Six Perfected Game Mechanics (Volume 4)

This is the fourth volume of Perfected Game Mechanics (Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3), a series exploring games where, be they wonderful, amazing, inspiring, or even flawed in some ways, managed to utilize one particular mechanic with sheer perfection. That one mechanic is not going to be improved upon; there is nowhere “up” to go.

Note: with the exception of multi-use cards, the images representing the mechanics are from BoardGameGeek.

Cooperative Game

[caption id="attachment_317214" align="alignright" width="150"] Cooperative Game[/caption]

Definition: it is the players vs. the game. Either all of the players beat the game and win, or the game beats all of the players, and they all lose.

Mysterium Park

Cooperative games are an odd lot. They suffer from a lot of potential downfalls, from quarterbacking (where one player effectively directs the others in a solo affair) to games where it is not possible to win if the threats and problems come in certain specific oddball sequences (e.g., Castle Panic). Quarterbacking is likely the most difficult issue to overcome, since the quarterback will generally claim they are just trying to help. There are some games that do a decent job of overcoming this and the methods they use can be quite striking.

For example, in…

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