Co-operative survival games where a doom tracker counts down to a finale and you must complete a mission or defeat a monster to succeed during one gaming session.
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| 1. Darkest Night 2nd Edition (2018)– Victory Point A co-operative or solo game, where the world has been ravaged by the evil necromancer, and is covered in blights tainting the seven core locations. As the last heroes you must search for clues to locate missing holy relics, which will provide a way to defeat this enemy. Heroes start with 3 power cards, and these will help you directly support each other, increasing dice, or maybe provide unique abilities. There are 29 characters to choose from, and all have their own theme and attributes to try out The game features a darkness tracker which builds tension and increases the difficulty as time progresses. The production on this 2nd edition is amazing, from artwork, large tarot cards, thick tokens, large and small board choices, and the hero standees are lovely. It is a great card driven strategy co-op game. My more detailed overview > Darkest Night 2nd Edition |
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| 2. Nemesis (2018) – Awaken Realms This is a co-operative and optionally competitive survival game set on a dark space ship, with a strong aliens theme and amazing production quality and excellent alien miniatures. Each of the characters have unique skills and strengths in their card deck, and you will play to survive and escape from the ship, but with your own secret agendas and objectives to complete, some of which can be traitor style if selected. Playing Nemesis produces tension and atmosphere and you will soon be needing multiple rooms or items to survive or remove contamination, as well as ensuring the ship is not destroyed by fire or mechanical breakdown. The game is geared more towards one shot game sessions, and is very close to being a dungeon crawler with its room reveals, events and encounters, and there is a short campaign story book and an aftermath follow on story box > Nemesis |
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| 3. Dice Throne Adventures (2021) / Missions (2024) – Roxley Dice Throne was originally a competitive dice battling game based on the yahtzee three roll mechanism to activate character abilities and wear down your opponent. The adventures box is a co-operative expansion upgrade that turns it into a light dungeon crawl experience with minions and boss battles, wrapped together by a simple campaign to beat four bosses, and X-Men missions takes it further into co-operative survival. This game is now a real mix of dice rolling, adventure, missions, and light deck building and battles. The artwork and production of all elements of this game are amazing and its easy mechanics and really fun dice rolling make it family friendly, where learning and building up a character is a neat experience. My more detailed overview > Dice Throne Adventures |
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| 4. Gloom of Kilforth (2017) – Hall or Nothing This card based fantasy adventure game sees heroes move around a map of 25 locations, encountering events, meeting strangers or fighting monsters, trying to complete their quest line. At the end of their journey lies an ancient enemy plotting against them that you must defeat to win the game. Time is precious though, as the locations are falling into gloom each night and when this takes over the whole map you will lose. The game distils a story about your hero into one game session, and as you play you will obtain new skills, items and spells, largely through encounters or competing quest stages, and each game offers up a different journey. The artwork in this game is truly amazing, and to get the best from the game you need to use your imagination to convert your encounters into a storyline. My more detailed overview > Gloom of Kilforth |
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| 5. Eldritch Horror (2013) – Fantasy Flight A great co-operative survival game with a Lovecraft theme and a countdown doom tracker. Your hero characters will navigate around a world map looking for clues to stop the emergence of an ancient one. They will adventure, find weapons and equipment whilst also gaining conditions that weaken them. Gateways and monsters will appear in cities to make things tougher and over time the places in danger will escalate making this a tense affair as the doom approaches. The game tells a loose story as it progresses, and whilst it is not always fully joined up thematically it remains good enough to keep everything interesting and allows your investigator to have their own journey. It remains one of the great co-operative games that provides a tough challenge but is not overly rules heavy and therefore is relatively easy to teach and play. My more detailed overview > Eldritch Horror |
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| 6. Nemo’s War 2nd Edition (2017) – Victory Point This game was specifically designed for solo play merging an adventure storyline with strategic battling against the ships which slowly fill the oceans of the earth. You will captain the nautilus, and choose a motive to search for treasure, discover scientific knowledge or wage war which will change the end goal emphasis for success. The game flows smoothly and each round is not overly complex, with most actions allowing you to wager extra influence on the dice roll by gambling the welfare of the crew, the ships hull or nemo’s own abilities looking for a success roll. It has great theme and art, and has adventure events drawn into a story deck which changes each game. Gameplay is strategic in nature and over time you will learn hidden depths, but it is tough to score highly and surviving is a measure of success in itself. My more detailed overview > Nemo’s War |
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| 7. Warhammer Quest Adventure Card Game (2015) – Fantasy Flight This small box is a co-operative card and dice dungeon crawl game, and sets up neat character and player interaction, as your heroes interact and support each other to complete quests. Monsters will come thick and fast from the shadows, and your characters each have a set of four actions to use to combat the dungeon, and combining them is critical. There is a light but specific storyline being told by each of the quest cards, and the mechanic of using your card actions and dice rolling works beautifully. It is a relatively quick dungeon experience, and mostly about exploration and combat. I enjoyed the game so much i wrote four custom scenarios for the original game, which have become popular with game fans > Warhammer Quest Adventure |
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| 8. Dungeonquest (2014) – Fantasy Flight This dungeon adventure game has been around since 1985, now updated with improved artwork and components. This is a push your luck style adventure where you gradually lay small tiles on a board as you progress towards the central treasure chamber where a dragon in sleeping and you must try to steal treasure before he awakens. This game is largely about unfortunate events and survival, and once you know this, it becomes a fun game, as you laugh at terrible things that happen to your heroes. With a time track counting down before the dungeon traps you all in, the play time is consistent and not overly long. This game is extremely luck based, but is a fun and dangerous adventure where the chances of survival are very low indeed. My more detailed overview > Dungeonquest |
| Previously Owned Survival Games …due to space and funding restrictions i regularly trade out games to fund and try newer ones, producing an ever changing favourites list, but one of these games may be right for you. Frostpunk (2022) – a post apocalyptic world overcome by a severe ice age, this is a tough solo or co-operative survival game, balancing many different life threatening situations for the survival of the outpost. A great game but it has a lot of set up and arguably too many tracker boards to look after > Frostpunk Spirit Island (2017) – co-operative game which pits players as spirits helping to defend an island from an invading force. Has light deckbuilding and is a puzze style game similar to Pandemic. I really enjoy this game, but a close friend has a copy which we play quite often This War of Mine (2017) – a war torn survival game, with storybook narrative and tough decisions to be made that will test your moral compass. A decent game but slightly more frustrating and less engaging than i expected > This War of Mine Robinson Crusoe (2012) – a worker placement survival game with an exploratory feel, but really tough to win, and always felt a little on the complex and lengthy side, However it is a classic and a well regarded survival game experience Legends of Andor (2012) – a survival fantasy game with great board artwork, where you quest around a superb looking board and fight off the enemies who are gradually converging on your base. I am still thinking of repurchasing this game |