Menara

Cooperative temple building.

This simple cooperative dexterity game has players rebuilding an ancient temple. To start, put three random temple floors (cardboards in strange shapes) as the "base" with each piece only touching another with one point - load up some random pillars (pulled from a bag) for the camp space, and every player gets a handful of pillars too. Then, on your turn you can trade your in hand pillars with the camp ones if you want, then pick what "difficulty" card you want to try complete and then do what it says. 

Usually its just put x pillars which is just placing pillars on spaces that match their color. Afterwards draw random pillars back to your hand and that ends your turn. If you run out of places to put pillars, get the next "temple floor" and balance it on top to go one floor up! If this reaches your floor quota (which starts at 3/4/5 for easy/medium/hard) that's it, the players win!

If you can't put x number of pillars because you don't have the colors or just can't do what the your chosen difficulty card says, the required floor quota increases by one. And if the temple collapses at any time its game over! So yes, its a little bit like reverse Jenga and its easy to teach, easy to setup and has a fun amount of tension while playing. Definitely recommended! 

Uno Stacko and Ra

Competitive board games involving wooden pieces.

Uno Stacko

While I don't enjoy the card versions of Uno, this is one I don't mind at all. It involves creating a wooden tower with three planks making each floor in a cross thatch design, then on your turn removing one from "not the top" and then placing it on the top, without making the whole thing fall. The last person who successfully does that is the winner!

Does that sound like Jenga? Because it is Jenga, just with a few uno rules. Each plank has a color and a number and on your turn the piece you move must either be of that color or same number (and there are a few special tiles thrown in). Quite a fun little dexterity game that comes with a cardboard thing to help you restack the tower faster. Recommended!

Ra

This is a highly lauded bidding game where players simply bid on lots to increase their claim of ancient Egypt before time runs out. And does time run out REALLY FAST. On your turn you can do three things: pull an auction tile from a bag to add to the lot, use a previously won god tile to take one tile from the lot, and call "RA" (though some auction tiles call RA for you, and advance the timer).

Once RA is called its auction time. The person to the left has one chance to bid on the lot or pass and so on until it gets back to the RA caller who gets a final bid or pass (though if you called RA and everyone else passed, then you must bid). Your currency are predetermined sun disks which you then leave on the auction grounds for the next lot as part of the prize, which means in the next epoch (out of 3) one of your opponents might have won that to use against you!

Adding extra things like, "if you don't have any of these tiles or have the fewest of these tiles you lose points" and "all these tiles won't score unless you have this tile" adds spice. Especially since those tiles go away / are lost at the end of each round / Epoch, after you score. Good design, but I still need to play it more... currently it seems like newbies will always get thrashed with no way to recover.

Mikado and Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island

Two games about collecting wood!

Mikado

Probably more commonly known as "pick up sticks", this competitive dexterity game is a simple one. Starting by bundling all the striped sticks and letting them drop like uncooked spaghetti noodles, all you need to do is collect them one at a time... without moving ANY other sticks than your selected target because doing so immediately ends your turn. Once all the sticks are collected you score based on the stripes and whoever is highest wins.

While there is a notable advantage in going first (because if you are super good you can just clear the field), having steady hands is what will win this one for you. Ultimately it might be too cheap and simple for some though.

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island

This heavy box sees up to four players cooperatively try to win all eight scenarios which always puts them on isolated islands with varying degrees of danger. In it, you'll need to collect resources to build things and feed your people because if just one of you dies it is game over.

I won't lie. While a players turn is as simple as electing two things you want to try to do or just one thing that you really want to do, mechanically it is headache inducing complexity and will require a few goes before you get the hang of what happens when. It is also kind of tough, but in the "because you don't know what you're doing" way. By that I mean we lost the first scenario a few times before winning it, but the next few have all been wins albeit with some really close calls.

My setup is never this neat.

This is because once you understand how the gears of the game work, you'll have a good idea of what to leverage for each scenario, when to rush, when to go slow, when to avoid rolling the dice (almost always) etc. It's a decent cooperative game, but it lacks excitement in combat (because most of the game is just math) and usually hits a climax too early before a scenario ends - at some exciting point you'll know if you've won or if you have no chance of winning, then play out the next few rounds to dot some i's and cross t's to seal the deal (which you would have accurately predicted earlier unless an event card really screws your plans).

Ultimately, its not one I'd end up recommending - especially for newer board game hobbyists, not because it's bad but just because it's a bit messy and quite overwhelming at the start.