Collaborative board games

[MegBusset]

We always get a board game or two at Christmas, but traditionally competitive ones inevitably end in stroppiness and misery, followed by downright refusal to play (I have two absolutely lovely, but incredibly competitive DC!)

Last year we had a bit of a breakthrough with Forbidden Island, which requires players to work together to complete the game. This has proved much more enjoyable and harmonious to play!

Any suggestions for similarly collaborative games? DC will be 8 and 10.

All playing together with adults as well? Pandemic might work. The board is a world map, across which the characters have to move, dealing with the spread of 4 diseases, trying to prevent actual outbreaks while trading cards to collect a set, move to a research station, and develop a cure for each disease. You win if you cure all 4 diseases. You lose if you run out of cards, have too many outbreaks, or run out of disease cubes (the very pretty little coloured cubes you put on the map to show the spread of disease) in any colour. Each player plays a specialist - e.g. scientist only needs 4 cards of a colour to cure a disease, not 5; medic can reduce disease in a city quicker; dispatcher can move other people around on his/her turn, etc.

Warning: it is challenging (we lost lots till we got the right balance - lots of ways to lose mean you have to balance your efforts) but great fun and normally as soon as we lost we were saying, "Oh, we should've done that! So close! Do we have time for another game now...?"

I have just ordered Pandemic the Cure which is supposed to be a more fast-playing and slightly less challenging version of Pandemic. (My dc are almost 9 and 12.)

Also Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters is supposed to be very good. I have ordered it for Halloween, so haven't played it yet.
www.amazon.co.uk/Mattel-GmbH-Y2554-Geister-Schatzsuchmeister/dp/B00C6Q3FEO/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505378680&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=ghost+fightin+treasure+hunters&tag=mumsnetforum-21

Flash Point Fire Rescue is also supposed to be really good (saving people and animals from a house on fire) but haven't played that one either.

ha! I saw the title and thought, I know, I'll recommend Forbidden Island!

Pandemic, as PP mentioned, is supposed to be good too.

Bit late to the thread but Castle Panic is a brilliant co-op. There is still a winner overall sort of (if you beat the game by defeating all monsters, the player who killed the most is the master slayer) but you could leave that out of it really