Excessive boozing, dozing grandparents and leftover turkey sandwiches. The Christmas staples. As are board games, and sadly, flipped game boards. Some folks just can’t stand losing.
Good news. You can still enjoy some family board game bonding, without your festive day degenerating into scatteredĀ MonopolyĀ money, broken furniture and lower lip wobbles.
The answer is aĀ co-operativeĀ board game.
Yes, there is such a thing as working together toĀ beat the game. And it can be just as fun. Youāll still have to watch out for some of āthose gamersā, but it beats crawling around searching the floor for tiny houses and hotels.
Some of the themes on our list are a little dark for the festive season, but it might keep jaded older teens enthused with family time.
As a bonus, if the rest of the family have drunk too much to be reliably coherent, most co-operative games can always be played solo too. Bah, humbug.
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- Pandemic
- T.I.M.E. Stories
- Burgle Bros.
- Mansions of Madness
- Samurai Spirit
- Mechs vs Minions
- The Big Book of Madness
- Forbidden Island/Desert
- Zombicide/Black Plague
- Star Wars: Imperial Assault
- Elder Sign
- Descent: Journeys In The Dark
- Shadows Over Camelot
- Sub Terra
- Thunderbirds
We’ve deliberately excluded escape room games, alongside other pure deduction games like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. It’s not that we don’t think they’re great (they are, and we’d recommend them at Christmas) we just want to focus on games where you roll dice/move cards and shuffle little counters around on a piece of cardboard.
Pandemic
Publisher: Z-Man Games
Price*: Ā£36.99
No. of players: 3ā6
Play time: 60 mins
Age:Ā 10+
Co-op tabletop games (especially RPGs) had been around for years, but it wasĀ PandemicĀ that really put them on the mainstream map.
Players control members of a globe-trotting CDC team combating the spread of four lethal viruses, using their specialist skills, close-teamwork and good planning (along with a dose of luck) to stem outbreaks and discover cures before time runs out.
Not only are thereĀ plenty of expansionsĀ available to keep the game fresh no matter how many times you play, but also different versions with alternate themes.
There are evenĀ LegacyĀ games, where multiple plays over the course of a campaign permanently change the components of the game. (Yes, that does mean you’ll be ripping up and writing on cards. That sort of thing.)
Pandemic: Reign of CthulhuĀ sees your team thwarting cultists intent on opening gates to other dimensions through which they’ll summon unspeakable horrors, whilst the newĀ Pandemic: Rising TideĀ pits you against Mother Nature as you struggle to hold back the sea from the Netherlands/Low Countries.
PandemicĀ Rule Book
Pandemic: Reign of CthulhuĀ Rule Book
T.I.M.E. Stories
Publisher: Space Cowboys
Price*: Ā£37.99
No. of players: 2ā4
Play time: 90ā240 mins
Age:Ā 14+
Have you ever wished you could time travel? How easy would it be to embark on dangerous adventures if you could just rewind the clock after a mistake and try something different?
NotĀ thatĀ easy as it turns out. T.I.M.E. Stories adventures will still pose a considerable challenge to up to four would-be investigators.
The difference between this and most games out there is that itās driven by narrative, which means that once you crack the case, thereās very little replay value. However, you can simply buy a new deck of adventure cards to send you back to another time and place, and do some temporal adventuring all over again!
The core box also features a nifty insert that serves as a save game device, meaning you can run a game into Boxing Day or just take breaks for more drink and grub!
Burgle Bros.
Publisher: Fowers Games
Price*: Ā£39.99
No. of players: 1ā4
Play time: 90+ mins
Age:Ā 10+
If all else fails get the family to plan a heist and go safe-cracking.
Burgle Bros. letās you be that Oceanās Eleven (or Pink Panther) youāve always wanted to be, laughing in the face of the best security systems, and grabbing the loot from under the guardsā noses.
At least thatās the (hair-brained) plan.
If you really want the most thematic experience, youāll build supports for the gameās different floor tiles to create a 3D building (which youāll then place on a Lazy Susan for ease of play, of course),āor just buy one from the gameās website. But laid out side-by-side is almost as good.
Huddle as a family around those floor plans and figure out the perfect crime. With a load of characters and game modes to choose from, this has plenty of shelf life packed into a small box.
Mansions of Madness (2ndĀ Edition)
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Price*: Ā£92.99
No. of players: 1ā5
Play time: 120+ mins
Age:Ā 12+
Players take the role of intrepid 1920s investigators, who must uncover and then thwart a sinister design of otherworldly, eldritch horror in a sprawling, spooky mansion.
You donāt have to be a fan of H.P. Lovecraftās writing or know anything about it to enjoy this game. Itās your archetypal haunted house kind of affair, but with horrors that are altogether more substantial.
Not only do you have to work together to avoid the physical harm the mansionās denizenās wish to inflict upon you, but you must safeguard your sanity too. The human mind can only take so much.
The whole game is run by a smoothly via a digital app and thereās plenty of expansions and extra downloadable scenarios available online, so this one will keep you screaming in terror for many Christmases to come.
Mansions of MadnessĀ Rule Book
Samurai Spirit
This is pretty much 7 Samurai in a box. A pretty small box at that, but one jam packed with katana-waving, shape-shifting fun for everyone. Youāll work together to stave off waves of neāer-do-wells intent on burning the place to the ground.
Each samurai is unique with their own stats and special abilities and you can use your talents to support other players on their turn, meaning itās a truly integrated co-operative experience.
Make no mistake āā itās tough going, even on the easiest level, so youāll all need to bring your A-game, but thereās little satisfaction in a cake-walk, right?
The small box is pretty amazing considering it accommodates up to 7 players (plus plays solo for when the family are comatose).
Mechs vsĀ Minions
You need to order thisĀ direct from Riot Games, but itās worth the effort, and at $75 USD itās a steal.
For a start this is literally the best-produced board game in history. Everything from the inserts to the ready-painted miniatures scream quality and developer love. Youāll wonder why other games are so darned expensive.
Mechs vs MinionsĀ (MvsM) is a programming game, meaning you decide on the moves you want your character to play, program those moves with cards, and then play them out in a set sequence, regardless of the external factors that might mess with your careful planning.
Now whilst some programming games (weāre looking at you,Ā Robo-Rally) might turn this into somewhat of a frustrating experience, particularly when youāre racing to beat other players, the co-op nature ofĀ MvsMĀ and just the sheer fun of it, make any programming errors more hilarious than heartbreaking.
Plus through all of it you can just wallow in the quality that just drips from every component. Thereās even sealed secret mission envelopes to open! Sealed envelopes, people!
The Big Book OfĀ Madness
Publisher: Iello
Price*: Ā£34.99
No. of players: 2ā5
Play time: 60ā90 mins
Age:Ā 12+
You opened the book! Why did you open the book?? Thereās a reason itās called the Forbidden Library. Moron.
This is all about building the best monster-defeating deck of Element cards you can, whilst avoiding Madness cards in the process. Only by good co-operative card play can you hope to thwart the monsters youāve released from that pesky book, ya big klutz.
Thereās a touch of Hogwarts about this escapade, and like the Potter books your protagonists will rely heavily on each othersā special abilities to make it out of the library in one piece.
Itās not the cheapest for a card game, but you get your moneyās worth in quality artwork and colourfulĀ , crazy, co-operative fun.
The Big Book of MadnessĀ Rule Book
Forbidden Island/Desert
Publisher: Gamewright
Price*: Ā£14.99/Ā£17.99
No. of players: 2ā4/2ā5
Play time: 30+/45+ mins
Age:Ā 8+
From the creator ofĀ PandemicĀ comes two survival games. The first,Ā Forbidden IslandĀ tries to drown you, and thenĀ Forbidden DesertĀ cynically tries to dehydrate you to death.
Both games function in a similar way: inĀ IslandĀ you need to drain locations and then shore things up to stop them slipping under the waves and cutting off your escape route.Ā DesertĀ sees you frantically shovelling sand to keep it from burying your objectives, your transport or your whole team.
That said they manage to be their own individual beasts. It’s probably worth trying Island first, and if you like it then pick up Desert too.
This is actually more like co-operative puzzle-solving, with some fairly intense collaboration and planning between team members. Make no mistake, it can beĀ hard, but thereās few titles that give you so much satisfaction when you finally crack it and whisk everyone (and your loot) to safety.
The Forbidden games come contained in embossed tins, which is fairly Christmassy in itself, and the components are top quality. Therefore itās surprising that both games are almost stocking-stuffer material when it comes to budget.
There’s also now Forbidden Skies to make this a tin-box trilogy, with some nice twists on the standard game play for veterans of the first two games, or if you want to gift a big tin box game for less than Ā£20. Bargain.
Forbidden IslandĀ Rule Book
Forbidden DesertĀ Rule Book
Zombicide/Black Plague
Publisher:Ā Cool Mini or Not/Guillotine Games
Price*:Ā Ā£83.99/Ā£99.99
No. of players:Ā 1ā6
Play time:Ā 60ā180+ mins
Age:Ā 12+
For families obsessed withĀ The Walking DeadĀ and zombie-surviving/killing in general, then you canāt go far wrong with either flavour ofĀ Zombicide.
Personally I think the best way to tackle zombies is wearing a suit of armour and carrying a battleaxe (Zombicide: Black Plague), but I appreciate there are many that prefer a more modern, boom-stick approach (Zombicide).
Either way, youāll be facing waves of Walkers just queuing up to be splattered in imaginative ways, and both games have ludicrous amounts of expansions to keep you doing it for quite some time.
Few veterans deny theĀ Black PlagueĀ medieval version irons out some niggles in the original, but thereās no reason why you canāt incorporate those tweaks into the modern setting.
So get tooled up, get busy or get (un)dead!
ZombicideĀ Rule Book
Zombicide: Black PlagueĀ Rule Book
Imperial Assault
Publisher:Ā Fantasy Flight Games
Price*:Ā Ā£92.99
No. of players:Ā 1ā5
Play time:Ā 90+ mins
Age:Ā 12+
Star WarsĀ has been thrilling audiences for four decades now, so whole families are often ardent fans. If yours is one of them then this should be a no-brainer.
Until recently this was an All-vs-One game, so one player would have to take the role of the Empire, working to thwart the other playersā Rebel scum.
However, in recent developments, publisher Fantasy Flight Games (the same guys that brought you that Mansions of Madness app) have announcedĀ Legends of the Alliance, an app that takes on the Emperorās mantle to allow fully co-op play.
With stunning artwork, gorgeous miniatures and a 2-player skirmish game for when you feel competitive, itās one of the best familyĀ Star WarsĀ experiences (barring everyone watchingĀ A New HopeĀ after Christmas lunch).
Elder Sign
Publisher:Ā Fantasy Flight Games
Price*:Ā Ā£32.99
Number of Players:Ā 1ā8
Play time:Ā 90+ mins
Age Guide:Ā 12+
If rolling diceĀ Yahtzee-style is your thing, but you like a game dripping with theme, then you might want to pick upĀ Elder SignĀ (check out ourĀ full review).
This is like a dice/card game version ofĀ Mansions of Madness, where players take the roles of investigators trying to thwart an ancient evil, this time in a museum rather than a spooky mansion.
To succeed (and survive) encounters and defeat the various foes to be found amongst the museumās exhibits, youāll need to achieve certain combinations of dice faces. With clever card use and relying on each investigatorās strengths, you can mitigate the luck of the dice.
All the while the clock is ticking its way around to midnight, and when the clock strikes each night something suitable horrible will (usually) happen, so itās a race against time to seal the evil away and save humanity.
Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2ndĀ Edition)
Publisher:Ā Fantasy Flight Games
Price*:Ā Ā£74.99
Number of Players:Ā 2ā5
Play time:Ā 120+ mins
Age Guide:Ā 12+
When it comes to co-op dungeon-crawl board games,Ā DescentĀ is near the top of the list.
This is archetypal swords-and-sorcery adventuring, with players āexploring dangerous caves, ancient ruins, dark dungeons, and cursed forests to battle monsters, earn riches, and attempt to stop the overlord from carrying out his vile plotā (according to the official website).
The overlord can still be controlled by a player as an All-vs-One game, but as withĀ Imperial AssaultĀ andĀ Mansions of Madness, thereās an app to allow a fully co-op experience.
Descent has been around for years, so thereās a huge library of expansions and add-ons to choose from, meaning this is one game that will have shelf life (or rather off-shelf life) for as long as you want to keep adventuring together.
Descent: Journeys in the DarkĀ Rule Book
Shadows OverĀ Camelot
Publisher:Ā Days of Wonder
Price*:Ā Ā£46.99
Number of Players:Ā 3ā7
Play time:Ā 60ā80+ mins
Age Guide:Ā 10+
When you playĀ ShadowsĀ as intended, thereās actually a traitor in your midst, with one player secretly scheming to ensure the group’s failure and the triumph of evil.
Very Christmassy, right?
However, the rule book does offer the option to play the game totally co-op, and itās this version we suggest you get to the table over Christmas. Obviously.
Up to 7 players work together to track down Lancelot, recover Excalibur and the Holy Grail, fight off combined hordes of Picts/Saxons/Dragons and duel with the Black Knight.
AndĀ quote Monty Python, of course. A lot.
Shadows Over CamelotĀ Rule Book
Sub-Terra
Publisher:Ā Inside The Box Board Games LLC
Price*:Ā Ā£34.99
Number of Players:Ā 1ā6
Play time:Ā 45ā90+ mins
Age Guide:Ā 8+
Probably not one for those in the family with very active,Ā claustrophobic imaginations, Sub Terra is about working together to escape a cave system. Youāll want to do that before your lights flicker out and whatever horrors exist Below finally catch up with youā¦
The tiles that define the cave system are laid out at random, so every game will be different. As players draw and lay tiles to explore and reveal the cave system around them, theyāll have to cope with such joys as floods, cave-ins and gas leaks.
Like Forbidden Island/Desert and Pandemic, each player controls a unique character with a special skill (like the Engineer that can use dynamite to blast through blockages, or the Scout to find ways around them).
Also like those games, co-operative use of those skills will be essential to avoid becoming just a pile of bleached bones for future incompetent spelunkers to stumble upon.
Thunderbirds
Publisher:Ā Modiphius Entertainment
Price*:Ā Ā£44.99
Number of Players:Ā 1ā4
Play time:Ā 45ā60+ mins
Age Guide:Ā 8+
What does āF.A.B.ā even mean? Does anyone know? If so then enlighten me in the comments, as I grew up around this stuff and still have no idea.
As youād expect from the designer ofĀ PandemicĀ andĀ Forbidden Island/Desert, this licence features some pretty tight co-op action as players take on the role of International Rescue members and zoom around the globe saving lives, fighting crime and impressing everyone.
Youāll of course also have to thwart the evil machinations of the dastardly Hoodāāāas if you hadnāt got enough to worry about already saving the day all over the planet?
Thereās even a few expansions out there to add to its shelf life.
It doesnāt get the kind of love it probably should, so you can often pick it up pretty cheaply.
*Listed prices are RRP/MSRP only. Shop around and you WILL find the games cheaper, sometimes far, far cheaper!
We hope you enjoyed our Co-op Games For Christmas list. Did we miss any of your favourites? Let us know in the comments, and donāt forget to join us and the rest of the Tribe onĀ FacebookĀ andĀ Twitter!