The 7 Levels of the Best Cooperative Board Games

0:03 Cooperative board gaming has gone from rare and hard to find prior to pandemic to now being one of the most common forms of gaming. But if you're new to cooperative gaming, where do you start your journey? And if you're a grizzled veteran, where do you end? I'll tell you, it certainly isn't a pandemic. Today, we'll be going through seven different cooperative board games, each at a different complexity level. We'll start with the lowest and most accessible co-op game at level one and work our way to a game that might just burn the brain of yourself and the unwitting friend that decided to join you that night and probably morning. We're starting off this list with one of the lightest, most fun cooperative experience you'll ever have, Just One. Just One is a two to seven player incredibly simple party game where everyone is tasked with writing a single word clue related to the mystery word that one player must guess. The problem is that any duplicate clues get eliminated before the guesser sees them.

0:57 So, your job is to be as helpful as possible while still being original enough not to have your clue be dismissed. What I love about Just One is that it makes everyone feel like a genius and an idiot simultaneously. You'll end up with what you are absolutely certain is the most inspired, brilliantly creative clue that nobody could possibly think of. one that perfectly encapsulates the essence of the mystery word. And then you review your clue and you realize two other people had the exact same train of thought. Or worse, your clue is so esoteric that the guesser looks at your word among the other words like it's quasimoto and everyone laughs at you. But you know what? That is okay because you are having fun the entire time. And it it's generally enjoyable to find ways to be creative in a cooperative game that extends beyond utilizing mechanics efficiently and instead focusing all your attention on the knowledge base of the guesser and your fellow clue givers.

1:56 In this weird symbiotic way, every clue guesser is silently working together to try to formulate the perfect clue. And that tension you feel just as everyone flips over their clues to see the fruits of the group's combined cooperative labor, it's honestly exciting. Some longtime viewers might think I hate light games and party games especially, but I I really don't. Even a kromagin like myself likes to have a good laugh sometimes, and Just One, it always delivers in spades. Plus, it's a game I can whip out for almost any audience, whether it's my in-laws or my my nieces and nephews. Just One is one of the best party games in existence, and it is an easy entry for this list for the lightest cooperative game that I think you need to own. And on the second level, we have my favorite real-time game, Escape: Curse of the Temple.

2:46 Escape is a 1 to four player frantic real-time cooperative game where you and your fellow adventurers are racing against time and an ominous soundtrack to escape an ancient temple before it collapses. Everyone rolls their dice simultaneously and in a panic, using the results to explore new rooms, unlock treasures, and find the exit before the doors close. And you're trapped in the temple for an eternity to die a terrible, excruciating death. It's a family game. Okay, listen to me because this is really, really important. You will not find another game like Escape. This little cooperative gem has been in my collection for many, many years. And although I've played some great real-time games, nothing even remotely comes close to how silly and fun this game can be in certain groups. I say certain groups because the frantic nature of the game may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the cooperative experience here is unlike anything else on this list. You are feverishly rolling dice, yelling quick strategy plans to one another as the music sort of looms in the background. You're screaming that someone needs to help you roll more keys so you can unlock more treasure. And you're pleading for assistance when you're trapped in a room completely alone needing someone else's dice to save you because you've rolled all curses. And if you're that person who goes out of their way to save your comrade in distress, you feel like a complete badass when you not only save him, but make it back in time before the next gong that triggers the end of the round. It is a highly stressful but completely exhilarating experience.

4:15 Escape is a simple game and that's why it's on the second level of this list, but that simplicity greatly assists the experience since you always want people focused as much as possible on the actions they're taking and not necessarily the rules of the game since you're all just sort of chucking dice like maniacs in real time, inevitably ending in hilarious situations. Situations like stumbling into a cursed room. One player might find themselves unable to speak while another might have to play the rest of the run with a hand on their head. As I said, this whole experience is it's absurd, but it's the perfect kind of silly to bring everyone at the table together for a good laugh as a group. And sometimes that's the exact cooperative experience the night needs. And on this level, we have a fantastic game that plays incredibly quickly.

5:03 Leviathan Wilds. Leviathan Wilds is a one to four player hen management and action point game where you and your crew a rugged climber scale enormous living mountains known as Leviathans in order to heal them because each Leviathan is covered in binding crystals which is driving them insane. Your goal is to work with your partner and remove all the blight from the creatures before their rage overwhelms you and sends you plummeting to your untimely doom. Leviathan Wild is this beautifully clever spatial puzzle that puts you and your partner in the boots of rough neck climbers scaling enormous living monsters. Each of which is presented on these sheets of paper, making setup one of the easiest among every game I've played. You simply open up the page for the monster you want to save, and you just start playing. And it's also a wonderfully simple game to explain, primarily because the entire process feels fairly intuitive while you're playing, which is great because it gives you and your buddy more time to immerse yourselves in the theme and really adopt that sort of like grizzly attitude of these climbers that you're that you're using as your avatars because each character can be combined with a different class. and combinations are varied and interesting enough to keep every game feeling really fresh with each player's abilities making them feel special and uniquely useful. The game generally invites you to develop your own personality on the climb. One player might effortlessly leap from hole to hold with dextrous grace, while another will brute force his way up and just smash crystals like like some unstoppable juggernaut of power. And that variance makes every person at the table feel like a hero in their own

6:35 story. that essentially joined forces and come together to tackle something epic. And the cooperation here goes well beyond the typical task delegation you see in most games. Nothing feels better than diving in to help an ally on their turn as they're about to lose their grip or or giving them a boost to defend against a crazy attack or tossing the mushroom midfall to save their ass. There are so many instances where you're mechanically incentivized to share in the experience of your fellow roughneck climber on this tough job. It's certainly not the deepest game on this list, but at this complexity level in play time, it is a wonderfully welcome 60 minutes of fun. And for the middle of our descent through cooperative complexity, we have the fantastic ocean diving puzzle game Endeavor Deep Sea. Endeavor Deep Sea is a 1 to four player scenario-driven game where you lead a team of ocean scientists exploring and conserving the world seas. Over six rounds, you'll recruit specialists.

7:28 Deploy vessels across a modular ocean that expands deeper as you play, all while improving your attributes that make you more capable over time to chase the unique cooperative scoring goals that will lead you and your diving partner to victory. Although I do really love high interaction games, I do make exceptions if the game is really good, and I think this is one of them. The cooperation here is done almost entirely through table talk and coordination, and not necessarily mechanics. You can't literally help a friend on their turn. The only way you can give them resources is through mutually established links in conservation. And yet, despite that, the cooperative discussion and in coordination is a lot of fun. It feels cool to work together to solve this puzzle and decide the best course of action. I'm going to sound crazy for saying this because I know this is probably not the popular opinion, but I actually think the cooperative experience in this game is better than the competitive. It is mostly a puzzle that you and your friends work together to assort optimize your plans as best as possible using your new recruits that act as worker placement spots to contribute to the various public objectives that you and your partner need to accomplish by the end of the game. I would argue that the cooperative experience is even more strategic than the competitive version since you're not simply maximizing points. You're sort of gauging each other's strengths and weaknesses and and deeply analyzing which goals you think you can accomplish for the round and how you'll work together to get it done. Maybe one of you will use their sonar so the other one can go explore and dive deep. Or maybe both of you will meet your subs on a conservation spot to join forces in saving that bit of ocean to share some great bonuses. This is a game that is

9:00 deeply rewarding to play with a friend, if only for the shared memory of a quality win that you'll talk about long after the game is done. going through the final round together, all sort of doom and gloom, and thinking the two of you will never be able to pull it off, and then both of you putting your heads together for one last ditch effort to pull off some some brilliant combo to pull ahead and accomplish some last second goals. It feels really satisfying and exciting. I've never wanted a high- five after simply solving a somewhat complex puzzle more than after winning this game. Endeavor DeepC's cooperative mode is absolutely worth checking out. And next we have one of the best card versions of a bigger board game you can get your hands on and that's Arkham Horror the card game. Arkham is a living card game for one to four players set in Lovecraft's Arkham. Each player takes on the role of a unique investigator building a personal deck of skills, items, and allies to tackle a series of interconnected scenarios that form a larger campaign. On each turn, you're moving between locations, gathering clues, fighting off monsters, and managing your resources, all while trying to avoid your inevitable doom.

10:03 What's remarkable about this game is that it captures the feel of those old fantasy flight games like Arkham Horror, the board game, and something you can pull out and be playing in minutes, exploring new locations, uncovering clues, and being hunted by threatening creatures. It all feels very thematic and engaging, and I've always loved sharing those experiences with a cooperative partner, and sort of just like struggling against the odds to tell a story together that we can share when we pack the game away. And the actual cooperation, it's pretty excellent as you need to coordinate because you you can't micromanage each other excessively like some other cooperative games. The mechanics thankfully prevent that. The game requires you to specialize your roles, which is why a big section of the rule book is dedicated to building your class to try and find the best synergy between yourself and your partner. We had plenty of moments where one of us had to heroically charge a monster to save the other, engaging it just long enough to pull off a dramatic evasion.

11:00 Those fun cooperative moments, they stick with you and are big reason you play this game. And this video is the reason you finally stopped lurking on my channel and instead chose to subscribe. Just do it now. It It's super easy and it helps a lot. And if you really want to help, you can join our Patreon. Why afford groceries for the week when you can instead fund a purchase of unnecessary camera equipment? Cooperate today. And both players can customize their decks between sessions, growing and adapting as an investigating team. It always feels like you're moving toward an ending, even if you lose, and that keeps momentum going and the whole thing feeling like a legitimate adventure. So, if you're comfortable with a moderate rules overhead and you want a cooperative card game with a genuine weight and atmosphere, this one is excellent. And I'm really happy I decided to give it another chance. At level six is everyone's favorite complicated magic colonial game, Spirit Island. Spirit Island plays one to four players and puts each of you in the role of an ancient spirit defending a living island from colonial invaders who are systematically exploring, building, and destroying everything in their path. You work together with your brothers and sisters to drive them off entirely or make them tremble in fear before it's too late and your beautiful home is completely corrupted. Spirit Island earns this deep level on this list because it's a game that can overwhelm you with information and and new calamities. Each turn, you're faced with the agonizing decision of either getting stronger and increasing your powers or

12:32 deciding if your time is better spent putting out the ever growing number of fires. You'll debate endlessly with your friends, putting your heads together to determine the best course of action each and every round. And that back and forth makes you feel like you're you're genuinely cooperating and not just not just playing beside somebody. And the combinations and synergies you can establish with your partner with these wonderfully unique and creative available spirits. It's it's seriously impressive. Every spirit leaves you feeling like you just played a completely different game. And when you and your buddy figure out a new way to put your powers together to take down the bad guys, you feel like you just accomplished something huge. And and you breathe this sigh of relief and satisfaction knowing that you just created an incredible gaming memory with your friend through this deep cooperative game. And that cooperation here feels very distinct from other games because you're not a physical entity on the board. You're you're a spirit building your deck with incredibly unique abilities that feel powerful every time you use them.

13:32 Gathering new powers as the game progresses. It's really thrilling at at stacking symbols on your cards and unlocking even more power on your turn adds another satisfying layer of strategy. And when it all comes together, you feel really damn clever. And for the final level, we move on to the heaviest game of them all and one of my personal favorites, Mage Knight Ultimate Edition. Mage puts you in control of one of seven powerful Mage Knights as you explore and conquer a corner of this sprawling fantasy universe under the control of the Atlantean Empire. Build your army, fill your deck with powerful spells and actions, explore caves and dungeons, and eventually work together with your fellow heroes to conquer powerful cities controlled by this once great faction. A lot of games attempt to capture the feeling of going on a grand adventure.

14:20 And honestly, to this day, Mage Knight is the only game that even comes close to actually pulling it off. Yes, it is incredibly dense. Yes, your engagement with the mechanics can feel downright methodical at times, but I'll be damned if you're not clapping your hands in excitement when you flip over a new land tile and see exactly what you were looking for, or spot a fresh recruit in the display that fits perfectly into the army you have been building for the last 3 hours. Everything in this game is designed to be explored and discovered, and doing that alongside a partner is an immense amount of fun. Now, full honesty, you don't really do a lot of cooperating in this game, which is precisely why Mage Knight works so well as a solo experience, but the cooperative scenarios are genuinely great. There's something really cool about leveling up alongside a friend, getting stronger together, and then turning the combined power towards a final boss or the last fortified castle.

15:19 I wish there was a little more direct interaction between players, but sharing the experience still feels incredibly satisfying. While you are doing your own thing, there is a heavy layer of coordinating in most cooperative scenarios. You're planning are short-term goals like who should seek out which allies for their army or how to distribute the tactic cards and long-term goals like which path to explore and when to press the attack on Vulcair. In a way, the cooperative experience makes you feel like two military generals doing your best to command your distinct and separate armies toward a shared goal. Now, Mage Knight might take an entire day to complete cooperatively, but I promise you it is worth it and it is the best possible pick at this complexity level. And to all you war gamers screaming at the screen, I am aware that there are cooperative war games that are more complicated than Mage Knight, but we can tackle the seven layers of war games in another video. And those were the seven layers of cooperative board gaming.

16:18 Hopefully, this video has helped you decide what level is best for you. Let me know in the comments if you think there were better games at any of these levels. And of course, be sure to like, comment, and subscribe for more creative videos like this one. Oh, and let me know if there are other games or mechanics you would like to see in a seven layer video. Bye. That's not bad. Yeah. What's our dinner? Dinner. Food. Food. Food. Do we still have banana bread? So it's gone. My life is ruined.