Semi-Cooperative Games: A Blend of Unity and Conflict
Board games bring people together, offering various ways for interaction, from fierce competition to full collaboration. Semi-cooperative games strike a unique balance within this spectrum.
What Are Semi-Cooperative Games?
Semi-cooperative games are a genre of board games where players work together towards a common goal but also have individual objectives that may conflict with the group's interests.
Characteristics
- Common Goal: Players must unite to achieve a shared objective to avoid collective defeat.
- Individual Objectives: Alongside the shared goal, each player has secret or openly known personal goals that may diverge from the group's aim.
- Balancing Act: Players must carefully navigate between contributing to the group's success and advancing their own agenda.
- Potential for Betrayal: Some semi-cooperative games include mechanisms for betrayal or a traitor, adding tension and unpredictability.
Popular Examples
- Dead of Winter: Players survive in a post-apocalyptic world while pursuing personal objectives that can undermine the group.
- Shadows Over Camelot: Knights collaboratively protect Camelot but there’s a chance one knight is a traitor working against the group.
Appeal
Semi-cooperative games appeal to those who enjoy the social and strategic depth that comes from juggling collective and individual success. These games foster interaction, discussion, and often, memorable moments of alliance and deception.
Semi-Cooperative Game with Hand Management
Semi-Cooperative Game published by Battlefront Miniatures Ltd
Homeland - The Game
$9.00
$8.95
Homeland: The Game is a semi-cooperative game of intrigue, deception and hidden agendas. Players assume the roles of CIA analysts, directing agency resources to combat the rising tide of global terrorism. Be warned, not everyone is what they seem.Stay...
mixed, 56%
14 y/o +
3 to 6 players
90 minutes
Relaxed
Strategy Game
Movies / TV / Radio theme
Spies / Secret Agents
Deduction
Memory
Secret Unit Deployment
Traitor Game
Semi-Cooperative Game with Dice Rolling
Semi-Cooperative Game illustrated by Piotr Orleański
Semi-Cooperative Game with Player Elimination
Semi-Cooperative Game published by Portal Games
The Moloch expansion adds something special to the original mechanics you're familiar with. New cards add Moloch's Machines to attack and destroy you, but you're not alone. This expansion adds a semi cooperative element for extra depth and replayability...
51st State: Moloch Expansion
$15.00
$6.99
Ahoy, me mateys! From the minds that brought you Dead of Winter comes a thrilling new game for the sea dog in all of us. Forgotten Waters plunges players into the lives of pirates aboard the finest ship ever to sail the seas. Okay, it ain't the finest...
Forgotten Waters
$89.64
$42.00
Semi-Cooperative Game with Sudden Death Ending
This Game is Killer is a hilariously deadly party game about being hunted by an alien life form aboard a cramped cargo vessel in deep space. The object is simple: Survive at any cost - and remove the alien threat before it kills you all.In a round, you...
This Game is Killer: Alien on Board
$14.99
$11.99
It's 1932. A new world is discovered. Unfortunately, the Old Ones got there first.AuZtralia is designed by renowned game designer Martin Wallace and thematically linked to his game A Study in Emerald. Set in an alternate reality 1930s where the northern...
AuZtralia
$69.95
$50.00
