I discovered the beauty of board games only recently. Possibly it shouldnot be in plural as I play only AH at present. Ofc when I was a kid I used to play different types of board games, the most famous one being talisman probably... Now I am 29 and I m discovering that there r board games for adults Although I bought AH a good few months ago, I was initially discouraged by the sheer complexity and difficulty of the game. In one of the youtube reviews I heard somebody saying that AH is a bit likea horror movie, u feel u have no control over whats happening, u can only react to the events being forced upon u and u r actually getting stressed before every combat or mythos card being drawn. I love horror movies / books but still AH took some effort getting used to. Now I am absolutely in love with the game and trying (unsuccessfully) to make my fiancee like it as well

Anyways, are there any more interesting co-op board games out there that might be worth buying? And I am interested in ones that can be also played by a solo player... I heard of a game "wrath of ashardalon" being a good example. any others?

Well, based on AH is an awesome game called Elder Sign. It's become one of my game group's favorites as it is basically a simpler version of AH. I also really like Descent: Journeys in the Dark and Fury of Dracula.

Musha Shukou said:

Hi,

I'd recommend you read some reviews at www.boardgamegeek.com before committing to any game, so you know what you are getting into.

We, for example, did not like Elder Sign at all...

While Fury of Dracula and Descent are good games, they aren't truly cooperative. It's one player versus all other.

For truly cooperative (and soloable) games check these out (there are a lot of different styles of games here, read a bit before chosing). I've inlcuded my subjective rating:

- Ghost Stories (10/10)

- Gears of War (8/10)

- Pandemic (or Defenders of the Realm) (7/10 ; 8/10)

- Castle Ravenloft / Wrath of Ashardalon /Legend of Drizzt. (8/10; 6/10 ; ? )

- Lord of the Rings (excl. 2nd expansion) (7/10)

- Death Angel (8/10)

- Yggdrasil (7/10)

- Sentinels of the Multiverse (7/10)

Good luck,

tib

ps: other options would be Shadows Over Camelot or Battlestar Gallactica, although in both of these games a traitor may exist so they are not 100% colaborative, and they are not really suited for solo play.

<<double post, please remove>>

Musha Shukou said:

Yeah, Elder Sign is a good game, but it's rather simple when compared to AH, and it's kinda too easy to beat. It really depends on the level of challenge you want to face. As Tiborvadovan said, check something over BGG. Plus, if you could give us some more details (setting, type of challenge and so on) we could address you better :-)

well it seems complex, difficult, fully cooperative, solo-able, fantasy / horror board games is what I would be looking for thats as close as it gets to defining the genre for me

zubu said:

The Lord of the Rings Living Card Game is kinda good. You can solo it, or play with another person, plus you have different quests offering you different levels of challenge. You have monthly releases of adventure packs offering new quests, new cards, and so on, and you have the intriguing task of building your own deck to master completely the game.

Or you can try Defenders of the Realm, but I never played it, so I can't tell you much more apart that I read generally good reviews

Pandemic and LotR Card Game.

I read a bit about co-op board games and I kinda like space hulk:death angels card game idea So probably apart from fantasy and horror board games, sci-fi is also something I would like

zubu said:

Space Hulk is a good game. Everything's based on cards, anyway, so if you want some "board" to play on, Gears of War could also be a good pick :-)

I second Yggdrasil and Death Angel. They're both pretty quick compared to AH but have some of the same feelings of hopelessness and overwhelming odds. The Mage Knight board game has been getting some pretty good reviews and it can be played solo, co-op and competitively.

arkhamresident said:

While I like Yggdrasil, in the same style Ghost Stories is vastly superior in just about every aspect IMHO. Try it out if you haven't.

Mage Knight is also a good, meaty game i like, but having said that, it may not be for everyone. It is a very tactical game, even walking around is not trivial as every turn you must analyze the the cards in your hand to find the ideal way to play them and maximize their utility. I think that "frustrating" is a very apt description of MK. While AH may be frustrating in the sense that "we never had a chance of winning no matter what we did", MK tops this 10x by making even simple tasks like moving across the board an optimization exercise that can sometimes be impossible to solve.

If you like cooperative fantasy games, check out Mage Knight (supports competitive and cooperative play) and also defenders of the realm (purely cooperative). The DnD games are a possibility but I find them to be slightly inferior overall.

In the horror genre, some games you may like, if you are willing to let go of the cooperative/solo aspect are:

- Betrayal at the House on the Hill (half game cooperative, then 1 vs many)

- Last Night on Earth (1 vs many)

There is also another Cthulhu themed cooperative game you may like: Witches of Salem. I haven't tried it yet so I can't realy offer any advice on that one.

I thought about Red November.
Ok it's not very complex or fantasy/sci-fi themed (even though you are playing as gnomes)
but it's fully coop and you get that "everything is going very bad very fast" feeling.
You are stuck in a sinking submarine and have to survive until help arrives, fixing leaks, preventing reactor breakdowns and
fighting off the kraken etc.

I second Ghost Stories. It's fast-paced, challenging and tense.In short, excellent. You can play it at 4 difficulty levels described in the rules.But even the initial difficulty will prove to be quite a challenge at first. The game is l fun whether you lose or win.

You can make up your own custom difficulties as well, skewing deck composition and starting resources.

Currently, we play with elements of the initiate and nightmare levels comprised in one.(starting the game as initiate, but keeping three incarnations in the ghost deck).