Ever since the very early Pandemic craze (not covid-19, the board game), I’ve known deep down that I hate co-op games. There’s something so incredibly lame playing what is essentially a SINGLE PLAYER GAME with a bunch of other people, especially those games where the goal is completely unified. It’s no longer a secret in these types of games (Pandemic, Zombicide, Spirit Island and all of their clones) that one player quarterbacks the entire table and no one has any fun. This is the antithesis of what I want a board game experience to be.
What started to break the mold were semi-coops like Betrayal at House on the Hill and especially Dead of Winter. The simple addition of player goals that may be concomitant to the overall goal, or maybe not, was the sweet sauce that the games needed, but so few clones of Pandemic took the time to do it correctly.
Enter Townsfolk Tussle, one of the meanest co-ops there is! At it’s core it’s a straight up boss battler like Street Masters or Kingdom Death, but with some nasty twists. All the players are trying to become the new sheriff first and foremost, but they have to not only outdo the other players, they have to make sure the Ruffians don’t stomp the town while doing so! Instead of last hitting the boss, players get objective cards to complete during a battle, each giving them points to become sheriff overall, but the player with the most objective cards completed gets the highly sought after Boss items (like Bort’s Face!). Sometimes you will go for a high point objective card, knowing it will be the only one you can get and you won’t get the boss loot this time, just so you are first in line for the sheriff hat.
This creates a situation where players will not only NOT quarterback each other, but will put the others in compromising positions during play in order to prevent them from fulfilling their objectives. If the players do this too much, the bosses can and will end the campaign. Woe to the player who had the 6 point card if they are the last townsfolk standing and the boss ends up winning…
I won’t go too much into the game-play but this game is very simple and clean, and I expected to be pretty bored by how simplistic it was but while the basic actions of the characters are not-complex, the insane terrain and totally berserk bosses (20 of them!) has made every battle so far just a real slap across the mouth.
If you like co-ops like Spirit Island, but know in your heart that it is a single-player game never meant to be played with 2+ players, give Townsfolk Tussle a long hard look.