My thoughts the past few days have been consumed by solving one of the major problems that affects many otherwise strong co-op games, finding a satisfying way to create the adversary the players are struggling against. Some games represent the adversary as an actual physical manifestation (e.g., great old one and monsters in Arkham Horror) while other games have players struggling against nature itself (the rising tide in Forbidden Island). For my game, I’m currently considering a format similar to Sentinels of the Multiverse where the adversary consists of a leader and his minons. Mechanically this is represented as a threat deck which contains minon targets, instant effects, and ongoing buffs or debuffs. There is also an environment deck which is shuffled into the threat deck which contains humanoid, robot, and animal targets which can help or harm both the players and the threat. To be victorious the players will need to weaken the threat while also protecting themselves from the dangers of the environment. A brief analysis of successful co-op games shows what I should be striving to create with my combined threat and environment deck.

Progress so Far

A brief explanation of my game

Before going into my considerations on representing a compelling adversary, I want to briefly summarize where I am in the design process. At this point, I just need to come up with a prototype for the threat deck, and I’m ready to begin playtesting. Specifically I have:

– Designed cards for a full environment deck (Post-nuclear wasteland) and one player (a martial arts using child who can choose robotics, electronics, or computers as his hobby)

– Drafted a basic rules outline for the player and threat turns

– Designed a basic technology deck

– Sketched the player boards and the threat boards (possibly optional)

Components of a Strong Co-op Adversary

The following is a brief list of what I see as the strengths of the best co-op games with both good and bad examples. I realize there are a large number of co-op games out there which are much worse examples of these properties, but I’m going to stick solely to highly rated games (top 100 BGG) which are still considered to be strong despite their flaws.

– Fun – The game never feels completely hopeless to the point where the players would be better off quitting or if it does seem hopeless the game ends very soon

Good: Some games of Pandemic can start to seem overwhelming, but the nature of the infection deck still allows the players to feel like they have some way to stem the tide and emerge victorious. After learning the basics of good Pandemic play, I’ve never experienced a game where defeat felt inevitable. This may just be my stubbornness to accept defeat, but I feel there are clear mechanics which help the players feel like they still have some control. Bad: Arkham Horror is well known for causing the players to feel like the situation is hopeless and encouraging them to accept the inevitable destruction of the world by the ancient forces of the great old one. It could be argued that this is quite thematic and possible the intention of the designers, but it is still an example of a 3-4 hour long game where players often begin contemplating quitting halfway though.

– Replayability – Variable enough to create a different play experience each session

Good: This element is why my game is loosely based on the Sentinels of the Multiverse format. Sentinels does an amazing job at creating a vastly different play experience due to the random nature of using card draw and the modular components. Bad: While Pandemic can feel like a slightly different puzzle, it has nowhere near the variability (and arguably replayability) of Sentinels where a player can play one game as a damage dealer trying to stop an alien invasion and the next as a tank soaking up damage from the appendages of an avatar of destruction.

– Player Control – Let players feel like their decisions matter and there are definitely good plays and bad plays

Good: It should become very clear with repeated plays when the player has made a poor decision and when they have pulled off a strong play. Pandemic does this by aggressively punishing players who ignore the appropriate threats or make inefficient decisions. Bad: It’s not quite as clear in Sentinels when a good play has been made or when a player has made a poor choice. Most of this is due to the limited number of decisions a player has each turn and the incredible randomness of the villain deck.

– Foreknowledge – Give players some idea of what will come next so they can form a meaningful plan

Good: This aspect is where Pandemic distinguishes itself from a myriad of other co-op games. The players have complete knowledge of the cards in the infection deck even without playing a game as they know that each city has 1 card in the infection deck. The brilliance of the epidemic cards is in allowing the players to know where the viruses are going to intensify in the near future. By having this information, players are able to look multiple turns into the future and construct a meaningful plan that can actually be implemented. Bad: Ghost Stories is a brutal co-op game partly due to the inability of the players to plan more than a turn ahead, and the ability for one card or unlucky die roll to completely derail any attempt at long-term strategy. The players may be planning to collect Tao tokens to defeat the incarnation of Wu-Feng when it eventually arrives, but they will have to manage not to lose all of the tokens from a poor curse die role and get lucky enough to not end up with an incarnation who is immune to tokens. There are considerable ways for this game to really hurt the players to the point where the best strategy seems to be one of mostly reaction along with following generally successful heuristics.

– Tense – Constant sense of tension and threat, could lose in a few turns if things go poorly

Good: Pandemic and Ghost Stories both do an excellent job at slow escalation of tension and having loss conditions which are always very close to occurring. If players ignore any of the loss conditions for too long, they will quickly end up with an unstoppable loss. Bad: Sentinels very rarely has the same level of tension as Pandemic or Ghost Stories. It’s very likely that it isn’t meant to be quite as punishing against most villains, but it is evident that tension is lacking. One major reason for this issue seems to be based on the only loss condition being when all players have been incapacitated (other than Baron Blade’s rarely seen end, the completely random end caused by a card in one of the villain decks, and 1 card in an environment deck). Other co-ops generally have many loss conditions which have to be considered which keep games from turning into long hp drains.

Do you agree with this analysis? Please let me know your thoughts by commenting.

Application to My Game Based on this brief analysis, many things become clear to me.

– I should try to have villain mechanic which creates a game time of around an hour or so to avoid possible issues with games dragging on to long. I realize this conclusion might not follow directly from the above analysis, but co-op games which last longer than 90 minutes seem to run the risk of overstaying their welcome. I also want to keep the game at a length where players want to play multiple games in one session.

– I want to maintain the variability and replayability created by keeping the randomness of drawing cards from threat decks with vastly different themes. I need to have a way to avoid possible issues caused by players not having any knowledge of what cards might show up next and the variable difficulty created by having threat cards played randomly. Currently I’m considering having one of the actions be something that involves looking at the top card of the threat deck. To deal with the issue of variable difficulty, I’ve proposed a strength mechanic where each threat card has a strength value that gets subtracted from the overall threat when destroyed. This mechanic should help to control the variable difficulty somewhat, but it raises a new issue where the end of the game may turn out to be anticlimactic which is something I will definitely need to consider.

– I can avoid some issues with player control by giving the players plenty of options to choose from each turn. Sentinels is very limiting when all you can do on your turn is play a card and use an ability, and it is generally very clear which card should be played and which ability should be used. My game will involve more complex trade offs and difficult decisions each turn.

– I should let the players have some idea of what they are facing, so they can formulate a long-term plan. Currently the technology mechanic requires investment from the player to get a payoff in the future. I’m hoping this will create a greater sense of strategy. I’m also planning to do my best to avoid actively destroying players abilities by forcing them to trash equipment or researched technology. Having equipment and on-goings trashed in Sentinels is usually a source of great frustration that makes the players feel at the mercy of the villain deck.

– To create more tension, I should come up with alternative loss conditions which actually have a chance of occurring if the players ignore them. One way this can be achieved is by having a mechanic similar to Ghost Stories where something negative happens if all 3 spaces in an era are full. Currently I’m considering increasing the strength of the threat, and if the strength gets too high the players immediately lose. It might also be interesting if each threat has a unique loss condition.

In sum, I think I’m going to stick with the idea of the villain deck to create variability while giving every player a way to see what they are up against in future turns. I will also add more loss conditions to create tension.The only remaining issue to consider is whether the threat should have a leader that is present from turn one.

Do you have any examples of outstanding or poor co-op games and an idea of what aspects cause you to rate them that way? Please comment with your own thoughts about co-op games in general or about the direction my game is heading.