If I recall correctly, the initial reports suggested that this was going to be a different type of game based on the Gloomhaven world. The developer came back and said that they were working on making the gameplay as similar to the board game as possible, but it would be a randomized/roguelike type thing instead of an exact recreation of Gloomhaven’s campaign scenarios. I believe he said there were plans to eventually reproduce the board game campaign.
Found this on reddit:
I’ll likely be buying it.
Me too
Yeah, I just read a little more myself, and now the suggestion is that it will have the full campaign at launch (though not in early access).
Stonemaier says a digital version of Charterstone is coming too. Will be interesting to see how legacy/campaign Boardgames can make the jump to video games.
Currently $90 for a limited time:
My wife and I finally played our first game of Gloomhaven since last May because we were out of the country. It was daunting jumping back in. I felt like I was forgetting rules, but I think once we started playing the scenario we got right back into the swing of it. She has a max level Tinker and I’m a level 7 Mind Thief. It’s been her only character and we’ve probably played at least 30 scenarios. This one is my 2nd and I’m fairly close to being able to retire him. I’d like to get to the max level first. Does anyone replay scenarios just to accomplish their personal goal to retire their character?
@tomchick , I’m curious. You’ve said there are other games that do Gloomhaven style battles better. What are they? I don’t play a lot of board games so I don’t get to sample a lot of them. I’m pretty darn happy with Gloomhaven. My only real complaint is the amount of time to set up and tear down, but that really isn’t too bad anymore. I can’t wait for the PC version to come out.
We’re planning on it. One of our players has a personal quest to kill X vermlings. He’s at X-3 and we have no unlocked missions they show up in. It’s either go back or wait for a random side mission to unlock.
But we added another player, so we’ll do a mission they haven’t played and it’ll be new for at least one person.
I actually meant the longer term character progression along a campaign, but there are definitely games that do tactical combat better than Gloomhaven. Frankly, I think the tactical combat in Gloomhaven is probably the worst thing about it.
For better dudes-running-around-on-tiles-and-punching-hit-points-off-monsters, you have any number of better designs. The tight elegance of Dungeon Alliance, the smart varied cardplay in Mistfall, the epic and imaginative sprawl of Shadows of Brimstone. I really like Deep Madness so far for how it manages simplicity without compromising character, but I don’t know it as well as the others. I really don’t care for Fantasy Flight’s business model, so I didn’t buy into it, but I liked what Imperial Assault was doing as a head-to-head game played as a series of missions in a campaign. And if you want to move beyond tile layouts, there are even more better combat systems, character progression systems, and fantasy adventures. For instance, Kingdom Death Monster isn’t a dungeon crawl where you build rooms out of tiles, but that’s because it doesn’t need to be. It is, however, easily one of the best tabletop tactical combat designs I’ve ever played. The character differentiation and progression in Too Many Bones is currently my favorite examples of dramatically asymmetrical characters complementing each other with cool synergies as they level up and made hard choices. And as far as fantasy adventures go, the Legends of Andor series demonstrates that a bespoke overland map makes for a far more compelling fantasy world than a bunch of tiles shoved together pretending to be a dungeon.
But keep in mind a lot of my issue with Gloomhaven is that I think the dynamics of exhaustion are a terrible foundation for a monster slaying power fantasy. Based on the game’s popularity, that’s not something that bothers other people very much. :)
-Tom
Thanks Tom. I’ll have to investigate your recommendations and when we get to the end of Gloomhaven (it may be a while) possibly get one. My wife and I really like playing the tactical fantasy battles together, leveling up characters and customizing them along the way.
I don’t mind the exhaustion mechanic as it makes for some tough decisions as to when to unleash a particular power. Not saying there aren’t other ways to force tough decisions that would be as good or better - but I like the exhaustion mechanic.
“End of Gloomhaven,” you say? Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
:)
-Tom
I know people who have gotten there. Or so they claim.
I keep hearing about how good this game is, but it sits on my shelf, opened maybe 3 times, because I can’t make head or tail of the instructions.
Gloomhaven and Legends of Andor, by contrast, were much easier to actually start.
Before I started the game I was wary of the exhaustion mechanic, having read Tom’s critique. I do sometimes feel like I’m holding back (which is not necessarily a “fun” feeling) and sometimes disappointed when I get to the end of a scenario and haven’t used a killer loss card (or two or three!). But in the end–having played a few dozen scenarios now–I think it works for my wife and I because it tricks us into thinking that each scenario is coming down to the wire. When I finish with six of ten cards remaining, my hand feels so much smaller and weaker, even though with six cards I have up to 3+2+2+1+1 = 8 turns left which is really quite a lot. So I acknowledge Tom’s complaints, and even that the feeling of tension is somewhat false (or at least easy to misjudge), but it still really works for me.
@ShivaX and my son and I are close, after over a year of hard Gloomhavening. It’s been a long ride but I think if we put a weekend into it we could wrap it up in another dozen hours or so, depending on if we are okay skipping one critical corner (needing to get to a specific city level that we are actually not too far away from already) when it comes to it. I love Gloomhaven, but we’ve gotten so much out of it I am not NOT excited about putting it away and calling it good, especially since my son is off to college next year and there goes 1/3rd of our regular board game group, sort of. I mean, he’ll still be around for weekends we get together and play board games/Magic in theory, but I mean he’s bound to make new friends, maybe meet a girl, you know, have a life, and he may not have time to play board games with Dad and his friends here at some point. One would hope, eh?
Woof. I don’t want to go to far down that tangent. Anyway, we love the tactical combat in Gloomhaven, the gameplay flow, and the game itself as well as the tales it’s told and inspired through emergent gameplay. And holy shit talk about value over time.
Just completed my first career last session (as a Tinkerer making 200 gold at level 4) and unlocked the Quartermaster. I don’t read the optimization FAQs and similar advice material, but wow, there are some funky combinations of stamina potion use, stamina potion refreshing, and discard reclamation action that seem like they can almost extend the 9-card hand to run indefinitely without a rest. If, that is, you have no interest in participating in the rest of the game with your party, which does seem to be a bit of pitfall…
We used that to run out the clock on some oozes once. Pretty limited use case though.
Same boat, tink -> 3 spear. He gets to be a badass tank/dps when you use a combo of
the level 4 and 5 - 5 damage cards, the range 3 5 damage card, the eagle eye goggles, the stamina potion, and if you have unlocked it, the item that lets you turn a ranged one enemy target into a 3 spot sploosh
Ha. Will be a while, since I’ve started at level 2. Think how even further OP this guy would be if the stamina potion still recovered 2 cards…
Oh, I don’t doubt it. It’s just there’s a ton of content in there. I do feel a lot of it is padding, but that’s hardly a complaint for folks who like the gameplay. And the allure of unlocking the new characters is a really solid pull. I can’t imagine the average boardgamer – especially folks like us who sample a lot of different games – ever “finishing” Gloomhaven.
Hmm, now you’re making me want to go back and read the rules to see what sort of sticking points you might be encountering. I don’t recall having any issues with it, but I’m the kind of weirdo who reads over the rules book a couple of times, takes notes, and skims the rules forum on BGG before ever setting up a game.
But, yes, Mistfall’s character system, which uses cards in a similar way to Gloomhaven, is really really good. They just don’t have any sort of persistent campaign, which has its pros and cons. The pro is that the satisfying progression is distilled into one gameplay session instead of spread out over several hours-long sessions. The con, for some people, is that each scenario is a start from zero. I think Gloomhaven has conditioned a lot of people to want persistence across their gameplay sessions, as if they were playing a tabletop RPG.
When a scenario-based fantasy game called City of Kings came out last year, I remember a lot of people on BGG confused about which parts of their characters’ progression carry over to the next scenario. Frank West, the designer, kept patiently explaining that none of it carries over to the next scenario. You level up your character each time you play. I think a lot of nonplussed Gloomhaven players had trouble wrapping their heads around the idea of – gasp! – losing all their progress. :)
-Tom