Play this: Wolves

I recently got together with some of my writing group for a games night and we decided to give Wolves by Coyote and Crow a try. We ended up liking it so much it’s all we played for the whole games night.

It’s the first “semi-cooperative” game I’ve tried, where you have to work with other players to survive but one player can still win the game. It’s an intriguing model that I’d like to try more in the future.

The premise is a familiar one: you have to gather resources to survive and have a shot at winning the game. Each turn you draw cards from your deck and have to assemble enough resource cards to fulfill three categories: fish, corn and bison. But drawing cards is risky, as there are three leader cards in your deck that act as wild cards. Draw one or two and you can use them as wild cards. But draw the third one and you can’t use them as wild cards — and you can’t draw any cards the next turn.

This is where the unique element of Wolves really shows itself, as you often have to help your fellow players gather their resources by gifting them cards or extra resources you have collected. If any one player is unable to assemble the resources they need, then everyone loses the game. So players are constantly working together to make sure everyone has what they need. This gets more and more difficult as the game goes on and the pool of available resources starts to shrink. (Cards are removed from your deck each turn.)

At the same time, however, players are competing with each other for status points. Status can be earned a number of different ways, but a significant part of it is giving gifts — that is, giving players the cards they need to survive. So the more you help each other, the more points you get. At the end of the game, the player with the highest status is named chief and wins the game. To be honest, though, this part almost felt like an afterthought to us as the game was challenging and tense enough just in the survival stages. We felt like we had all won simply by making it through to the end of the game.

So if you’re looking for a break from games like Settlers of Catan, I suggest giving Wolves a try. Bonus points for beautiful game boards and pieces!