Co-opoly: The Game of Cooperatives is a cooperative board game where players work together to found and run a democratic cooperative business. Instead of competing against each other, players collaborate to overcome challenges, build their co-op, and ultimately succeed in opening a second location. The game features mini-games (charades, drawing, word-guessing) as challenge mechanics and incorporates themes of solidarity, democratic decision-making, and collective entrepreneurship.
Components
1 game board with a circular track
Co-op marker (shared group piece)
Player tokens
Challenge cards
World cards
Point tokens (individual and co-op pool)
Timer
Drawing materials
Setup
Place the board in the center.
Each player chooses a token and places it on the start space.
At the start, all players collectively decide what kind of cooperative they want to run (can be realistic like a coffee shop or whimsical like a dragon art school).
Place the co-op marker on the board.
Shuffle Challenge and World card decks.
Set initial individual and co-op pool points.
Turn Structure
On each turn:
Roll and move the co-op marker around the board.
Resolve the space — draw Challenge cards, World cards, or receive bonuses.
Complete challenges cooperatively using mini-games.
Manage points between individual pools and the co-op pool.
Actions
Challenges
When a Challenge card is drawn, one player must get the other players to guess a word or concept:
Charades: Act out the word without speaking.
Drawing: Draw the word without writing letters or numbers.
Unspoken: Describe the word without saying it or related words.
Successfully completing a challenge earns points for the co-op.
World Cards
World cards represent external events affecting the cooperative.
Some are negative (taking points from individuals or the co-op pool).
Some are positive (bonus challenges or free points).
Players must collectively decide how to respond to negative events.
Point Management
Points exist in two pools: individual player points and the shared co-op fund.
Players can contribute individual points to the co-op fund.
Certain expenses require co-op fund points; if the fund is empty, the co-op fails.
Democratic Decisions
Key decisions about the co-op are made collectively by vote or consensus.
These decisions affect gameplay and the co-op’s direction.
Scoring / Victory Conditions
Players win when they accumulate enough points to open a second cooperative location.
Players lose if the co-op fund runs out of points (the cooperative goes bankrupt) or if individual players run out of points.
Special Rules & Edge Cases
Fully cooperative: There is no competitive element; all players win or lose together.
Story building: The chosen cooperative type flavors the entire game experience. The game encourages players to build a narrative around their co-op as they play.
Timer pressure: Challenges must be completed within the time limit to earn points.
Scaling difficulty: More players means more challenges must be completed, but also more collective resources.
Educational purpose: The game is designed to teach principles of cooperative economics and democratic workplace organization.