Spirit Island

I've played a lot of co-op games where one person ends up quarterbacking the whole table, but here every spirit has such a distinct kit that you genuinely can't run someone else's turn for them. The settler-destruction theme actually paying off mechanically instead of just being flavor text is what

Teaching my partner this took maybe twenty minutes and we've played it every weekend since. The fear card mechanic keeps every turn tense because you never know when the invaders will push back harder. Four spirits on the table is chaos in the best way.

The spirits all play so differently that my group keeps switching who we are each game. It's genuinely hard, and losing to the invaders still feels fun because you can see what you should've done. Best cooperative game I've picked up in years.