Rahdo, My son and I managed to complete the third scenario while both of us were about to get exhausted. As we defeated the last enemy, we hugged each other. What a great gaming experience Gloomhaven provides!
Thanks for such a great analysis! I backed the second printing of this game today and I'm excited to get it. I appreciate you explained why the combat and overall goals of the game is good. I'm excited that this game has depth but isn't bogged down with needless rules.
Great review. I'm convinced to buy it. I come from d&d so a simplified game like this where I can play an hour or so each time is exactly what I was looking for.
I'm a little late to the party as usual, but this looks like a good time to grab the reprint! Have to check out Forge Wars too, starting to pat more attention to the lineage of games.
About that new innovative thing athat you were talking about at around 7:00 Just from the top of my head Mageknight characters are also in for it for themselves. They don't have a character specific goal sure, but the idea in Gloomhaven does not seem to be as radically "outside the box" as you suggested.
in mage knight, you effectively play as super villains, which i agree is an interesting twist to the standard trope as well, though very different than gloomhaven's :)
Yes, every turn is an opportunity to be thoughtful. I feel like you should do another run through with Jen playing a character after the official release. In the game, your characters are in it for themselves, but ultimately many world-changing decisions have to be made. I'm wondering if there is anything in the rules regarding priority of choice when players disagree.
From what everyone says this is ramping up to the Top 10 of all-time. I would never have enough time to play this game, but I respect it b/c of all the innovation everyone speaks of.
i'm 3 adventures away from finishing the main storyline but i can't find the time to finish it. driving me nuts!!! digital gloomhaven, i might cover it if the sent me a review copy, but i'm not sure how i'd feel about doing it, as i'm friends with the developers (worked with them at Lionhead on Fable 2) so it's kind of a conflict of interest :)
Forgive stupid question, but I have limited amount of money and want to pick one: Gloomhaven or 7th Continent. I'm looking mostly for unique experience for two players. 7th Continent is tempting because i can still late pledge it on KS for 90 euro and retail version is supposed to be 170 euro when it's out, so that's huge difference. But Gloomhaven looks amazing too. So for the stupid question - if someone would stick a gun to your head and made you pick one...
+RafNen i would probably take gloomhaven because the gameplay was a bit deeper, while 7C was closer to a gateway game. but that price difference is hard to beat!
I backed this one and will back Perdition`s Mouth for sure. I am not sure if Perdition`s Mouth will not make it for the best game 2016 for me because I love the whole horror package Abyssal Rift comes with. But both games are HOT for 2016. Surely. And Sword & Sorcery (Fantasy-GD kind-off) is on the fence as well. Oh boy.... :)
But I assume it is too ameritrashy for you. :) But they tweaked the combat system so that there will be less dice rolling like in Galaxy Defenders. But nonethelesss - it is ameritrash at its best. ;)
+Becki Kaze i do worry about how much dice rolling and how many persnicketly little rules there are for S&S. we did enjoy galaxy defenders, but that was back when more 'euroey' options like Gloomhaven & Perdition's Mouth didn't exist on the market. now that they do... well, we shall see. i'm hoping to try S&S out at Essen where they will be demoing it! :)
As someone who is starting to feel a bit too old to get caught up in the hype surrounding so many new games, I just wanted to say your passion and enthusiasm for this game is really wonderful, and very infectious! Now my only question is, do I print off the print'n'play version myself right now so I can try it out, or do I wait for that massive box to arrive in January 2017..?
Normally I really enjoy his videos, and like his well argumented enthousiasm . And too it would here be when based on actual play through, but this one final thoughts is baseless hype parrot talk. I haven't come here for some sales pitch. Notice he hasn't shown the end phase of his run through? Bad puppy! Waste of my time.
I wouldn't call it lying and I did not intend to offend. rather from the information you provide your conclusions are not substantiated. consider the viewpoint of people watching your videos.
i'm generally considering the viewpoint of my audience when I repeatedly and strongly recommend that people completely disregard my subjective opinion, and try to draw their own conclusions from the runthrough
if claims like best game ever are not supported by arguments, how else is concluding that you're advertising escapable? the only impression you left is that the game takes forever before it proceeds in any meaningful way, and I wouldn't touch that game with an 11 foot pole.
What I didn't understand is can you play this with different people without having to make new characters all the time and replay the same story? Like lets say I've been through a couple scenarios with some of my friends, then I play with some others etc... It's really hard gather a specific group of people every time you want to play, that's why I don't play dnd any more (apart from the long play time).
I've ended up backing its second printing. I'll probably play it solo. I bought Mage Knight and traded it on as it was too cumbersome (great game but didn't really click with me). I'm hoping that Gloomhaven sticks.
I know the topic of KS follow-ups has been brought up before, but with your claims, do you think a revisit of the final product would be in order? I also know you are busy, but with the "top ten game of 2016" claim, I want a follow-up video!! :D
@rhado I see that you love the gameplay of Gloomhaven and you have presented that aspect of the game in an outstanding way. But nearly as important to me is the quality of the story, especially as it is a legacy driven dc. You did not talk about that (or I missed it). So were you impressed with the narrative?
Obviously I'm biased, given what my channel covers, but thank you for the detailed take on Gloomhaven. Glad to see others expressing their thoughts on it! :)
Hey Richard, I would like to get your perspective: Do you think this game works as a solo game? I heard that you need to control 2 characters - so assuming that I am ok with that, do you feel that you would get the same level of experience playing solo? I know that you had mentioned that some of the greatness of this game is that you can tell your partner what you are going to do, but you cannot tell them the stats of your cards. Obviously that goes out the window while playing solo controlling 2 different characters. Just trying to think about whether it would be worth getting this as mainly a solo game?! Thank you for your insight.
i think it still is an excellent game, though it's that hidden information that elevates it to one of the best games of all time (for our tastes). but yeah, if i were a solo gamer, i'd still dig it :)
Rahdo are you still this jazzed about what Gloomhaven is? I have it but haven't punched the cardboard stuff yet. Have the Broken Token insert and want to get it put together first. Hope to play my first scenario in about a week.
Hey rahdo, just wondering, how would you rank Gloomhaven, Sword & Sorcery, Darklight: Memento Mori, Folklore: The Affliction, Perdition's Mouth: Abyssal Rift and any other new dungeon crawler that I've missed and you've played?
I feel like I need a top 10 adventure/rpg games from you, i'm so torn! S&S, Gloomhaven, Pathfinder ACG, Peridition's Mouth and I know i'm forgetting a few more recent ones. Is there more to these games than combat and upgrading/buying items? I guess with Pathfinder I was never really sold on the story, seemed a grind fest, and i'm afraid games like S&S/Gloomhaven might have that Skyrim -"vast as ocean, deep as puddle" feel to them, thoughts? (I didn't include 7C or legends of Andor b/c those games have more elements to them than just combat).
+xyst well fight/loot/level up is pretty much the core of a dungeon crawler. of the ones you mentioned, i'd gay gloomhaven has the most additional content, with the world changing and evolving over continued play
Wow, what a prediction! One of the best 10? Wow! Lol... really though. It's hands down the greatest dungeon crawler board game of all time, now, and probably for the next 20 years at least.
Well, It's always hard to hear such absolute words about a game, say it's the best coop adventure game is really an important thing, it's a pity you can't compare with Myth or the upcoming Middara, both are really really good and share a lot of gloomhaven features but with a lot, lot better components and graphics (this is important too, it's a pity they didn't work on it, hope they will)
Really too bad that you skipped the story entirely. Even as a seperate, skippable video (though I understand that would be quite a bit of extra effort). Right now, I can see _that_ you love it, but I can't understand _why_. Edit: Since Isaac seems to be around: Maybe we could get the story excerpt relevant to Rahdo's situation?
+goininXIV Yeah I'm really curious about that as well. Picking up items from bandits does not sound that interesting, but it could evolve in some epic storyline, but who knows!? Would be nice if there are some vague spoilers available.
I am very curious about the story part as well! I am only in this if there is massive story. And there should be. Too many games out there completely miss the great potential of storytelling. It can be even skipped if a given group is not for it, but why not include it?... For example, there are far better tactical games than Mice & Mystics (with its pretty clunky, unclear rulebook, and little childish elements), but simply its well-written prose and highly thematic scenarios have won me over. Gonna check out the other vids about this game.
+rahdo how dare you! I backed doomrock after watching your runthroughs and now you proclaim this is better? What am I supposed to do now? (obviously, it's mock anger but I now NEED to back this too... I can skip lunch for a couple of weeks. I need to lose a few pounds.)
+Ty Beaudoin pathfinder is crazy expensive relative to gloomhaven, so there's that. crossfire is much more challenging. so there's sort of a spectrum there :)
There's a local seller offering Pathfinder ACG: RotR and all of the additional adventure decks for $100 (CDN). Gloomhaven is about the same cost to kickstart, with the mini's. As you can't speak to what I would like more, could you tell me if either one would give you a better bang for your buck?
+Ty Beaudoin wow, that's quite a steal? seems like it's way below retail (although TBH I'm not really up on how games are priced in CDN). hmm, well you have to bear in mind i have less than perfect knowledge of what the final version of gloomhaven will offer, so i'm going large based on the potential shown by what's available so far. i'd hazzard a guess that campaign length for both would be comparable. i think the combat gameplay in gloomhaven is more fun, and i'd prefer to have a storyline that branches based on my choices instead of being fixed. but pathfinder is nice in that its quick and easy to play, so there's that. i think in that case, it'd come down to which game's actually gameplay you'd prefer :)
Thanks for the reply Rahdo. It certainly is a steal, which is putting some pressure on me to act. I think I'll have to rewatch some of your vids and roll the dice.
Rahdo or anyone who played it two player, can anyone confirm the 1 hours per scenario playtime for a 2-player game? I've just seen a bgg review that puts it on the 2 hours (only the combat phase)... if the game is closer to the 2-3 hours per game that that review says I would have to pass on the game :/
I've been waiting for a game like this since I got into board gaming. myth got close but fell short with the game basically being a beta test. Not a fan of dice that card combat looks amazing.
I have a question: why play gloomhaven if can play diablo3 or other rpg videogame ? I think board games in 2018 make sense only if it don t try to do somthing videogame just do better I only undertand if the answer is: "the beauty of the "analog""
my counter question would be why play diablo3 when you could play gloomhaven? for my money, gloomhaven has provided 1000% more entertainment value than diablo 1,2 and 3 combined, and i played those religiously back in the day (well, 1 & 2 anyway)
Phil Barber esdevium are getting copies in so retailers will have copies soon. Otherwise simply use the Kickstarter reprint which has an estimated August delivery.
The game is the same in every box so how much variation could there be in everybody's games story. THere are 95 scenarios in the book and for everybody's story to be completely different then you could only use 1/3 of them perhaps
If each scenario is taking about a hour to finish , and some story-lines cutoff other , It means the game has less than 50 hours of gameplay. Just saying....
+Roman Peselev there's gameplay that happens between missions too (leveling up and choosing new abilities, buying & selling items), and some missions will no doubt take longer than an hour, plus the game is hitting all sorts of stretch goals, so all told, i think the 50 hour mark is solid (and probably more with more regular players)
+rahdo Oh you right. Good points :). Anyway I bought the Forge Wars game , but it was too euro-heavy and was very long, so neither do I or my group enjoyed it. The price tag on this game is even bigger so I am still on the fence about it. I think that for 115$( taxes not included) game I want more than 30 hours of fun. Thank you for your videos.
+TheFewzz actually there is a cool exclusive. a postcard with the art of the game and a secret code that ties in to one of the quests in the game - was mentioned in a recent update. a little thing, but very neat
just a warning here for folks. there is a loot of hype from rhado here but forge wars had the same hype and the final product was an okey game not much more. the designer didnt manage to make all parts of the games great and made a half finished product. the same will happen with this game. wait for the game to hit retail and play before you buy and save your money.
+Bijan Ajamlou He is always saying that you shouldn't care about what he is saying and make up your own opinion. That being said, I backed Forge War because of his ravings... Still imo the hype for Gloomhaven is well deserved. Seems really unique.
+Bijan Ajamlou i'm curious what about my actual runthrough of forgewar was misleading? i think i pretty thoroughly demonstrated all the facets of gameplay, so you should have been able to spot if it was a 'half finished product'. what did you learn about the game in the final retail version that wasn't apparent in my runthrough, do you think?
I am not trying to say you did anything wrong besides being overly passionate, and forge war is good not bad, but when doing kickstarters you are faced with many challenges and if forge wars would have been produced by fantasy flight games the game would have been much more polished. What I am saying chances are that Gloomhaven will be a rough gem with many half finished features. A bigger production company would cut half of those. In forge wars there was so many things going on and many parts of the game could have been more polished and some dropped. A forge war 2.0 is needed. So expect a 7 not a 10 game!
+Bijan Ajamlou right, but i'm asking, what 'lack of polish' did i fail to demonstrate in my runthrough. put another way, in what way were you surprised when you played the game? what made you think "hey, I didn't see this in rahdo's runthrough... this is very underdeveloped/half finished/etc., and I had no way of knowing this was here based on rahdo's video." i mean, specific examples of stuff that i failed to demonstrate... i'm genuinely asking, because i try very hard to give a super accurate depiction of *exactly* what you'll be getting when you buy the game, and so i'm trying to understand how i failed to do this in FW's case, so that i can avoid failing to do so in the future.
For forge wars you mentioned that the game was to long for what it was and the designer developed a fast forward variant. The problem is not on your part rather that to produce a kickstarter game is challenging and they end up half-finished compared to big published games. Maybe if you stress on that part that an editor needs to cut the garbage and polish the best parts. As an long time boardgamer I can directly spot if a game builds on games like magic the gathering that has mastered GUI and card and mechanic design and game balance. In Forge wars there was many cards that could have been much better designed regarding design-space. For example the stalls was disappointing. Lets say the team that made lords of waterdeep would make a forge wars variant of lords of waterdeep, that would be an awesome game. So what I am saying, its important to understand that you will most likely get a beta release when backing a kickstareter project, and watching your videos you as a viewer want to hope that you get something more. Its sometimes hard to forget that many of the best games are in their 3rd edition already...
playing through the campaign is going to literally give you over 100 hours of gameplay. and after the campaign is over, you can continue to explore and adventure in the world and create and level up new characters and parties and explore the other storylines that you didn't see in the main playthrough, giving you several hundred additional hours of gameplay before you have consumed everything in the box.
Mi Casa i dont understand the point of our comment? i cannot think at games that are story driven where you can replay the campain, even without stikers or not legacy i will always know the story, and something like descent doesnt cost so less. if your problem is that you want replay a character just use sleeve on card where to attach the stikers, and do the same for the map, or there are other many way to keep track without need to change the game material forever, but you will still know every character inside the box after playng all of them.
It has almost 100 scenarios. Even if you play 2 scenarios per sitting how many games have you actually sat down to play 50 times? Not to mention scenarios can be played standalone and they'll likely be releasing expansions.
OR you could buy the stickers that have come out. OR you could scan/photocopy the board to use for your campaigns, OR realize that there's still 70+ hours of game included in the box with the system as designed... OR just not buy it. I mean that's really a pretty good option if you're that offended by it. But it's the internet so someone's got to be offended by something right?