Many board games now have a so-called cover story, so a story that gives the game a frame. Players in Azul build the tiled walls of the Royal Palace in Evora, and the exit games solve puzzles that help them escape from dungeons and solve criminal cases. But even apart from these well-known games, there are many ways to tell, experience and participate in creating good stories on the gaming table. Here is a small selection of different story games that are worth trying out:
There was once ...
The Magical Forest
To tell a really gripping horror story is not that easy. The maps from "The Magical Forest" help. The game consists of 20 picture cards with different motives in a gloomy forest. There are, for example, a unicorn, a deserted path, a dragon and also a ruin. There are different game modes: all players can tell a story together. Whenever a player is on the move, he uncovers a card and continues telling the story with the help of the revealed motive. Or you distribute the cards evenly to all players and everyone tells their own scary story. In the end, it can be voted on whose story was the most exciting. Alternatively, you can give each player only a start and an end card, which together must form the frame of his story. In any case, you must incorporate the motives as coherent as possible in the horror story.
Conclusion: Extremely beautiful and high-quality designed game for storytellers. The cards stimulate the imagination, and because you can combine the twenty motifs again and again, the thing has a high replay value. A good beginner game for longer game nights.
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Laurence King Verlag; 1 - x player; from 8 years; about 18 euros; Illustration: Rohan Daniel Eason
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Storiez
If you do not like scary stories, you should try "Storiez". There are ten theme and fifty motif cards here. After a theme card has been revealed, the players tell a matching story together. Who's on the train, reveals a motivational card and continues to tell the story. But beware: At some point, the next player might not think anyone remembers the whole story, and he asks players to tell them all over again. Then the pile of cards revealed so far is reversed again and the challenged players must name each motive in turn and uncover it for control. To make it more exciting, running an hourglass for 90 seconds. If the players have named all cards correctly during this time, everyone gets a motivational card as a reward, the challenger goes out empty. If the challenger has won, he gets two cards. If you have collected five reward cards, you win.
Conclusion: This quickly sets a feeling like the classic "I pack my suitcase ...". If you have a good memory, you have a clear advantage. The ten themes for the stories are varied and leave enough room for interpretation. Nice, short storytelling game in between or as a mood for more complex games, where you have a lot to talk.
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Amigo; 2 - 5 players; from 8 years; about 10 euros; Author: Jürgen Heel
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The master of dreams
The little girl is old enough to sleep in a big cot. Now there are no more bars to protect it at night. This calls her stuffed animals on the scene, who have made it their mission to protect her little girl every night from all dangers. And they are numerous. The game is played in a playbook where the miniatures of the stuffed animals and their opponents on the left book page experience their adventures. On the right side of the book are instructions for the gameplay. Depending on which decision the players make together, the story will be played at the appropriate place. You can defend yourself against the emerging monsters using various dice and collected items. If a monster lands a hit, the stuffed animal loses cotton. Each story has at least two different endings, and with each new story it gets a bit more challenging.
Conclusion: Overall, "The Lord of Dreams" is currently one of the finest cooperative narrative games. Despite the very demanding instructions, the players are gradually guided through the game. The game offers seven exciting adventures that you can not only play with children, but also great with adults. The outstanding graphics complement the sophisticated gameplay, and the miniatures bring the stories to life. At the end of each story, matching the story, there are also suggestions on what to talk about with the playing children.
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Plaid Hat Games; 2 - 4 players; from 7 years; about 55 euros; Author: Jerry Hawthorne
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Near and far
In "Near and Far" we provide ourselves in the city with enough equipment to survive in the distance adventures. There are three different game modes. In the simpler short-game mode, a game is played. In contrast, the Campaign and Character Mode will play a coherent story across multiple games. The special feature of the game is the split game plan: If you have enough resources in the city, you can go on the game Atlas and adventure exist. Depending on how strong the tour troupe assembled in the city is, the player has a certain range there. If he comes to a field with an encounter marker during his journey, a story is told from the "Book of Encounters" that is connected to a task for the traveler. Again, you can collect treasures again.
Conclusion: The thematic successor of "Top and Bottom" offers much to discover again. The short-adventure mode offers a good introduction to the game. While more well-known game actions take place in the city, things get exciting in the distance. Small, thematically related stories offer many options and challenges. Overall, a complex game with great graphics and successful stories, with which you can fill so many games night.
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Gravity; 2 - 4 players; 14 years and older; 40 euros; Author: Ryan Laukat
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Agent Undercover 2
Where are we and what are we doing here? These are the central questions in this game. At the beginning of the game, each player gets a face-down card that reveals whether we are in a library, in the universe, or in the graveyard, for example, and what role we play in that location - except for one player. Because he is a secret agent and has no idea what is happening here. The game starts by the starting player appeals to a teammate and asks a question. Maybe, "What do you see when you look around?" If you are among the players who know where we are, the answer is easy. If we're in a library, you could say, "I see a lot of tables and shelves." The answers should not be too revealing, because the goal of the secret agent is to get the whereabouts of the players out. If the agent is addressed, he must bluff and come up with a vague answer. If he is unmasked, the other players have won. If the agent finds the right place, he wins.
Conclusion: Refreshingly simple and entertaining bluffing game that you can play anywhere. It contains 17 different sets of cards and requires only average talent for storytelling. If the group is a bit bigger, there is the possibility to play with two agents, which makes everything even more interesting.
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Piatnik; 3 - 12 players; from 12 years old; about 23 euros; Authors: Alexander Ushan
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Escape Tales - The Awakening
"The Awakening" is a cooperative adventure game that has different outputs depending on the decisions taken. Players take on the role of 35-year-old Samuel, whose daughter Lizzy has fallen into a coma for some inexplicable reason. After all attempts to improve her condition have failed, even a dubious ritual seems promising to him. The board consists of changing playing cards, which can be explored with the help of action markers. Fitting any place on the current playing field, the story book will contain the matching event or story. So you get to new maps with puzzles, clues and items. Often you have to make decisions that can influence the gameplay. With the help of an app you can solve the puzzles.
Conclusion: A wonderfully dark fantasy adventure that convinces even by the mass of good puzzles. The adventurous story develops as the game progresses, and players always have the impression that their decisions are important. It is also nice that it is not absolutely necessary for the game to solve all the puzzles.
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Cosmos; 1 - 4 players; from 16 years; about 25 euros; Authors: Jakub Caban, Bartosz Idzikowski, Marr Dembek
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Holding on - the eventful life of Billy Kerr
In "holding on" the players slip into the roles of the nursing staff of a hospital ward. The patient Billy Kerr is hospitalized and he is not very well. The task of the players is not only to accompany him nursing in the last days of his life, but also to find out something about his life story. In ten scenarios, players have the opportunity to win the patient's trust, gradually reconstructing the various events of their lives. In doing so, the resources available must be used in a balanced way so that the patient is optimally cared for, but at the same time the players have enough time to talk to the patient and the nursing staff is not overloaded.
Bottom line: An interesting combination of worker placement mechanism and a puzzle in the form of a story that wants to be revealed. The serious issue is realistic and appropriately implemented. Granted, such a serious topic is not suitable for every round of play. But it is very worthwhile to playfully spend time with this topic.
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Hub games; 2 - 4 players; 14 years and older; about 40 euros; Author: Michael Fox, Rory O'Connor
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Mutabo
"Mutabo" is a mixture of "Stille Post" and "Mondaysmaler". Alternately, you have to try to describe what you understand, or draw as well as you can to make the other person understand what you mean. And that usually goes quite nicely wrong. There are two stacks of cards, one with sentence beginnings and one with sentence ends. At the beginning of the game, each player gets a piece of paper and pencil and one of each of the cards. From the various sentence beginnings and endings, each player selects a particularly curious combination and writes this sentence on top of the note. Now the piece of paper is bent so that the other players can not read the sentence. When all are ready, the pieces of paper are passed on in a clockwise direction. Now everyone has to try to draw the sentence that came from the predecessor. The next player must then make a move from the drawing. And so it continues alternately until the tickets are filled. At the end you look at the results and can award the funniest course.
Conclusion: Entertaining game for sociable rounds of play. There are neither winners nor losers here. And the abstruse results are entertaining and encourage them to talk about it and play another round.
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3 rabbits in the evening sun; 3 - 6 players; from 10 years on; about 18 euros
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Haste words - the dice game
Eight dice, each with six motifs, paper and pens and countless possibilities: The starting player dices all the dice and picks a motive as the starting topic. Now the remaining dice are rolled again and put down for everyone. Each player now has the task of writing down as quickly as possible to each motif a word that fits the chosen main topic. The first person to list four terms may call "Stop". Now the found terms are read out, points are only available for words that were not found by the other players.
Conclusion: compact warm-up game to find words. If "city, country, river" is too boring, it can demand a bit more brain cells here. And if the search for concepts is not enough, you can also write whole stories matching the motifs.
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Yikes !; 2 or more players; from 8 years; about 10 euros
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Once upon a time ... very different
"Once Upon a Time" is a semi-copic narrative game in which each player tries to tell a story together using cards. However, each player has his own secret end to his story. The cards consist of narrator cards with events, locations, characteristics or even characters and things. Some of them are at the same time interruption cards with which you can intervene in the course of the story of a teammate in order to be able to tell on your own. Then there are the fairytale end cards that dictate how the stories of each player should end. Each player gets a certain number of narrator cards at the beginning of the game and hides a fairytale end card. A player begins the story and reveals his hand cards to match. If, however, a notion falls to which another player can play an interruption card, the latter takes over the story and continues to tell. The game ends when a player has managed to play all the fairy tale cards and bring the story to a reasonably believable end with the fairytale end card.
Conclusion: Very entertaining narrative play, in which the bizarre twists, which takes the narrated story in the foreground. The dangerous dwarf was just standing with his ax in front of the cave to conquer the treasure of the dragon - and the next moment said dwarf then makes common cause with the dragon to save the princess and banish the stepmother.
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Pegasus; 2 - 6 players; from 8 years; about 10 euros; Authors: Richard Lambert, Andrew Rilstone, James Wallis
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