Cooperative Board Games

Yesterday I attended a Meetup at a local coffee shop that involved "cooperative board games". *
I have never been to a board game meetup, so when I entered the cafe where the website said to meet, the only thing I knew to do was ask for their leader (He-he). He informed me that there were a few people waiting for more players and pointed out a place to sit. I looked around and saw a variety of people, both women and men, and both nerdy and not-so-nerdy (neither of those is an insult, by the way). According to the website, 18 people were here for this meetup.

When I sat down one of the guys at the table asked me what my favorite cooperative game is. Thinking I knew what that meant, I said "Settlers of Catan", a game in which you try to beat everyone else but you also have to cooperate with other players in the process. He kindly explained that Settlers is not a cooperative game, it's a strategy game. Cooperative games are actually games where everyone plays together as a team and either everyone wins or everyone loses, but it all happens as a group. That is so my kind of game!!

We proceeded to play Pandemic (Apparently the "gateway game" of cooperative board games), Space Alert (A really awesome real-time game which involves aliens attacking a spaceship), and Escape (A team of Indiana Jones types who explore catacombs in real-time = very fun). When a game is real-time that means a lot of quick thinking and each game only lasts about 10-15 minutes.

I officially LOVE cooperative games and will be introducing every person I know to their wonderful-ness. Prepare yourselves :)

* Meetups are meetings orchestrated by an amazing website that connects you with other people to get together to do things you all like. I have been participating in various meetups, such as hiking, photography, and knitting, since soon after I graduated college. It's free, check it out sometime.

Clicking the pictures below takes you to a description of the game: