Gloomhaven review7/21/2023 ![]() While I haven’t been involved in the tabletop community since the days of AD&D Second Edition, I never lost my love for the experience so I keep an eye out for games with tabletop roots such as Gloomhaven. After two years of meticulous planning and updating all while taking community feedback into account, it will finally be leaving Steam’s Early Access program and fully launch October 20th. Do you want to be evil or good? Does your team want to be evil or good? These are just a fraction of the decisions you will be making WITH the other players.Award-winning tabletop RPG Gloomhaven is making the leap from boardgame to digital. And not only that but how your team develops as a whole. You have so much pull on the way the town develops and the way your character develops. It really FELT like we were a team of adventurers out questing. With my group of 4 playing we discussed so much from the quests to the decisions that had to be made when in the town and traveling on the road. This game create tremendous table talk if played with a group which lends to the overall fun factor. Now this is a HUGE part of the game and honestly my favorite thing. ![]() What stinks about that however is that because of the confusing layout of information it took me far longer to find those specific rules questions that I was looking for. After our group got the gist of how to play we still had to whip out that rulebook to find little odds and ends, which, honestly isn’t uncommon for more complex games. Granted there is a TON of stuff to learn going in but I found I had a very difficult time following along with the rulebook to get into it. The information is scattered all over the place and the way it is laid out is confusing. Each piece will snap together to form the current dungeon or area and there are doors throughout usually that separate the individual rooms.įair warning though that it will take you about 2 hours to fully learn the game, not to mention the time to fully get prepared to play your first game from punching out all the assorted enemy standees, tokens and map tiles. I mentioned this above a bit already but each quest has a completely different setup and they are all played on modular pieces that make up the game board. ![]() It’s just not worth it from a solo standpoint. By the time I got everything setup, I no longer wanted to play the game. I tried to get this out the other day to play a solo game. From standees to action decks to the general monster attack deck. You NEED some sort of organization for these or you will spend forever trying to find everything you need for each one. There are a TON of different enemies in this game. Each character comes with specific cards and a paper pad with details and the mini and the attack card deck and….there’s probably more I’m forgetting. After the playing field is set up (or before) it’s time to get your characters all set up and ready. Then through the onslaught of tokens to find the proper ones for that scenario. To set up ANY quest scenario you will have to sift through a downpour of tiles to find the particular ones needed for that scenario. The rulebook even has recommendations on what you can and cannot discuss just to keep the game moving along at a decent pace. This of course will vary based on how much discussion you and your team has and what quest you are partaking in. About 15 quests in and we were seeing 5-6 hour play times per quest. However as the game progresses you can expect those times to increase. The first few quests till take a group of about 4 around 2 or so hours to complete. Let me start out by saying, this game is LONG. There is a ton to ingest here and I have just scratched the surface. This creates a very strategic playstyle in where you only use your powerful “lost” cards sparingly when you absolutely need them. ![]()
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