Cooperative games

I wouldn't necessarily define Shadows as a full co-op game with the 'possible' traitor mechanic in there, but I second these choices, especially Shadows over Camelot, Pandemic and Arkham Horror. I might even suggest

Battlestar Galactica (again hidden traitor) but fun co-op
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Fury of Dracula (not strictly co-op - 4 players hunting down dracula but very fun)

There is a new co-op released this year called yggdrasil. Sort of looks simular to ghost storied (witch is also a co-op game that have a wide fanbase).

The space theemed game with a cd your talking about is Space Alert.

Also you could put scotland yard on the co-op list. It is very simular to fury of dracula, all players vs. one.

But one of my favourit games is a 4 player game of Last night on Earth. In a 4 player game it is 2 vs. 2. So it is team co-op. 2 players play the zombi team and 2 players the human team. Very nice, the game also comes with cd with mood music. ^^

My all-time favourite is Space Alert. The time limit is the best way I've ever seen to counter the alpha player syndrome. The tl;dr at the bottom lists the ways I've seen that one can counter it.

The alpha player syndrome:
When it's easy for one person, often the smartest or the one with most experience of the game, to oversee the entire player turn and decide what's best for everyone, it stops being fun. I've seen this happen in Pandemic. One player essentially decides the best course of action for everyone else. You can't say no, because -he's right-. It is the best course of action for you. You just weren't allowed to find it for yourself.

The fact that he's able to be right is what's the problem. If one player bosses everyone around, and either
a) the player being bossed around finds an alternative solution which he takes, which is also better
or
b) everyone obeys but the boss player is found out to be wrong and everyone loses
then people will eventually stop listening to him. However if he's right, and the players win by obeying him, the others won't have any fun.

Different games solve this in different ways. Most take the concealed information route - every player has a hand of cards that he can't show off freely, meaning the alpha player can't calculate the best course of action since he doesn't have access to all data. Shadows over Camelot and Pandemic both do this, but it's more successful in Shadows because of the traitor. Everyone has a reason not to be completely free with their cards because you don't want the traitor to have all information. In Pandemic, there's no reason at all not to put all cards down on the table except the rule book, and since you can talk freely it just becomes a hassle of everyone having to remind everyone else of exactly which cards they have. Of course they could refuse, the alpha player will argue, but that would be bad for the team and you don't want us to lose, do you?

That said, a game susceptible to the alpha player syndrome can still be fun for everyone, as long as noone takes up that mantle. But for players who want to win and are good at the game, not doing so can be very hard, so in my opinion games that actively work against the alpha should be credited for it.

So, concealed information is one way, adding a traitor causing everyone to -want- to conceal information is another, albeit related way. But there are more. Arkham horror doesn't suffer very much from it, and as far as I've seen, it's two things:
- The first is related to concealing info to all but one player, and that is simply complexity. With the level of complexity playing a character in arkham horror means, playing everyone else's too is a daunting task. At some point, you'll either have to trust that people keep check of their own weapons and equipment, or be very bored by trying to check up on them.
- The second is luck. So much of a players round, if not in time then at least in excitement, is centered around a few die rolls he's about to make. No alpha player can change that, and rolling someone else's dice is just rude. So every player will, even if they're bossed around on the game board, still have the actual dice counting and rolling to do for themselves.

But Space Alert, which I am shamelessly in love with, does almost all of these and more. It doesn't have a traitor, granted, but it does show:
- Concealed hands, and even concealed actions. You plan ahead of time, roborally-style, and halfway through you have to remember what you did in the earlier rounds, without knowing for sure how they will resolve, as you plan for later rounds. At that point you simply have to take everyone on their word when you ask them "what did you plan for round 3?" as neither of you is allowed to look at the face-down card.
- Luck, in the cards that make up your hand. You can't decide for everyone else who is going to be out of firing cards and who'll be able to move left in the first phase. The closest thing an alpha player can do is "I need someone to go left and fire the laser. Any volunteers?" which feels a lot less like bossing around. When someone answers, it feels more like a plan we made together, and the joy of a working chain of command.
- And finally, the time constraint. This amplifies all of the above. It would be possible, and not even very complex compared to AH, for one player to assess all threats, ask around what cards everyone had and then tell everyone exactly what actions to plan for which rounds. The thing is you don't have time for that. You have to let go, and say "you two, head to blue zone and deal with that thing" and then trust that the thing will be dead in four rounds when you need it to. Since cooperation games are supposed to be about teamwork, this is the closest anyone has gotten.

To summarise:
You can inhibit the alpha player syndrome by making each player the only one who is capable of making the decisions needed during eir turn. This can be done by:
- Keeping some information secret to everyone but em
- Introducing something that makes em unwilling to give up information he otherwise may
- Make his turn just complex enough so that everyone else is busy trying to oversee their own turns
- Introduce a time constraint so that everyone else is busy figuring out their own turn in time
These are examples I've seen and tried playing with. I'll post again shortly with a method I haven't seen yet, and that I'm trying to include in my own co-op game idea.

Well, the co-op aspect I'm working in is "Un-cooperative Teams", that is, people cooperating and competing at the same time. For example, I have a Cold War global strategy war game in which a 3-player capitalist faction (US, UK, Fra) form a coalition against a 3-player comunist faction. Only one faction can win the war, so there is cooperation, but only one player in that faction will lead the new world order, so there is competition inside the cooperating team (even if they cannot attack each other).

This idea is ancient. As far as I know, it comes from one of the great-great-grandfathers of Chess, called "chaturanga" or something like that. Its a 4 players chess in 2 teams of 2. Each player moves half a chess-formation (each face a different side of the board) but you cannot move your Raja (king) into a position in which your ally can "check" you. Plus, if your ally "checks" you, you have to move aways as if it was the enemy. Plus, your ally can take your pieces!

Un-cooperative teams is my preferred way to deal with the alpha-player issue.

PS I like Forbidden Island, because it's cheap