Team Play

Backstory

Persephone grants both the humans and the elves access to her sacred store of grain. Naturally, bloodshed between the two races is forbidden, but they compete in peaceful ways for the available grain. Humans work her sacred silos during the day, and the elves at night.

Basics

Night Grain is a game for 4 or 6 players (there must be an even number). At the end of the game, each player's score depends on what grain he has received from Persephone. Each player belongs to one of two teams -- the Elves and the Humans; there is both a single "personal score" winner and a group "team" winner. Which of these two types of "win" you prize more highly is a matter of personal preference. However, players will find that achieving a high personal score is difficult without the cooperation of their team mates.

Components
A complete set of Night Grain consists of these rules; three sun and three moon markers to designate the opposing teams; twenty-four grain markers (four each of six different types); and the Track of Persephone, divided into five numbered levels. A JPG of the pieces and a PDF of the board are linked above. I recommend printing the pieces on a color printer, then spray-mounting to light cardstock and cutting the markers apart with a sharp scissors. In addition, you will need a single die.

Grain Markers

	Amaranth
	Barley
	Buckwheat
	Rye
	Spelt
	Wheat

Go Cross Campus is a team-based world conquest game that updates once per day. It started as a student project, and the original version of the game (and many current instances) pitted teams from different universities against each other -- e.g., at the moment, there's an Ivy League game and an ACC Championship game running.

Once each day, you log on and "energize" -- the number of points of energy starts at 5, but increases for certain things (if your team conquers at least one territory on the last turn, if you log on for 5 turns in a row, etc.). You then issue orders -- moving and/or attacking, which consumes some energy. The ultimate goal of the game is to conquer the entire map.

The key difference between Go Cross Campus and other world conquest games is that production isn't based on control of territory -- basically, the more players you have on your side energizing each turn, the more power you have in the game. So there's a strong incentive to recruit others, which is why the game was an initial hit; as many as 60% of the student body of some universities enrolled.

But the developers have also opened up some games that are open to anyone, not just folks with the right .edu address; the screenshot is of a game that started yesterday, "Political Bash 08," played on a map of the U.S., with teams representing different issues (e.g., Environment, Economic Stimulus -- the idea is pick which one you think is most important). So if you go to the site now, you can join and play the game.

Personally, I find games where you logon for a short period each day congenial; it's a way to get a daily game fix without devoting a lot of time. Not everyone likes the pace, of course. And the game does have one notable flaw; people sometimes sign up for multiple teams, meaning they have access to the private chat channels of more than one, and can "spy" for a different team. Easier to prevent this when only someone with a brown.edu email addy can join the Brown University team, impossible to police in an open game. There's a system for kicking spies out, but it's far from robust.

Still, the team-based nature of the game, the daily update, and the dependence on recruiting make Go Cross Campus both unique and original.

Full disclosure: I did some game design consulting to the developers.