this game you hold your cards so that they’re visible only to other players. To assist other players in playing a card, you must give them hints regarding the numbers or the colors of their cards. Players must act as a team to avoid errors and to finish the fireworks display before they run out of cards.

An extra suit of cards, rainbow colored, is also provided for advanced or variant play.

Hanabi was originally published as part of Hanabi & Ikebana.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 25 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.69

Grizzled, the

| OTSG Staff

The Grizzled is a cooperative game about survival in the trenches during the first World War where players win or lose together.

Each round, the current team leader will choose how many cards every player draws. Then, going around the table, players must either play a card in their hand or back out of the mission. Each card represents either threats to the team (such as mortar shells and weather conditions) or negative personality traits (such as frightened or obsessive). At the end of the round, more cards are added to the draw deck. The game ends only if the players can deplete the draw deck as well as their hands without letting time run out.

If one threat shows up too many times, the team fails the mission. The team must play their threats correctly in order to gain any progress. However, most of the information in a players hand remains secret throughout the game.

Planning, teamwork, and a little luck are the tools you’ll need to win this cooperative game for two to five players.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.97

Bomb Busters

| OTSG Staff

There is a bomb full of wires and the countdown has started… Who are you gonna call? YOU! To clear the bomb, you need to collaborate with your team of bomb disposal experts! Using the wires on the tile holder in front of you, try and figure out your teammates’ wires. Find and cut identical wires, but watch out, if you cut a red wire: BOOM! Use your equipment wisely to meet the varied challenges which get harder and harder. Tick tock tick tock… Will you figure it out before it’s too late?

In Bomb Busters, there is a set of 48 normal wire cards numbered 1-12 (4 of each value) with some yellow and red wire cards. These are dealt out. Each mission is different, but your goal is always the same: go through all 12 numbers without blowing up!

Players place the tiles on their stands and then take turns pointing at each others’ wires and guessing their values. If the guess is correct, the wires are cut. If not — the detonator advances! If you manage to cut all wires without blowing up — good job, the mission is completed! But if the bomb goes off – Try again!

With 66 missions, there will be:
=> 66 different ways to play depending on your moods (in order, by level of difficulty, favorite configuration)
=> 66 challenges to play over and over (even if you already blew your top!)
=> Plenty of tricky bombs which become more and more dangerous (but don’t get cut up about it!)

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

FUSE Countdown

| OTSG Staff

FUSE Countdown is a new entry in the FUSE family, one that’s playable both standalone or as an expansion for the original FUSE!

Originally launched in 2015 as one of Renegade’s very first games, Kane Klenko’s FUSE brought the tense action of bomb defusal to the tabletop, in a quick and simple, but extraordinarily challenging cooperative game! Taking just ten minutes to play and minutes to teach, FUSE has appeal for all types of gamers!

Veteran FUSE bomb-disposal techs may think they have the original game down to a science, but FUSE Countdown will throw some new obstacles in their way while also providing some great new tools! Multi-colored dice, Spark cards, new configurations, and Roles all add new elements to the game! Multi-colored dice can fill spots of either color, allowing a new level of flexibility AND challenge!

FUSE Countdown Includes:

  • Multi-colored Dice – can fulfill either color
  • Spark Cards – When you can’t place a die, instead of rolling it and removing a related die, you draw a Spark card. They work like a mini-bomb card for you to fulfill. You cannot win the game unless all active Spark cards are resolved.
  • Roles – Each player has a special player power.
  • New Cards! New bomb cards using some of the new features/icons. *New Fuse cards featuring multiple colors/numbers

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~10 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.14

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

Fox in the Forest Duet, The

| OTSG Staff

In the two-player, co-operative trick-taking game The Fox in the Forest Duet, players team up, helping each other move through the forest. Collect all the gems before the end of three rounds of play, and you win!

To set up the game, place gem tokens on the designated spaces of the game board and the team tracker token in the center of the movement path. At the start of each round, shuffle the deck of thirty cards — which contains three suits, each numbered 1-10 — and deal each player a hand of eleven cards. Reveal one card as the “decree” card to determine the trump suit. For each trick, one player leads a card, and the other must follow suit, if possible. The winner of the trick moves the team tracker toward them a number of spaces equal to the number of fox footprints on the cards played. If the tracker lands on a space next to a gem, the players collect one gem. If the tracker would move off the end of the path, return the tracker to the center of the path, then add a forest token to one end of the path, reducing the number of spaces upon which you can move (with you sliding gems next to this covered space next to the new end of the path).

The odd-numbered character cards have special abilities when played, allowing the trick winner to move the tracker in the direction of their choice or to ignore the footprints on one of the played cards so that you can land on just the right spot. One character allows players to exchange one card with each other, while another allows a player to change the decree card.

At the end of a round, you add five gems to designated spaces, add a forest space to shorten the path, then receive a new hand of eleven cards from a freshly shuffled deck. Collect all 22 gem tokens, and you win. Run out of time or head off the end of the path with no forest spaces in reserve, then you can just keep running in defeat or shuffle the cards and start the game anew.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.77

Forbidden Jungle

| OTSG Staff

In Forbidden Jungle, your team has crash-landed on a mysterious jungle planet, and you need to work together to survive. Search the ruins of an abandoned outpost for an elusive escape portal, all while fending off an ever-growing horde of venomous creatures and an escalating chain of collapsing locations. Shift tiles to power up the portal and live to see another day!

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.10

For the Queen

| OTSG Staff

The land you live in has been at war for as long as any of you have been alive.
The Queen has decided to undertake a long and perilous journey to broker an alliance with a distant power.
The Queen has chosen you, and only you, to be her retinue, and accompany her on this journey.
She chose you because she knows that you love her.

For the Queen is a card-based story-building game that you and up to five other players can begin playing in minutes. Choose your queen from among fourteen gorgeously varied illustrations—or start from scratch—and use the prompt cards to collaboratively tell a story of love, betrayal, doubt, and devotion.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.08

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