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Gloomhaven
60m - 120m
1 - 4 Players
Ages 12+
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Gloomhaven is a game of Euro-inspired tactical combat in a persistent world of shifting motives. Players will take on the role of a wandering adventurer with their own special set of skills and their own reasons for traveling to this dark corner of the world. Players must work together out of necessity to clear out menacing dungeons and forgotten ruins. In the process, they will enhance their abilities with experience and loot, discover new locations to explore and plunder, and expand an ever-branching story fueled by the decisions they make.
This is a game with a persistent and changing world that is ideally played over many game sessions. After a scenario, players will make decisions on what to do, which will determine how the story continues, kind of like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. Playing through a scenario is a cooperative affair where players will fight against automated monsters using an innovative card system to determine the order of play and what a player does on their turn.
Each turn, a player chooses two cards to play out of their hand. The number on the top card determines their initiative for the round. Each card also has a top and bottom power, and when it is a player’s turn in the initiative order, they determine whether to use the top power of one card and the bottom power of the other, or vice-versa. Players must be careful, though, because over time they will permanently lose cards from their hands. If they take too long to clear a dungeon, they may end up exhausted and be forced to retreat.
| Ages | 12+ |
|---|---|
| Designer | Isaac Childres |
| Mechanics | Campaign / Battle Card Driven, Cooperative Play, Grid Movement, Hand Management, Legacy, Modular Board, Simultaneous Action Selection, Storytelling, Variable Player Powers |
| Play Time | 60m – 120m |
| Players | Solo, 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players |
| Publisher | Gém Klub Kft., Albi, Asmodee, Cephalofair Games, Feuerland Spiele, Hobby World, Korea Boardgames co., Ltd. |
| Theme | Fighting, Miniatures, Adventure, Exploration, Fantasy |
Achire
I feel terrible giving this game such a low rating, because it's clearly a game that a lot of thought & effort went into, and one that many people love. However, I found it painfully boring. It felt like grinding in an old dungeon crawling video game. The monsters are fairly similar to each other, the AI feels somewhat dull, and some characters feel quite disadvantaged for gaining loot (for example, if your character is fragile with ranged attacks, you have to keep your distance from enemies, which means you never get the loot... a shame. I loved the premise of top and bottom actions, but I didn't find the cards as exciting as I hoped. It's a real masterwork of a dungeon crawling simulator, but at the end of the day, it just felt boring to me and it would be torture for me to play it again. I will not be continuing with the campaign; one of my friends will probably take over my character. Pros: combines dungeon crawling with multi-use cards and a 'deck is your life' system, nice miniatures, lots of content Cons: Long and you have to repeat the very dull scenario if you fail, all dungeons feel the same, theme didn't feel especially immersive, the semi-coop of everyone being out for themselves is annoying as your teammate steals a coin from you while you work to help the team; I'd rather be competing or cooperating, downtimes can get very lengthy if someone is struggling to make a decision, the rewards are dull, and the game is just far too long for what it it.
adriannaoshea
Played the first scenario on Tabletop Simulator. We did a 3 player game and had a great time. The rulebook isn't great, some things were really ambiguous and we just guess some things the best we could. Overall, we had a lot of fun and I'm excited to see other scenarios, harder dungeons, and how well the world and characters actually evolve with the legacy mechanics.
a8347x
It really surprised me at the beginning. The fluent gameplay, various and interesting characters, appropriate difficulty. But after 25 games I felt tried, the only thing I made me excited was to fulfill a character's goal and unlock a new character.