December 8, 2023: Board Game Studying: Collaborative Games

[On December1, 1948, a Connecticut inventor named James Brunot copyrighted a newboard game called Scrabble. Like many great games Scrabblehas endured and grown ever since, so for the 75thanniversary of that pivotal moment I’ll AmericanStudy it and a handful of otherboard games. I’d love your thoughts on these, others, and board games over fora competitive yet collaborative crowd-sourced weekend post!]

On themore common form of collaborative board game, and a unique alternative.

Back whenI was writingregularly for the excellent Good Men Project, I publisheda piece on why I found it important when my sons were young to lose to themon purpose (if as subtly as possible) most of the times that we played board gamestogether (which was a lot of the time!). That was over nine years ago, andcertainly my perspective has entirely and appropriately changed over time; formany years now, in the far less frequent times we get to board game together intheir increasingly busy lives, I’ve greatly enjoyed competing fully with them(and still losing to them quite often and quite happily, natch). But I stilltry to do so without the most toxic sides of what competition can draw out of anyof us, and for that reason among others I have a special place in my heart fora particular genre of board game: collaborativeones, where the players work together to achieve a common goal.

Most ofthe collaborative games we’ve discovered and enjoyed fit a particular andfamiliar mold: there’s an external threat that’s drawing ever nearer, and theplayers have to work together to defeat it before it destroys them. Probablythe best-known game of that variety is Pandemic, whichwe’ve gotten to play a couple times and found very challenging but fun; we’vealso enjoyed the multiple games in the Forbiddenseries (Desert, Island, Sky, etc.). Most games of this type can be prettyserious and even bleak, though, so we’re particular fans of Munchkin Panic,a collaborative game set in the delightfully silly world of Munchkin card games and featuring suchthreatening adversaries as the Gelatinous Octohedron and the truly terrifyingPotted Plant. After all, if you’re playing a collaborative game of this typethere’s a genuine chance that you could all die (otherwise, it wouldn’t be muchof a game), and in that case I suppose we’d prefer to die feeling delightfullysilly rather than serious and sad.

Because ofour (well, definitely my, but I think the boys share it as well) fondness forcollaborative games, I’ve also sought out others in the genre, including thosethat offer a different experience from that most familiar one. And by far themost unique and compelling one that we’ve found is Mysterium, anevocative and haunting game which asks the players to use images in complexways to communicate with each other and solve a shared puzzle before time runsout. Mysterium’s collaborative gameplay and goals feel quite distinct from themore familiar type, which makes for a fun change of pace for folks like us whoenjoy this genre overall. But it’s also just one of the most beautiful games I’veever seen, and there’s something to be said for immersing yourself in anaesthetically attractive and compelling world for those minutes or hours thatyou’re gaming with friends and loved ones. Meet you all at the gaming table!

Crowd-sourcedpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. So onemore time: what do you think? Other games you’d highlight for the weekend post?