Door 24

Door 24 of MechanXmas is very special. It's about co-operative games! This is a big favorite mechanic/genre for us. We consider ourselves "care-bear" gamers, and while we enjoy competitive games too, it feels nice to be on the same team and solve puzzles together. 😊 Co-op games also usually excel in 2p, our most common player count. We have a lot of co-op games and it's hard picking favorites. We absolutely adore Pandemic-style games and also campaign games like Gloomhaven - but if I had to choose a number one it'd probably have to be ⛰️ Spirit Island!

It is such a brilliant game, starting with its thematic twist: instead of playing settlers colonizing a new continent, you play as spirits defending an island and its natives against invading conquistadors. It is also one of our hardest games which needs you to run at 100% brain capacity at every minute of the game.

Spirit Island has so much going for it: you have modular boards for unique setup, different adversaries for variable challenge, ingenious card hand management to interact with the game, gradually unlocking powers to give an arc to the game, a clever card system to track where the invaders are exploring, building on and ravaging the island. 🙃 The list goes on.

And the best thing 🤩: you can play as unique Spirits, with very diverse playstyles, all with some signature abilities, cards and upgrade paths. Spirit Island is really a game that you could play forever due to the sheer amount of variability - especially with the added content from the expansions.

A common complaint about co-op games is the so-called "quarterbacking", when one player is making all the calls and deciding for others what to do. In Spirit Island you need so much concentration to deal with your own stuff that you'll probably never have a chance to try quarterbacking. 😅 So it's all about talking and brainstorming every turn how not to suffer horrible defeat.

Oh, and Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! 🥰