No games that lead to players being pissed at other players, even outside of the confines of the game. I’ve had that happen with, for example, Secret Hitler, so no Secret Hitler.
The Mind seems to do that. Hanabi does it to an extent.
Spirit island is my favorite game to play with a group. It has you trying to protect an island from colonists who damage the island with their expansions. Each player has different abilities that force you all the work together & requires a lot of teamwork to win especially some of the higher difficulties.
Check out [email protected] in case you’re not aware. Lots of discussion happening there.
Regarding your question, it’s hard to say since you don’t mention any mechanics, or complexity level, that you prefer. Based on the couple of examples you provide, you seem to like cooperative card games. If so, you should check out ‘The Crew’. It’s the most popular of that genre in my game club.
You’ll never perfectly solve the “no pissing people off” issue because in competitive games you necessarily have people benefit at the expense of others and in cooperative games you’ll fall into the trap of backseat-driver players telling you what to do on your turn.
That being said, here are some of my favorites I’d like to suggest:
Cooperative:
Time Stories (kinda like a time-travel themed mystery-solving role-playing game where the pre-built deck is your DM. 1-4 players. You can buy more decks, each with a different setting and story.).
Pandemic (Stop COVID a deadly disease from killing off the planet. Work together to limit the spread and find the cure before it’s too late) (1-4 players)
Competitive:
The Settlers of Catan (claim resources and land strategically to build the most prosperous kingdom) (2-4 players but there are expansions and spinoffs so this could be like 1-6 players)
7 Wonders (draft cards to build the most prosperous kingdom) (3-8 players IIRC)
In-Between:
Betrayal in the House on the Hill (explore a haunted house until you find a dark secret that turns one of you into a villain the rest have to fight) (3-6 players)
Downside is Catan is fucking boring. It’s one of those games where most of the time you’re stuck waiting for your next turn. 5-6 player add on just makes the game infinitely worse. Out of the expansions, Seafarers is nice since it gives you more to do, tho the standalone Starfarers is my go to pick if I gotta play Catan since it sorta has the best parts of all expansions plus random encounters and a more even start. I also like that in the 5-6 player mode 2 players take their turns simultaneously. Tho Catan still isn’t my go-to of board games.
Newer cooperative games mostly avoid the quarterbacking issue by having secret info, or just making it complicated enough that it’s impractical for 1 person to track everything.
I really like Mysterium. It’s kinda cooperative, but players also work independently. The premise is that one player is a ghost, and the rest of the players are psychic detectives who have their own vision of how the murder happened. The ghost gives out clues using surreal, dream-like cards for the psychics to figure out their personal guess on what the weapon, location and murderer was. At the end the ghost gives clues to which psychic was right.
I personally like it because it isn’t just logic and strategic thinking, you have to use your creative/artistic part of your brain as well, if not moreso.
Just One was a great game for 4 people. Three people have to get the fourth person to guess a particular word. They each write down a one-word hint. If any two (or more) players write the same word hint, they don’t get to show that word to the guesser. It’s a lot of fun when you see the different ways people interpret words to come up with hints and how two (or more) words can work together to make you think of the answer.
Just One can also do a lot more than 4 players. If you add additional writing surfaces and erasable markers (or pencils or whatever) it’s pretty much unlimited.
Edit: It has enough for 7 players in the box (at least my copy does)
I don’t hear about this one often but it is always the first game I bust out for newbies.
Camel Up!
Players place bets on little camels that run around the track. The turns move quickly, people love gambling, and you some strategy will help you win, but it’s random enough that everybody has a chance at coming out ahead.
Someone might get the bet you had your eye on, but there’s no direct “attacks” on other players.
Yeah. It’s super easy to house-rule Carcassonne as a pure co-op game. Remove the farmers (to keep your sanity, because co-op is actually much harder), keep the rules about Castle and road occupation (where a tie gets scored for each tied player), and play to maximize the combined players score. None of the strategy is lost and trying to carefully double occupy everything is sometimes a nail biting challenge.
There’s actually a specifically cooperative expansion for Carcassonne, called Mists Over Carcassonne. It adds an element of managing a ghost population while trying to cooperatively reach a target score based on certain scenarios.
I’m sorry, but if you have this problem, it’s entirely caused by who your players are as people, not by the games itself. Even cooperative games leave people that get pissed, pissed at each other. For example, if one person wants to do something that another person finds suboptimal, and then the cooperative game is lost some time later.
I love Deep Rock Galactic, Terra Mystica, Mysterium.
Ticket to ride is really fun. You kind of do your own thing building train routes the whole time. Not too much overlap to block other people unless you know the routes super well, and even then you don’t know what people are going for based on the routes they have to complete. All in all, it’s one of my favorite board games.
Cottage Garden is very satisfying. You Tetris together garden pieces to fill plots and you can cover a single spot with a sleeping kitty. There’s scoring and competition, but it’s not antagonistic in any way.
I’m also a big fan of cooperative games in general.
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Spirit island is my favorite game to play with a group. It has you trying to protect an island from colonists who damage the island with their expansions. Each player has different abilities that force you all the work together & requires a lot of teamwork to win especially some of the higher difficulties.
Check out [email protected] in case you’re not aware. Lots of discussion happening there.
Regarding your question, it’s hard to say since you don’t mention any mechanics, or complexity level, that you prefer. Based on the couple of examples you provide, you seem to like cooperative card games. If so, you should check out ‘The Crew’. It’s the most popular of that genre in my game club.
Ranked #1 in family games on bgg
Looks fun, just ordered the game now! 😊
The Crew is solid.
The Gang too, which is sorta similar. I’ll bring a bag of board games and only end up playing The Gang all night if it comes out too early.
You’ll never perfectly solve the “no pissing people off” issue because in competitive games you necessarily have people benefit at the expense of others and in cooperative games you’ll fall into the trap of backseat-driver players telling you what to do on your turn.
That being said, here are some of my favorites I’d like to suggest:
Cooperative:
COVIDa deadly disease from killing off the planet. Work together to limit the spread and find the cure before it’s too late) (1-4 players)Competitive:
In-Between:
Catan is nice because you spend 90% of the time building your stuff, and only 10% losing to one of the other players.
It depends on the group. Sometimes you have people intentionally cutting you off, revenge robber placements, and politics.
Downside is Catan is fucking boring. It’s one of those games where most of the time you’re stuck waiting for your next turn. 5-6 player add on just makes the game infinitely worse. Out of the expansions, Seafarers is nice since it gives you more to do, tho the standalone Starfarers is my go to pick if I gotta play Catan since it sorta has the best parts of all expansions plus random encounters and a more even start. I also like that in the 5-6 player mode 2 players take their turns simultaneously. Tho Catan still isn’t my go-to of board games.
Newer cooperative games mostly avoid the quarterbacking issue by having secret info, or just making it complicated enough that it’s impractical for 1 person to track everything.
I really like Mysterium. It’s kinda cooperative, but players also work independently. The premise is that one player is a ghost, and the rest of the players are psychic detectives who have their own vision of how the murder happened. The ghost gives out clues using surreal, dream-like cards for the psychics to figure out their personal guess on what the weapon, location and murderer was. At the end the ghost gives clues to which psychic was right.
I personally like it because it isn’t just logic and strategic thinking, you have to use your creative/artistic part of your brain as well, if not moreso.
We love Wingspan. Meadow is pleasant.
Just One was a great game for 4 people. Three people have to get the fourth person to guess a particular word. They each write down a one-word hint. If any two (or more) players write the same word hint, they don’t get to show that word to the guesser. It’s a lot of fun when you see the different ways people interpret words to come up with hints and how two (or more) words can work together to make you think of the answer.
Just One can also do a lot more than 4 players. If you add additional writing surfaces and erasable markers (or pencils or whatever) it’s pretty much unlimited.
Edit: It has enough for 7 players in the box (at least my copy does)
I think it really depends on how many people are playing. I’m not up on my board games but maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in
I don’t hear about this one often but it is always the first game I bust out for newbies.
Camel Up!
Players place bets on little camels that run around the track. The turns move quickly, people love gambling, and you some strategy will help you win, but it’s random enough that everybody has a chance at coming out ahead.
Someone might get the bet you had your eye on, but there’s no direct “attacks” on other players.
The pandemic board games, either one of them can give that feeling.
Me and my friends are terrible at that game apparently. Our poor Legacy game world…
Carcassonne.
I find it quite fun to play semi-collaboratively too.
Yeah. It’s super easy to house-rule Carcassonne as a pure co-op game. Remove the farmers (to keep your sanity, because co-op is actually much harder), keep the rules about Castle and road occupation (where a tie gets scored for each tied player), and play to maximize the combined players score. None of the strategy is lost and trying to carefully double occupy everything is sometimes a nail biting challenge.
There’s actually a specifically cooperative expansion for Carcassonne, called Mists Over Carcassonne. It adds an element of managing a ghost population while trying to cooperatively reach a target score based on certain scenarios.
Oh, I’m going to have to pick up a copy of Mists over Carcassonne. Thank you!
I’m sorry, but if you have this problem, it’s entirely caused by who your players are as people, not by the games itself. Even cooperative games leave people that get pissed, pissed at each other. For example, if one person wants to do something that another person finds suboptimal, and then the cooperative game is lost some time later.
I love Deep Rock Galactic, Terra Mystica, Mysterium.
Arkham Horror 3rd Edition — NOT the LCG.
Ticket to ride is really fun. You kind of do your own thing building train routes the whole time. Not too much overlap to block other people unless you know the routes super well, and even then you don’t know what people are going for based on the routes they have to complete. All in all, it’s one of my favorite board games.
micromacro crime city is fun. It’s kinda like a giant Where’s Waldo map except you solve mysteries as a team.
We got Tokaido for Xmas a few years back and it’s super chill to play with others
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/123540/tokaido
Looks good! Thanks for the recommendation
Cottage Garden is very satisfying. You Tetris together garden pieces to fill plots and you can cover a single spot with a sleeping kitty. There’s scoring and competition, but it’s not antagonistic in any way.
I’m also a big fan of cooperative games in general.