{"id":2694,"date":"2019-10-04T17:18:15","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T17:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/?p=2694"},"modified":"2019-10-04T17:18:15","modified_gmt":"2019-10-04T17:18:15","slug":"a-place-at-the-table-co-op-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/2019\/10\/04\/a-place-at-the-table-co-op-games\/","title":{"rendered":"A Place at the Table: Co-op games"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hello gamers! And welcome to another episode of A Place at the Table. We\u2019ve had a nice little break as my household finished up summer and got back into the swing of things for the newest year of homeschooling for Peep and Stormageddon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s on the docket for today, you ask? Let\u2019s talk about co-op (cooperative) games .  I\u2019ll admit that here in the A.P.A.T.T. household, we don\u2019t have a lot of co-op games. We have a couple that we pull out when we have larger groups of people over, but when it is just Number One and me at the house, we stick with non-co-op games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are some things that I like about co-op games and some\nthings that I don\u2019t like about them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Here are some of the things that I like about co-op games.\nGames like Pandemic are really good for newer players. Because the entire group\nis trying to complete the objective together, it allows the more experienced\nplayers a chance to guide the newer players through some beneficial strategies\nfor the game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another good thing about co-op games is that many of them\nare suited to large groups of players. This allows for a group of people to\nplay a game together rather than having to break off into smaller games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This genre of board games does help with working together as\na team to complete the objective. Maybe employers need to start thinking about\nusing board games as a team building event in addition to whatever other team\nbuilding events currently in use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there are good things about games like Pandemic, there\nare also some not so good things (in my opinion). If you don\u2019t have a balanced\nset of players (either in skill or outspokenness), then the chances of one\nperson taking over the game and making every decision in the game. If one\nperson takes control, then the game just isn\u2019t as fun for everyone else. Many\ntimes, you can see it on the faces of the other players. They\u2019ve given up and\nthey won\u2019t offer any suggestions or strategies because their ideas won\u2019t be\nheard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pandemic<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Everyone wins or everyone loses in a co-op game. This is the biggest tick in the con side for me. It may just be my competitive nature, but if I\u2019m going to win a game, I want it to be by my own strategy and game play. The same sentiment goes for losing. If I\u2019m going to lose a game, I want it to because of how I played my game and the other players having a better strategy than me. (As you can probably tell, I was not a fan of group projects in school.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being said, the one co-op game that we do enjoy at our house is Dead of Winter. We don\u2019t have the expansions for this for our personal game, but I know that a few other people in our group do. We haven\u2019t gone through all of the scenarios for the base game yet, so we haven\u2019t felt the need to add on an expansion just yet. The thing that sets Dead of Winter apart from other co-op games for me is that each player has a secret objective that he or she is trying to achieve in addition to the main objective. And you also have the added twist of having a possible betrayer in the group (who also has a secret objective). I think this element of the secret objectives allows me to feel like I\u2019m still winning or losing by my own game play. Unless, of course, you are playing with Number One and he is the betrayer. Then all bets are off, and you\u2019ll be lucky to meet the main objective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So tell me, do you enjoy co-op games or not? If you do, what\nare your favorites? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello gamers! And welcome to another episode of A Place at the Table. We\u2019ve had a nice little break as my household finished up summer and got back… Continue reading <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[272],"tags":[257,280,58,94,137],"class_list":["post-2694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-place-at-the-table","tag-a-place-at-the-table","tag-blog","tag-cooperative-games","tag-dead-of-winter","tag-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2694"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2737,"href":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694\/revisions\/2737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traversecityboardgamers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}