Elements Every Co-op game needs?

Tension! If it's coop, it's definitely cooler if players feel as if any moment they could lose the game.

That brings up another: hard game to win. Cooperative games that are harder but still challenging to win seem to elect more interest. If you win, big deal - not too many people will talk about that. But if you LOSE, people will talk about that! Some will think about the game, what made it that they lost, what could they have done in order to win the game, etc.

And if the game is harder to win, when player DO WIN, they will talk about that! But if I was designing a coop game, I would make the odds unfavourable to players.

Each player needs to own unique decisions that are integral to winning.

The chance of winning should improve significantly the better the group communicates.

Bonus points for direct player to player aid/coordination (handing off items, healing, transportation.) Dwarf and half-orc beating up an ogre = not cooperative; Half-orc pushing ogre over dwarf squatting behind ogre's knees = cooperative.

I like hidden information in coops, especially if it is only "semi-cooperative". It could be something like a traitor role, or it could be the different cards you have to accomplish the goals. The way Hanabi does it is pretty interesting, but tough to make work thematically. I also would like to see some "hidden goals" for each player, meaning, you want to work together to win, but really you want to make sure you win YOUR way.

Also, don't put in a rule that simply says "You can't share information." Every coop game I've played has people breaking that rule. Give it a reason (like the traitor or hidden goal things I mentioned).

I'll use two very popular games to illustrate my last preference. Shadows Over Camelot has you, every turn, do one of three "bad things" - draw a bad card, lose health, or put a catapult on the board. Each of these options can lead one way or the other toward defeat. In Pandemic, each turn the player flips the top few cards of two decks. One deck USUALLY helps them and SOMETIMES hurts them, and the other deck ALWAYS hurts them. Personally I prefer the way Shadows Over Camelot does it. You have choices toward the beginning, but really it makes you feel that much more helpless toward the end of the game, and adds a lot of tension throughout the whole experience. This is also really important if there is a traitor role.

I think a good coop game has a bit of variable tension to it that keeps people coming back for more. It's also a function of how challenging the game is. So the best co-op games have that element of chance that something really bad will be rolled/drawn/picked from the bag at any given moment - or not. It can't be unrelentingly bad or constantly easy. This is a really tricky balance to play. For example, many people don't like Ghost Stories because the game is just too hard to be fun. It's unrelenting doom. On the other hand a simple game like Castle Panic has times when there is no tension at all -- to a chain of disastrous draws (Draw 4 more monsters tiles…)

There's a guy I follow called Nir Eyal who writes about the "Hooked" model of habit forming technologies which I think applies here. In his model, the thing that keeps people coming back is something called "variable reward" - the reward is changing and unknown. Once a reward becomes predictable, we lose interest. In a coop game maybe it's the "variable challenge" that keeps us coming back.

Well, I think a couple of things are integral to co-op. One is challenge/difficulty. Having these force the players to work together and come up with solutions to problems. Another good idea are classes or roles. In the generic fantasy trope, you have the warrior and the mage. Having the different roles encourages players to use their role or skills to help the party.

While there are many other important elements, these are just some of.mine that came to mind. Hope it helped!
-Jayce

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