As ability cards are used, they get added to a discard pile. A character’s card deck not only dictates their abilities, but also their stamina and ability to stay in the fight.Įach player starts with a number of cards in the hand based on the character class they’ve chosen. Of course, each character class has powerful abilities that can obliterate the battle field, but players will want to be cautious with how they use those skills.
Players will be forced to adjust their plans and use the alternate abilities on the cards already played. Since players have all pre-selected their actions, it’s entirely possible the enemies will act before player characters and throw off players’ plans by moving out of range or dealing heavy damage. If the path to the target is blocked by an obstacle or trap, the enemy will move in the most direct path to their target that will optimize the amount of damage they can inflict and avoid any trap or hazardous terrain damage whenever possible.If characters are equidistant, the enemy will target whoever had the fastest initiative.Enemies have a hierarchy of priorities that determine how they target players: Understanding the enemy AI is the key to maintaining control of the board and anticipating who they will attack next is central to success. This is where the puzzle element comes in. The number in the center of each ability card, referred to as initiative, determines when in the round each each character takes their actions. On a players turn, they will activate the special ability on top of one of their pre-selected cards, and the bottom ability of the other. After selections have been played, turn order of all the players and enemies are determined by the initiative numbers on the ability cards. Players choose their actions at the start of each round by selecting two cards from their hand unique to each of the game’s character classes. The tutorial provides a clear, albeit dense, overview of the card based combat system, and more importantly, the enemy AI.
#Gloomhaven campaign mode skin
While it wears the skin of a dungeon crawling, loot hunting adventure, the heart of the game more closely resembles that of a puzzle. Thankfully, it’s the gameplay and mechanics that made Gloomhaven the massive hit that it is. In subsequent variations like Jaws of the Lion, the plot is vastly improved and is expected to continue that trend with the upcoming release of Frosthaven. But for the digital version of Gloomhaven, the narrative is as thinly spread as ever. While the promise of story is strong, the story is copy and pasted from the original iteration of the board game. Gloomhaven is the exact opposite experience. Dragon Age: Origins is a great example where I didn’t care for the gameplay experience but absolutely loved the world building and narrative. I typically find that the gameplay in fantasy RPGs hold my attention much less than the story itself. What they discover in the Barrow sends our beloved mercs on an unwilling journey to save Gloomhaven from the hidden machinations of cults and bandits alike. With the promise of a fortune for a small feat, your party packs up their belongings and heads to The Black Barrow. Bandits stole something valuable from her and she’s hired your group of mercenaries to retrieve it for her in exchange for a massive payday. What begins as a normal night of drinking and seeking work at the Sleeping Lion tavern turns into a sprawling adventure when the wealthy merchant Jekserah approaches you with a simple job. In Gloomhaven, players take on the role of up to four mercenaries-for-hire in the titular city of Gloomhaven.
#Gloomhaven campaign mode full
But now with the full launch of the campaign and a more stable multiplayer mode, Gloomhaven can be enjoyed as the fully cooperative story the original board game was. Well before the full launch of Gloomhaven 1.0 on October 20th, I managed to sink two hundred fifty three hours into the Guildmaster mode alone. Little did any of us know that there would be a lot of time to play through the gaming backlog in 2020. I was thrilled when when they announced Gloomhaven Digital back in 2018 and I jumped into Early Access on Steam as soon as it was available. I have personally put more hours than I can count into the board game and its various expansions and standalones like Gloomhaven: Forgotten Circles and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, and even more time into customizing my copy (which has been painted in greater detail ever since). If you’re looking for a campaign style game, a dungeon crawler, or a puzzle game, Gloomhaven hits all those notes in a unique way that it’s critical acclaim and several years as the top rated game of all time on Board Game Geek. Gloomhaven is a bulky, cost inefficient, monster of a board game that most people never finish, but it’s worth every cent.