First Impressions of Gloomhaven

I’ve now published a more complete review of Gloomhaven here! 

Dungeon crawl adventure type games are a dime a dozen. Or they would be if they didn’t all cost £70-£100 each but you know what I mean. With all that choice out there do we really need another dungeon crawler? Do the owners of Descent or Warhammer Quest need to fork out another £100+? Yes… they may well do. Let’s talk about Gloomhaven.

So you know the classic view of dungeon crawlers. Ran around a board of modular set of rooms, roll a bunch of dice and hopefully slay some monsters. Beat a boss at the end. You know how it works. But Gloomhaven introduces simple changes that completely revolutionise how these games feel.

Instead of having action points and an array of options for how to spend them, you have a hand of cards, each displaying two different actions you can perform with them. Some of these are basic move a few spaces or twat an enemy with your sword. But many are much cooler actions and all are tied to your character. On a turn you’ll choose two cards to play (a top action and a bottom action) and the number on the first one you play determines your initiative order. I find this a much more interesting set of decisions to think through! You have a limited pool of options, you are looking to find the best two that will work in combination for you current situation, and you know that after you play them, you won’t get chance to play them again until you rest to pick them all up, not something you want to do in the middle of combat! In fact, some of the actions when played, the most powerful and spectacular, are gone for the rest of the game. Very tough decisions!

I love this combat system so much. The fact that you select two actions a turn often lets you move and attack, feeling exciting and dynamic, but not so many actions that you notice the progress between each hero, so it felt like playing a coherent force fighting together. Even better is that you naturally cooperate, discussing what you can do on your turn and choosing your actions in balance with your team and that is so satisfying. I was only playing a 2-player game and it was still a big part of the game. I can’t wait to try with more players. Finally everyone has their own actions, everyone gets to feel like they’ve done something awesome and unique by the end of the game.

That only covers (in the lightest way) the actual scenarios. But Gloomhaven is so much more! Featuring an evolving, story driven campaign with a ludicrous number of scenarios to experience, permanent choices on the campaign map, character progression (via new powers to upgrade your combat resolution decks) and new characters to unlock. There is so much to like here and from what I’ve seen so far, the only thing that should keep you away is if you hate co-ops, dungeon crawlers or just happiness in general… and even then Gloomhaven might change your mind.

This first impressions article was based on a demo scenario at Essen Spiel. To see what other games I played there, check out this post!