cooperative Games

Life Is A CoOp
I want to play it all night long….

There’s debate as to whether or not Cooperative games (CoOps) are games at all or rather puzzles, since the players all win or lose as a single group.  Isn’t the point of a game for there to be a winner? Turned on its head, maybe EVERY game is a CoOp of all of the losing players attempting to beat the singular player who is the winner.  If that singular player is an actual sentient player or a system of rules devised by the game designer, is the experience really all that different? The deck of cards/dice/board configuration essentially becomes the lead player and all of the other players attempt to stop an apparent victory.

All this strange talk aside, yes, I love CoOp games.  The biggest downfall to any of them is always the possibility of the Alpha Player.  That one player who essentially decides what all other players should do. He ends up playing multi-handed solitaire.  Explaining the optimal results of each turn, doing number crunching, pointing out available paths to play, this is all fine assistance to the current player. But once one player starts dictating every other player’s move, that person is essentially playing solitaire with a bunch of helpers.

There is an answer.

Generally, the best solution is to smack that person in the head with a halibut.

Seriously, if they don’t understand that CoOp means discuss and decide and each player trying to make the most of their situation as well as the group situation, they need to be struck with a wet fish.  Or asked to leave and don’t play CoOp games with them anymore.

When two or more players start banging their heads together on how to best tackle a given situation with the supplied resources, THAT’S when gaming occurs.  Obvious moves, or moves dictated by a single Alpha Player are when the game, or player, is essentially playing itself.

Even if you play open handed, extra sets of eyes looking at what each player can do creates an interaction.  This is when it becomes a game. Everyone deciding how to force the victory. Many CoOps don’t allow players to discuss the exact nature of hidden information like cards in hand.  This is also great and leads to grand ideas like “You get the idol, I’ll secure the helipad”, and each player left to their own devices of their momentary quest. Even not directly affecting each other’s play, the end goal is CoOperative.  Helping achieve a final goal. Which, like taking down that player with a massive lead, is just gaming.

TLDR: If everyone is achieving a singular goal to win as a group, it’s CoOp