Jan 20

Today was coop games, and once again Betrayal was the game of choice. I love Betrayal because for the first half you all end up working together and there's really nothing happening that pushes you to compete. It was kind of fun too playing with people that didn't have any knowledge of how to play either, because the game can come across as boring until the haunt occurs. Once it does though, it's really fun seeing everyone come together and try to come up with a plan to somehow beat the betrayer. For us, we were able to take his character out quite early, but it ultimately proved futile as the monster we were working against was able to stop all of us. One thing I like though is that in certain scenarios, coop elements are always in play. For this particular one, even after a person was caught, they still were able to control their character and work for the bad guy. This adds a lot of tension to the game, because if you're the last person alive, you're playing against the other 5 players, without a big monster to assist you! But it can also be pretty rewarding if you end up winning.

Coop games are nice, because I prefer working together with other players than competing against them. I enjoy games where everything is on the table and you all have an ultimate goal you're trying to achieve, because it can really make it much easier to get to know a person when you're working together. For us, it was trying to best figure out how to balance our particular character strengths. One person had more speed than I did, so I felt it was necessary to defer to them in certain situations to best give us a chance to win. I enjoy winning as a team better than winning as an individual, because it can form a nice, rewarding bond as a group. I'm looking forward to this week to play the games we aren't familiar with, because it will allow us to be on a bit more fairer and equal terms. I'm leaning towards doing Carcassone or Forbidden Desert, both seem like they'd be a lot of fun.