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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 |
AgentOddball
(No Spoilers) This game has been an absolute smash hit with my gaming group. It's everything we wanted, and more. Cooperative games sometimes have trouble with getting the difficulty curve right, many times tuned to make it come down to the wire so much that winning or losing feels random. The difficulty balance in Gloomhaven is top-notch, though! It rewards clever play, and you can sail through a scenario on one or two well-orchestrated turns, or take a terrific beating if you just try to phone it in with hack n' slash tactics. Plus, you can optionally tweak the suggested challenge up or down per scenario, and receive increased/decreased rewards as payment. Fantastic! Without talking about what they actually are, we're all extremely pleased with the unlockable classes. You don't just get more of the same, and the variety of play that comes from the unlocks keeps the game fresh and exciting. We all love our characters so much that we almost don't want to retire them, but the allure of a new discovery always wins. This is my fourth 10-ranking, and Gloomhaven absolutely deserves it. I never want it to end.
AernoutMJC
All these people who have not yet tried plying Gloomhaven: DO IT! The only reason I am not giving it a 10 is that it will not be able to play it with non gamers. But: the game that is there is so incredibly good, that I have stopped caring.
adebisi
As of this writing Gloomhaven has reached the number one spot here on Boardgamegeek. There sure are a lot of positive roleplaying vibes to the game and having the legacy mechanic introduced as character development is a nice touch. The rules basically allow for you to own the game and play the whole campaign with several different people without everyone having a need to commit to the game 100%. New/random players can just pick a new character at the level of the rest of the party which is good because the game is huge and there is so much to explore that it is unlikely that you can have the same people with you through the whole campaign. In a sense the initial impression made me think of the video game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim because Gloomhaven has a similar sandbox feel to it. There is the main storyline but you are not tied to follow it since you may venture to all these side quests. So, the story seems interesting enough although I am a bit worried that all these side quests draw too much attention from the main plot. But does Gloomhaven play well… Honestly, set up is a real pain and you have to make a serious effort just to have the components organised in any sensible manner. Game/battle mechanics are interesting if a tad awkward. Having a 90% deterministic battle mechanic makes clearing a dungeon to drag quite a bit as players can spend a considerable amount of time to min-max the damage input/output. You also have several card decks, monsters and influence tracks to manage. Personally I would have preferred to replace the combat modifier decks with dice just to make the decisions faster. Moreover having fewer but stronger monsters would have reduced the amount of micromanaging. A lot of people like to compare Gloomhaven and Kingdom Death: Monster. Having tried them both, the initial impression is in favour of the latter. Gloomhaven is easier to get to play as there are no minis to assemble but the first few chapters of the narrative are not as engaging as is KD:M. In addition, the game mechanics in Gloomhaven force you to spend much more time on micromanaging the components and (sub)optimising instead of just following your instinct. But this is not to say Gloomhaven is a bad game. In contrary, I enjoy playing it and can hardly wait for the next session. But admittedly it is more of character development and exploration than of traditional board gaming. It just happens to utilise boardgame mechanics as means to deliver the experience. If you manage to see past the obvious shortcomings of Gloomhaven as a boardgame and embrace the story, I am sure the game has lots to offer.