Shadows Over Camelot is a co-operative (or semi-cooperative) game for 3-7 players, from designers Bruno Cathala and Serge Laget and publisher Days of Wonder. Each player represents a knight of the Round Table who work together to gain white swords on the round table before Camelot falls. To do this, the knights must overcome a number of quests, including searching for the Holy Grail and taking on the Vikings and Picts, invading at your shores.

The heroics of the knights is counter-balanced by the actions of the black knight, taken each turn before the players act. You must choose whether to add a siege engine to the grounds of the castle or take a black card and suffer the negative effects. Or, if you’re truly heroic, you can sacrifice a health to avoid any bad consequences. Be careful what you choose though. Your actions are all observed by your fellow knights, who are watching to find out whether you are a traitor.

There may be a traitor in each game, determined by the loyal or traitor cards dealt at the very beginning. The traitor wins if Camelot falls or if the round table is filled with majority black swords through failed quests or negative black cards. Playing the traitor is hard, but very interesting to try and fly under the radar! Sometimes you might just have a bad hand of cards – if you place them out against the Picts, it might look suspicious, but you might not have any options. This co-operative game really promotes communication, but not 100% open information, so it’s hard to know who to trust.

If you enjoy Shadows Over Camelot, you might want to expand the game with , expanding your game to eight players, allowing for two traitors, adding new characters and new game mechanisms. The new travel cards really change how you move from quest to quest and the new black cards add new dimensions to the game.

Player Count: 3-7
Time: 60-80 Minutes
Age: 10+