Going through my library some more and, once again, I stumbled across Gloomhaven and… Man. The game is *GOOD*.
The board game itself was a delightfully over-engineered 21-pound box full of cards and figurines and rules, rules, rules. The price tag for the physical game is three hundred smackeroos and it’s one of the few physical games that might be worth three hundred bucks. The problem, of course, is that each individual map needs to be put together and then taken apart to help make the next map. You take 10 minutes to take it out of the box, you take 10 minutes to set an individual map up, you take 5 minutes to break it down, you take a half hour to put it back in the box.
My gaming sessions usually lasted two maps.
WHICH IS NUTS.
Anyway, the video game is amazing. I play it until I burn out and then I remember it 8-10 months later and then I play it until I burn out again. And each map takes about 10 seconds to set up and 10 seconds to break down.
It’s even on sale! Fourteen bucks!
I texted my buddy earlier this week with a couple of screenshots and talked about how the difference between the amount of hit points at level three versus level seven changes the game, how the extra cards you get when you go up a level changes the game, and, seriously, I know I say this every 10 months but I finally feel like I’m learning how to play the game.
The one thing that I’ll say is that the rules can be confusing and so I put together a How To Play video:
Seriously. It’s a great game. I keep finding myself going back to it and thinking “I finally know how to play.”
So… what are you playing?
(Featured image is the main menu of Gloomhaven. Screenshot taken by the author.)
I need to make an effort to look at this game again, but lately I’ve been occupied by meatspace events (mostly good stuff, though). The video game is a fantastic representation of the tabletop game–lots of fun to play.Report
I need to find the time to watch your video and start a game of this again. Really liked playing it on the table (even with the set up time) and I should love the game.Report
I also need to get back to Gloomhaven, either electronically or physically. My wife and I used to game more together, but she seemed to lose interest. It turns out that a lot of that seemed to be tied to anxiety and depression. She is being treated, and she seems to enjoy the games more than she did even before. We had played through a couple maps of GH, but then we got away from it. We are about to start playing Shadows of Brimstone: Forbidden Fortress again. Maybe we’ll try GH again when we are ready for a break from that.Report
Just open it up and leave it open on a place where she’ll walk past.
Do you have a Switch? It’s available on the Switch.Report
I have it on Steam and I have a Steam Deck, so it’s convenient. I started playing it there after reading your post about it a year or so back. I just got sidetracked with other games. I’m neck-deep in Persona 5 right now, but maybe I’ll put Gloomhaven at the front of the queue for when I am ready to play something else.Report
And I beat it.
It’s beaten.
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One thing that the game does absolutely brilliantly is that there are multiple maps that I have beaten by the skin of my teeth. Like, I wouldn’t have lasted another turn. A couple of times, I beat the last guy with my very last card.
A number of times, I had a team of dudes that all worked together synergistically and I beat this or that boss and thought “I couldn’t have done that with any other group.”
I’m sure that it must be possible, of course. Tons of people have beaten these maps and there is a particularly cheesy map (Scenario 48) that I had to google because I had no idea how to beat it. I googled it and saw that other folks beat the map with particularly good techniques that I didn’t have access to because my group of four went a different direction… but I got enough insight to go back to the map and I went in and did it a third way that worked perfectly for my four dudes.
If anything, I feel a little deflated. “I wanted more maps!”, I thought as I read the victory text.
I can always replay, I guess.Report