Episode 06: Gloomhaven - Two Mercenaries Walk Into a Pub...

Do you have a lot of time on your hands? Do you think that marriage is not quite enough of a commitment between two people? Then do we have a recommendation for you! In our biggest episode to date and after an epic 3 year journey, we offer our final thoughts on Isaac Childres' game-changing, sprawling dungeon crawler / RPG Gloomhaven. (and a bit of Jaws of the Lion)

We discuss the game's mechanics, components and in our usual fashion talk through how it plays as a 2-player experience.  We have done our best to be spoiler free throughout the normal show, but we do have a special spoilercast added on to the end for those who have finished the campaign / don't mind spoilers and want to hear our thoughts on story, unlockable characters and the mysterious envelope 'X'.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Board with Each Other, the board gaming podcast that looks at board games through the lens of playing them either as a couple or as two players, whether that is with a partner, a friend, or another mercenary you happen to have met down the pub and recruited. I'm joined as ever by my lovely wife, player two and co-host, Hannah Kelly.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Hi guys.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

And today we are doing a biggie. We are looking at Gloomhaven by Cephalor Games and probably a little bit of Jaws of the Lion, which we play before. How do I explain Gloomhaven in five minutes? I'm gonna do my very best to try. I'm not gonna go perhaps into the same depth of rules as I usually go into because there's just so much here that I don't think you want to listen to a half-hour podcast of me basically monologuing a rule book, so I won't do that. But how Gloomhaven works is it is essentially a legacy campaign game. So it's a game that develops as you play with permanent changes to the game itself, what's available, etc. And in a score, it is a dungeon crawler played over scenarios, which they are 99, they come with the the the game. Um played over modular map modular map tiles with uh player characters present uh represented by miniatures and monsters represented by basically little cardboard standees. In the game you take control of a uh player character who's a part of a mercenary group, of which there are six available at the start of the game, so you basically choose one of those six and play with them. And each character comes with a a deck of cards, which are basically skill cards, they allow you to do things during the game, and a hand size, so you have to whittle down their deck to your hand size, and you take that whittled down hand, as it were, into your scenario. All of those action cards have a top action and a bottom action, and you play two cards per turn, doing the top action from one card and the bottom action from another. You also have an attack deck, which is a deck of cards that essentially replaces dice, which basically you flip a card and tells you whether you do your your your base damage or plus one or minus two or no damage or double damage. Um your player cards also uh tell you your initiative for that round, so you the or the play order, or that's both the player characters and the minions go in each round. The monsters come with basically a um a uh how would I describe it? It's a it's a card inside uh an envelope, really, that um represents it, has numbers which represent all the minions, they're all numbered, so if you have multiple ones, you know which is which, and tells you their basic stats, and they also come with a generic monster attack deck that works for all of the monsters in the scenario. They also come with their own ability cards, which are the same way as player characters, you flip over, it tells you their initiative for that round, it also tells you what the monster is going to do. Um, it is an RPG, so what that means is your characters as you play the game gain experience, they level up. Um when they level up, you get to make changes to your attack deck. You need to you you get to uh basically choose every level, you get to choose between one of two cards to add to your your deck, which you can then use in your hand in each scenario. Um you gain gold during your scenarios, which you can then spend on items. Um blessings. Or blessings, yes. You can buy blessings which allow you to do double damage when they come out in your attack deck. Um there's a marketplace, there's a tower, all your standard RPG tropes are are here. And how the game works is essentially you you pick a scenario from the ones that you've unlocked and that are available, and you build the the you essentially set it up and build the the map tiles and etc. that the scenario requires, any special rules, etc. And then you have events, so you have an event that takes place in town in Gloomhaven where you start, and you have that every single time you attempt a scenario, and they usually have um effects that are either good, so you'll get something or you'll unlock new things, or nothing will happen, usually, and if you get the negative, you have two choices on each of them. If you're travelling outside of Gloomhaven, uh represented by the very large board, which is actually a map, um, that you place stickers on as you go to to represent new areas that you've unlocked, you then have road events, which are usually something bad happening or nothing happening, depending on uh which one you pull. During the the only other thing to mention is during the game there are I think it's six, five or six elements in play where six. Six. Thank you, Anna. And they either are they they wax and wane as you do things, and some of your cards and some of the enemy abilities become more powerful if those elements are present on the board.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

Yeah, so you might want so one card might allow you to infuse fire, so then you would whack that up to the top of the board, and then someone else can use that fire to either do something additional or perhaps do additional damage or have a special action or sure of some sort.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

And um, so obviously you tend the scenario, if you win, you will unlock things, which is usually more scenarios. Um that's what you need in Gloomhaven. That's what you need. More some more scenarios and more content. Um one of the most interesting things about Gloomhaven is around your player characters, where when you when you start with a player character, you're given a personal quest, which is to do something quite sort of macro, that you're you know, you'll have to kill 20 of this type of enemy or do three quests in this part of the world or something like that. When you complete that, sometimes it'll unlock extra scenarios to play through. Um, sometimes it won't, but either way, when you play through those extra scenarios or just deal with the card as it is, you retire your character, which means you say goodbye to probably somebody you spent a many, many hours with, and you unlock a new one. Um, I can't remember off the top of my head how many characters there are, but I think it's something like 16, I want to say. Um and that's that that that is where half the fun is, is unlocking these new characters. Very, very different playstyles. No two characters play alike, they all have their own their own particular slant of dealing with things.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

And just to point out that that's randomised, so the personal story is randomised, so right at the very beginning, you can't say, Well, I really want to play this character and yeah, you draw two and and keep one.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

And at the start of the game, as long as you you don't cheat, you keep everything sealed, all these characters are to you is a symbol on a box. You don't know what they are, you don't know what they do. Um I think that's probably as deep as I'll go in the rules. Is there anything you want to add, Hannah?

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Because it's uh I think probably we might talk a little bit more about rules as we go through. I think that just gonna give you a flavour of what Gloomhaven is about.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah, in danger of just starting to be boring and just constantly because it's it's it's a very, very deep, quite complex game, and I don't want to bore the listeners.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

So, um I mean straight straight off the bat, Hannah and I are huge fans of RPGs in video game form, in tabled dot form, whether it be DD, whether it be ball games like The Descent. We've always been a big fan of this genre. So Gloomhaven came onto our radar for quite a while, and we had quite a long debate back and forth about whether it was worth spending. I think it retailed originally at about£150,£160, and we were patient and waited, and eventually came down in price, and that's when we sort of put the bullet.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Um we got it right at the start of COVID.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

And actually we got Jaws first, and one actually a friend recommended said, actually, you know, try Jaw's, it's smaller, it's cheaper, it will give you a warm-up to the flavour of the rules, which we did, but then we got Gloomhaven right at the start of lockdown, and I think that kind of kept our sanity.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yes, it did. I mean, if I think back to lockdown, there's a lot of negative things I remember, but one of the positive things I remember is Gloomhaven. Uh, because obviously you couldn't go out and we played an awful lot of it. Um, just a quick note on Jaws, I think it's worth mentioning. I would heartily recommend that if anybody is flirting with Gloomhaven, I don't know about Frosthaven, but because obviously that's out now. But if you're flirting with the idea of Gloomhaven, definitely get Jaws first. 100%. A, it's it's a great little campaign, it's a surprising amount of content in there for the price. And the the best thing about it is it slowly teaches you the rules. Gloomhaven itself throws you right into the deep end. And if if we had got Gloomhaven without Jaws, I think we would have had a much rougher start with it. Um, because there's an awful lot going in and there's no gentle lead in in the campaign, it just dumps you straight in there. Whereas Jaws, over the course of about four or five scenarios, just introduces mechanics concurrently. Um, so yeah, that's probably all I say about Jaws, but I can't recommend it enough.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Um so yeah, we we took the plunge, and um I think it's fair to say that I have never plugged the number of hours into anything game-wise that I have into Gloomhaven. I think we we were talking about it a few nights ago, and it's been over the course of about three years, and there must be hundreds upon hundreds of hours that we've spent playing it.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yeah, definitely, and I think we kind of you weren't keeping track of games about them, but I reckon we must have had at least 70-75 plays.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Oh, easily.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Easily between all the different scenarios and having to repeat them and a couple of other things to note.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

One thing I will say is we will try and be as spoiler-free as we can. It's a campaign, it's a legacy game, and I don't want to s I I really don't want to spoil anything for anybody. But at the end of this podcast, after a little musical break, we will have a mini spoiler cast where you might go into some of the more spoilery elements and talk about some of the unlockable characters and sort of not rank them, but you know, talk about our favourites and particular memories from the game and a few other elements that we can't talk about without spoiling anything. So if you've either played Gloomhaven and are happy to have it spoiled, or you just don't care, please carry on at the end of the episode and there'll be uh a bit tactile at the end that we'll talk about those kind of things there. Um so yeah, how about you? Because I feel like this was a I think it was a big step up for me, but I think this is an enormous step up for you in terms of complexity and just general all-consuming game of it all.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Yeah, I think we've played games before like The Descent where you have like a uh an upkeep phase almost where you're in town, but Gloomhaven takes it to a whole different level. You know, you have town records where you get to log your your characters, you you get to read through archives and find out more information about Gloomhaven based on prosperity levels. It's just so much more detailed, and I can't it does feel like a video game.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

It does at times, yeah. And I think it's worth mentioning the video game version of it has done really well because I don't think half of people that play even though it's a ball game. No, I didn't. Yeah, there's a full-fledged video game version for Gleam Haven.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Why have we not played them?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Because I don't want to spoil anything from the extra game. Okay, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

So yeah, it's a really immersive experience, I think, and um I I don't know, I've I have felt really quite emotionally attached to some of my characters, either because I really love them or because they're really useless, and I really just want to get to that point. Like, can we please do this so I can mainline it and get rid of them?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Get rid of them.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Um and that's kind that was kind of new for me. Like, I've never really felt that way before about a whole range of characters, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

You might yeah, and it is that you don't just stick with them all the way through, do you?

SPEAKER_02 11:44

This is this this ever-developing cast of characters, and you get to meet them again sometimes when they die with the new event cards, and we've ended up in the pub having conversations with people and stuff, and that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

With old characters, they when they when they retire, you add more cards to your deck of encounters, so you might meet them again further down the road. Um, so stuff like that's really, really cool. Um, the only other thing I think to mention is the way that we play. We don't play with one character each, we play with two. Um, this is a common thing for Hannah and I in uh cooperative games when we're playing just the two of us. We we often, depending on the game, we'll test the waters a bit. I think we did in Jaws of the Lion, and we quickly realised actually this will be better with a full party, you know, Verticomas, so for four players, so we each take two characters. There is an element in the rules that that is an issue for, because in the rules you're not supposed to discuss what you're doing with uh specifically with other players before you you you put your cards down. It's it's an odd mechanic.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Yeah, so for example, you might be able to say, I'm going really, really super early, I'm going bottom quartile.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Um we do that, you're not even allowed to say that, apparently.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Oh, we're not?

SPEAKER_00 12:55

No, no, that's our house ruling.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Oh, okay, alright, fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

You're not allowed to say when you're going. You can say things like, Oh, I'm probably going to head over there and attack one of those monsters, but you you have to speak in vagaries. It's supposed to represent a bit of the sort of mercenary culture of everybody out for themselves. But in in in gameplay terms, obviously, if you're playing with two characters, the one you know what your other character is doing, and from that you can do some sick combos, I'll use the vernacular, um, which probably you shouldn't be allowed to do, really. However, it has not diminished my experience with it whatsoever. Um, it is not an easy game, but at the same time, it's probably easier than a lot of other co-ops. We do win a lot more than we lose.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Yeah, I just think there are certain scenarios that are really specific to certain skill sets, so you know, and we'll we'll talk about that. We'll talk about that a bit more bit.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

But it also is a three uh three-hour plus commitment often, and the thought of playing the same scenario for a three-hour plus commitment over and over again, especially when you have limited time, is a little bit off-putting. So you can change the difficulty, which I think we did once, which is I'm quite proud of. I think we knocked the difficulty down once for one scenario. But for the most part we've done.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah, I think we still lost.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah, probably. Um, for the most part, we just played on the regular difficulty. But with that in mind, just as a caveat, our experience is playing with those characters. We still we still sort of maintained it between the two of us. We we did we did use to say what quartile we were going in. Um, but yeah, just just for transparency, we did cheat a little bit in certain areas just to make it uh more palatable for us, really.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

The games are long, you said that it's about three hours, which is about right, I reckon. I mean you could probably streamline it a little bit, so quite often what we would do is we would do um upkeep at the start of our games, but then we would just strip down immediately afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah, we do levelling up, etc. at the start of our next session. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Um, but I think it's with the addition of things like levelling up, that's when it really begins to go the distance. And some scenarios are shorter, but you don't really know until you get into it.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

And some are brutally long. I remember I was playing one that took us over four hours.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Really?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Yeah, yeah, one took us over four hours. Um some of them are very, very, very long.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Um it is self-limiting to a certain extent though. So when Alan's talking about how you pick two action cards and you you play them, when you eventually run out of your deck, you have to shuffle one, discard one at random, and so eventually you end up having a slim down deck.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

And if you have no cards in your deck, well, that is a very vital part of the rules I didn't mention, actually. Yeah, each game's almost got a time limit because you you start with perhaps like nine or ten cards in your hand, you use two per round. When you run out, you have to rest, which means you you get all your cards out of your discard pile, shuffle them, and then lose one for the rest of the basically removed from the game for the rest of the game. So your deck gets smaller and smaller as time goes on. Eventually, when you run out, you're exhausted or knocked out or whatever. Um it's also worth mentioning some cards are what we call burner cards, so you they have an ability on them that you can use, but if you use it, you remove that card from the game. So it's it's all that sort of push-pull about how much effort do you want to expend. So, is there anything else you would like to say, you'd like to add before we go into scoring?

SPEAKER_02 16:06

No, I think that's it, let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Okay, alright. Alright, this feels very intimidating, but okay, let's go. Um, do you want to kick us off?

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yep, so we have a two-tiered rating system if you like. So the first rating we do is our general rating system. That's our casually opening up here.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

And then we also then review it from the two-player perspective. So starting off with our general rating, uh, our first one is components, where we talk about things like board space, strip-down, and then just you know, traditional components. Um kick us off then.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yeah, fine, go for it.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

I mean, when it arrived, it was like all my geek Christmases came to fruition. It was this massive box.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yeah, I thought they needed like a wheelie trolley to get in the door, to be honest. It was just it was ridiculous because obviously the the box that came on was even much bigger than the box itself. And it's like, oh good lord.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

And it still takes up a ginormous proportion of our board game shelf. Um, and in that you get loads of stuff. So you get all your tile maps, you get all your miniatures. And do you know what I thought was so and in fact still stands out in my memory is that so much of it is sealed packages and you just don't know what it is. Yeah, and that's kind of part of the magic, I think, about it.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

It is, it's what is what I love so much about Pandemic Legacy. The first time that was the first legacy game we played, and it's just the mystery of it all. It's like all these all these boxes that you can't open. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yeah, um, and uh that I think is also then what keeps you going as well. That constant that that trade-off between saying goodbye to a much-loved character, but also I get this brand new one and I get to level them up and see what they're all about. So, I mean, yes, it was it it it is fantastic from that perspective. Um it comes with miniatures, which makes you happy.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

It does, yeah. I've got a bit to say about the miniatures, but I'll I'll do that in a bit.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Um I mean there's just there's so much stuff. I mean, everything is well made. You know, I I I I think it took us like two hours to pop everything out when we got it. It it's a huge amount of stuff. Um you know.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

What I will say is the tile map, sorry to interrupt, the the tile map pieces, they're all Monsulum. Um I feel that quite often they're a bit dogged and they don't always fit into place. That bit kind of frustrations me frustrates me a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, I think the buy naturally I'll say this now, you need some sort of storage solution. I mean our storage solution is a million little plastic baggies to just separate everything into, but it is an absolute beast, and you can't just put you can't put everything back in the box. You need some way to separate it, otherwise you'll spend three hours setting up each time. So before you even crack the lid of this game, you need to have an idea of how you're going to separate and store it.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

I've heard there are some fantastic things on um like Etsy. I'm sure there are, yeah. And we probably do need to invest in that at some point. Um we just never did because that's funny, I could use to buy more games.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Yes. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

They also have little tile pieces so that once you've got your modular thing, your modular map laid out, you've got obstacles there, you've got shelves, you've got tables, you've got pedestals, scenery, doors, scenery, and that's really cool, I think. Yeah, um, really, really cool. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Yeah, I mean in terms of like the the amount of stuff you get, it's unparalleled with anything I've ever seen, really. Um and like I say, the components are well made. I have two slight criticisms. Yeah, one's oh the I'm a miniature painter, so I like I like my miniatures well made and detailed. And these are until they're not, and I find that really frustrating because the for some reason the quality of the miniatures seems to randomly dip. Um there's one character I can't talk about because it's an unlockable character, somebody I've been using right up to the end, which I I really love. And I'm currently paid to use miniature, and there's there's obscure detail on there, just it's just not very well sculpted. Um, this is an absolute nitpick, but if you are a miniature and and mini painting enthusiast, there is a variance in quality there. Some of them are great, some of them are not.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Some of them also look quite similar, I would say. Yeah, some of them do look quite similar.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

I think it helps if you paint them, but if you don't paint them, some of them can look quite similar on the board where you're like, who's that again? Which shouldn't be the case in minutes.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Um your other bug bear is around the tracker for life for the enemies.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, so it's track to track life for enemies, you basically have little cardboard life tokens and you you put them on the uh the space is either numbered one to six on one envelope or one to ten on another envelope.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

So you have sleeves. You take your your your bad guy or your villain sleeve, you pop that in there depending on what level you are, because obviously you're a bad guy's level with you, um, and then you have a number of slots that you could then use for damage counters, but also stun effects.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Status effects.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Status effects, that's it. And we there's not enough space.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

No, especially if you're dealing with uh a type of monster, which there is ten because you've got ten spaces on there and it gets very close together, and it's just it's it it just doesn't feel great. Um I know there's solutions out there. Um, much with a lot of the stuff in Doomhaven, fans have done a lot of stuff to help you play better. I know there's uh dial bases you can get for all the minis that you slot them in and you just turn the dial to show how much health they've got left, which if that's an issue for you, you might want to consider investing. I mean, you're already in with two feet, may as well dunk your head in at the same time, kind of.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

We also found that we didn't have enough sleeves for monsters over where there were over ten monsters.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yeah, there's a few scenarios where you have too many that you have too many monster types that have ten monsters and there's not enough sleeves for them, um, which was highly annoying.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

I would also say that we had to start off by um we started off just with what came in the box, but we very quickly realised we need to find a way of a tracking initiative and there is nothing that comes in the base. There's no initiative tracker, yeah. And that I think out of every Everything is perhaps something very small that they could remedy fairly easily. Yeah, I think. We just printed off things that we laminated.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

We had little little laminated, basically just printing off the names, little like tiny laminated things which we've just changed the order off, but it absolutely needs an initiative tracker because trying to keep track of that drawing around is just impossible. Well, it's not impossible, it just adds a lot of game length to it, and it's just an admin thing that you don't need. So I'd again highly recommend thinking about how you would track initiative. The other thing, I'm not gonna mark it down for this, but there is no reason why, unlike a lot of other legacy games, Gloomhaven cannot be reset as long as you don't rip up cards where it says destroy this card and buy a set of reseed uh uh removable stickers. Which is what we got. The stickers that come with it are not removable, they're permanent when you put it on the map. We bought removable stickers because we we have finished it now and we will in the future go back and play it again. Um but that doesn't come as standard. There it is available out there. Well, it was three years ago, I assume it still is. Um, but again, you might want to think about investing in that if you if you if you want to extend the already incredibly impressive shelf life of it.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

I would say that a lot of the tokens are really, really small and tiny by necessity, but again, sometimes they feel unnecessarily tiny. Um so the difference between like a three and a five damage counter.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Three and a five damage counter is the same size, really annoys me because you have to then squint and look at whether it's a three or five. It's just little things like that they could probably improve upon. Maybe they have the frost avenue, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Um but that's tiny and it doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Do you want to talk about setup and tear down? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

I mean, it it it is a lot, and I do think it's a two-person job. Sometimes, sometimes I will set it up before you've finished doing bedtime and you're back downstairs. But nine times out of ten it takes both of us to strip down, set up, and do all the up and around it.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Saying that, I'm not going to whinge because if you want the fun, you've got to do the time. Yeah. It's it it doesn't feel excessive to what the game is. Yeah. If you want that detailed of a game, you're gonna have to go through it. Yeah, it's just about organising things in a way that is relatively easy. And um, one of the tricks that we do is kind of sort of doing strip down as we play towards the end of a scenario where we'll start putting things back in bags when we finish with them. We know we're in the last room, that's the last of that monster, and back of us, bag of coast.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

But yet still, we don't tend to play on a school night, we tend to play on a weekend when we know that we know we could have uh an extra sort of hour or so.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, alright, so components, how would you rate it?

SPEAKER_02 24:43

So we have talked about some things that were um problematic and perhaps some things that are quick fixes, but for me, still, I mean, I literally cannot forget how overjoyed I was when I got that box and I started going through it. Probably Christmas time. So, yeah, I mean I scored it a nine.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Yeah, I scored it an eight. I probably would have scored it a nine as well, aside from my miniature nutpick. You got minis, make them good.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Yeah, the initiative tracker is why I scored you to score it at ten, because I feel like that was a a bit of a failure on their part.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

And I really think with with repeated additions they should just officialise the removable stickers and just include removable stickers in the box and just make them themselves, you know. Yeah not rely on third parties to do it.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Yeah, it's on third party, it's that.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

But yeah, okay, fair enough. So let's talk about complexity.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

So um just a reminder that when we score this, we're not talking about how com if it's a really complex game it will get a ten, and if it's really simple, it will get a one. It's more about how is it overly complex? Doesn't serve the gameplay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Doesn't serve the gameplay, isn't as complex as it needs to be.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

I would say that I think one of the things that we've struggled with throughout the campaign is around monster movement and monster action. And I feel like sometimes we get that wrong, and actually I've been on Reddit and I've been reading stuff and I'm like, oh, we've been doing this wrong the entire time, and I think that it's not necessarily as intuitive as perhaps we think it's. However, I mean we we we we're consistent with our We're consistent with the way we do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yeah. And I think with a game that that is this sprawling and this insanely detailed, I think at some point you just have to draw a line under things and go, right, let's just do it this way.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

If you're a casual gamer like us, I'm sure there are a lot of people that are not.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

There's probably somebody throwing something at their what's the equivalent of throwing something at the screen when you're listening to a podcast, punching their headphones, I don't know. Um I I think we I think we got most of it right. I really do believe that we got most of it right, but I think for for the enjoyment of the game, sometimes you just need to go, you know what, let's stop faffing about with this and just not a house ruler, but just agree. Agree on your interpretation of the rules and go, right, this is what we're doing. Um and just be consistent with it. Um I I think overall it is an incredibly complex game, but it wouldn't be Gloomhaven without this being the slabberithine. I completely agree it needs to be.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Yeah, I do uh absolutely wholeheartedly agree with what you said at the beginning that if we hadn't have had jewels first, I think it would have been a very different experience, and I think we would still be trying to work out stuff you know quite significantly into the campaign. Um, but actually it is really complex, and all your characters work differently and have different rules and have different abilities, and so that does make it for a confusing playstyle sometimes or play experience sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

I think the only thing that I didn't like was around characters and character development because I think it very much forces you to make snap decisions about your character build, particularly later in the game.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

So let's explain that a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Yeah, so every time you level up, you get to choose one of two cards, and essentially, from what I've been able to see, most of the characters have either have two builds. You need to you need to lean into them doing something or the other, and you need to sort of double down on that if you want to make them uh as good as they can be, if you want to optimise them, if you will. And I think later on in the campaign, you have the option which you usually take, where you get a new character, you get to start them at the level of Gloomhaven's prosperity level, which builds up over the campaign. So towards the endgame, you're starting, you're basically starting characters at level five out of nine.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Which is what I did like a few nights ago.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

And you're then having to make decisions, you've got all these cards in front of you, you just go, I'm gonna pick that one, pick that one out. You you you you don't really know what the entire build is as such.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

Yeah, and so mine was also quite an odd character, and it was quite a unique playstyle, and I just I I was like, Well, that sounds cool, so I'm gonna give it a try, which means that you end up with like a weird playstyle.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Again, we house ruled it so that if we house ruled it, you you play once and do almost a mulligan, but I do think some sort of respec option in the rules should be there because otherwise you can create fundamentally broken characters that just don't really work.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Um, so that was a bit of a I I don't know if it needed to have that. I think it could have been a little bit more um user-friendly in a way that I even if they just sort of highlighted whether it was this was build A or build B, you know.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Yeah. I also think that there was uh very much under you we didn't utilise this mechanic very much, which is where once you've got your actual card, your action card, you can level that up, and that costs I think mainly gold. And we never really did that.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

No, no, I did it once with one of the characters, but it just it seemed like an awful lot of gold for not a huge amount of games, so I just stopped bothering after a while.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Yeah, again, it felt like an extra level of depth, it wasn't really necessary, but again, also we we kind of relate to it.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Just because we didn't use it, doesn't mean people won't, you know, some people might love that.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Yeah, um, and I think if it doesn't ultimately affect the way that we played, then I wouldn't rate it down necessarily.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Yeah, no, though. So yeah, well, how would you score it? Does it does uh how how does the complexity serve the game?

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Um so I scored it as seven, okay. So I found that again the city stuff is also quite a lot, but again, as we've said, that's kind of part of the game, and I'm kind of okay with that, but I do feel like some of the monster stuff we kind of never really got our heads around, and they did kind of overcomplicate it a little bit, but yeah, I'm I'm happy with that.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Yeah, I mean I gave it a nine. Yeah, um it's a hugely complex game, and it it needs to be to be it.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Um it wouldn't be Gloomhaven without it.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

No, it wouldn't be Gloomhaven without it. I think one of the only things that I I I did sort of strike against it that I didn't mention is you get these global achievements as you're doing things within the game. And for our playthrough, so we we we have finished Gloomhaven in terms of finishing the the end scenario, and we played a whole bunch of side quests along with it. None of them seem to have any effect.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

No, they were just like achievements. Oh no, so I always thought of them as like trophies, like PlayStation trophies or Xbox trophies.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

But again, I thought they could have done something with that because again, that's another layer of admin without a payoff, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Yeah, no, I see what you mean.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Yeah. But yeah, I gave her a nine.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

Um so shelf life. So one of the things that we haven't mentioned that we probably should mention is there is also an option to do a random dungeon crawler where you just randomly generate a dungeon based on a series of cards, you randomly generate what enemies are going to appear, and then you get loot and treasure and XP at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Three rooms, random enemies, random rooms. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Um that was also certainly to begin with. I think we talked about doing that to kind of play test some of our characters, but then rapidly realize that actually, no, we might as well just lose a scenario and just repeat it. Um, but if you are absolutely obsessed with Gleamhaven, that's a way to make it endlessly replayable.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Yeah, I mean, if just with the base game without resetting anything, like I said, we've been playing this for three years. Three years. On and off. Um hundreds and hundreds of hours. It's a big price point. There's a big point of entry in terms of what you but but I mean, even compared to some of what people spend on like all-in Kickstarters and everything, it's half that.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

Well, if you think about how much you pay for a video game these days.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Well,£70 these days for a brand new game. Uh we got this for a hundred.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Again, we got it like right at the end of the print.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

We got it at the end of the print run, I think. But I mean, uh, that's that's nuts. In terms of like bang for your buck, it's if you like it, you will you you could play this forever.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

Yeah. And like I said, we will absolutely 100% play this again. Probably not for a good few years. We're probably gonna play Frost Haven in between. Yeah, but we will absolutely go back to it so done pointing.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Yeah, I'm absolutely sure we will. So, I mean, I'm just gonna skip to my score, yeah, ten. I don't I don't know how you could possibly not rate this as ten. If you enjoy it. I mean, obviously, if you hate it, it's probably a one, but that's you've got bigger concerns if you you hate it. If you like it, it's a ten.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

Yeah, at ten.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Okay. Fun. How fun's game event?

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Oh, actually, we're wondering about a shelf life.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

I do, yeah, okay, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

I had a little comment written by Shelf Life. Um so one of the things that I will say is that you've got a huge range of monsters, but not all of them come out. In fact, I think there are store monsters on there that we have never played. So I find that really No, there isn't.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

We have played them all.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Have we?

SPEAKER_00 33:30

But there's some that only have come out in one scenario.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

And then there's some that they just repeat over and over and over again, which is an odd design choice.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Um And if you talk about replayability, part of that has to be diversity. And it would be really nice if actually there was a bit more equality between all our bad guys.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Yeah, there's just a bit more variety. Yeah. But that said, I mean that's a tiny little nickel. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. That's a that is a valid criticism, yeah, absolutely.

unknown 33:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

Fun.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Yeah. How fun's a game home.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Yeah, well if it's kept us going for three years, then I'm pretty sure that we found it pretty good fun. Yeah. Um it is immensely fun. Um I suppose there are some scenarios that are a bit repetitive.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 34:18

Um, but also how can you have that much content and then it not to be repetitive? Yeah. Um and I imagine that fundamentally most games really you are repeating the s the the same sort of absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

I mean with the it's working within the constraints of the game, isn't it? And um with those constraints, I think they did as best a job as they could do. I think the scenarios do vary in fun, which is unsurprising, they're not all going to be ten out of tens. Um I think particularly there there's uh quite a few sort of side quests and side scenarios towards the the upper echelons of the scenarios, which um a few of them were done by guest designers, and I found the quality of those a lot more swingy, some were incredible, really fun, really unique, and others were terrible or just unfun.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

One of my big frustrations with Gloomhaven, and partly probably because we played it over a three-year period, was that we when we first started playing it, we had to pick well, how is it that we're going to get through all this content? And people online kind of advise, well, actually start with your lowest scenario number and work upwards until you kind of get to a point where you can't go any further. And the problem that I found with that is that we would be doing sort of quest lines because some of the science quests also have quest lines, but I didn't understand what I was doing or why I was there. And I just feel like, again, maybe through things like uses of QR codes, perhaps, or like a little plot summary to begin with, it would have just all of that rich world that they've created and all of that investment that I'm putting into it, and I don't really quite know who I'm fighting and why.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Yeah, absolutely. The the the plot can come across as incredibly scattershot, particularly towards the second half. The the the wheels come off the plot a bit in the second half for me. Um we'll discuss this a little bit more in the the spoiler cast at the end, but there is a dip in quality about halfway through.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

I don't think there's a dip in quality.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Oh, I do. I do think there's a dip in quality halfway through.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

Oh I well, perhaps maybe you were more c you have more of a conceptual timeline of employee to the main.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

But I think your point stands that it can feel very, very scatter shot, and that and and you don't it's almost like you it's an impossible thing because uh you either have a flow chart that says you these are the storylines, you want to follow them through, play these scenarios in order, but that's really spoilery. Or you just go out like, oh, we'll do this one, this one, that one. Um but if you do that, particularly if you're taking like a month between sessions, you're like, Who am I? What am I doing here? Who do you think?

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Also, the rule book, so when you you get a booklet with it that will tell you what each of the scenarios are, give you a flavour text, tell you how to set up rules, etc. And at the top of it they'll say, in order to do this, you need to have done or have this achievement or done this thing. But you can't link it back to the other scenario, it doesn't say you you've done something.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Which you've got from scenarios because you could go back and read it, couldn't you? Because you could go back and read it, but it doesn't do that.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

So you're like, oh well, okay, I'll do that. Okay, let's just move on.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Who's this bitch? Who that girl? Um yeah. So yeah, I mean, I I I think that's a valid criticism. I think it doesn't take away from the the fun of the core game.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Um the the fun of the core game again is dependent on your character and how much they suit you, I think.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

We were talking about this the other night.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

Yeah, I I think there's such a wide cast of characters with such a wide range of abilities and playstyles that you're going to come up against characters that don't really work for you.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

But sometimes you'll come up against a character that does work for you, and that's yeah, you're off to the races then.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Or alternatively, as I had a character that I didn't really like at all, but by the time that I got to level eight or nine, absolutely came into their own and became one of my heroes.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

I think there's such a wide variety of mechanics as well within scenarios that there's gonna be some that you find fun and some that you don't. I know my major bugbears, these scenarios where you have enemies that you need to kill that teleport around, and movement is not swift in Gloomhaven.

SPEAKER_02 38:23

Well, it depends on your character.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Yeah, but for the most part it's still quite slow. Um, but yeah, I mean that it's it's really hard to rate something like this that has such a wide variety. But on the plus side, there it is such a wide variety that if you like the core mechanics, you're going to have an absolute blast at certain points during the campaign.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Absolutely guaranteed.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

And you can do what we did, which I think was one of mine, where I was like, I'm I'm done, I want rid of his character, and so we kind of just did a random scenario. Random scenario and dungeon just to get through it. Um and and that sort of allowed me to do it really.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so what would you rate it?

SPEAKER_02 39:04

So I think if it hadn't hadn't been for the fact that I completely lost track of plot points, I would have probably given it a 10. Okay, but I didn't, and actually that was quite a massive down for me because it's such an immersive world and I've loved it so much, so it's kind of a victim of its own success rate. So I scored it an 8.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

Fair enough. Yeah, I gave it a 9 just because of the mileage may vary on characters and scenarios. So that gives us an overall rating of 8.7. As always, we round, and that gives us a general rating of 9, which I'm quite glad about because you know there's Hot Take City, and there's also Taking Got one of the greatest games of all time, we're giving you something below that. So I'm glad we haven't ended up in that camp this time. Uh but yes, I I would agree with that score. It's a 9 out of 10 game. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Agreed. Our next rating skill, then, or our next tier of ratings, looks specifically about the two-player nature of it. Um we've got three categories under this, and the first one being table talk.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

And getting to know you.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

And getting to know you.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

I'm not saying evil.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

Delete that, delete that. Not gonna delete that.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

So uh how would you rate it for table talk and getting to know you?

SPEAKER_02 40:18

We are always talking during Gloomhaven.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Yeah, we don't know.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

There is not much that we aren't talking about. It is constant interaction, constantly like working out what we're gonna do, constantly thinking, oh my gosh, this bad guy's gonna like kick off and he's gonna like blow us all up, we need to move out of the way. Um, yeah, lots of interactivity.

unknown 40:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

Which is surprising given we're not allowed to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Not really allowed to talk about it, but yeah, we're constantly chatting about what's happening and what's going on. I think it just it it just happens during the gameplay though, because you're not not sort of planning out what's gonna happen, but you're talking about what's happening and you're commiserating and like, oh my god, and but also explaining your action cards.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

So I'm gonna move four and then I'm gonna do this and 12 and oh my god, I got a miss.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How many more misses are left in there then?

SPEAKER_02 41:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Um, so yeah, I you you're constantly talking. And um in terms of getting to know you, I mean I don't think you have any option if you're trying to bark a campaign with somebody. Hey, do you wanna do you wanna play a three-year-long campaign with me? Yeah, it's the second date. Um I mean it's a it's a marriage-like commitment, isn't it? So, you know.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

But I will say there are some games that have taught me a little bit about how you and about your personality style and how you operate.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

This has probably just confused you more. I mean, yeah, quite possibly. I mean why are you doing that?

SPEAKER_02 41:38

It's nice to also, I think, because you get randomly generated, you get random characters, you kind of have to adapt your playstyle to suit them. And I think it's nice when you play games quite a lot to be pushed into doing something you wouldn't ordinarily do. I'm normally like a ranged spellcaster, that's my bag, that's what works for me.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Yeah, most of this you'd be like damaged, damaged, arranged, damaged.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Running in, smacking things in the face, which is normally not not.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

But usually your bag, and most of mine would be like, oh, you know, thinking and uh support and yeah, I'll doesn't do thinking. Yeah, I don't do thinking very well. Um but yeah, it does, it's a that is a really good point. And if you do play games with somebody a lot and they adapt particular play styles, this also almost forces them out of their comfort zone, so you see how they behave when they don't play in those styles. That's a really good thing I haven't thought about. I mean, on that basis, I'm going to give it a 10. I don't think I could give, I don't know, I could give anything else.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Yeah, um, again, absolutely 10. I I think the only arguing that we ever have, um, so this is about like you know, arguing about rules, it's about well, I want to do that because I want to do my really amazing burner card and blow them all up. No, leave them alone.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

Don't kill the monsters, I want to.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

Yeah, it's drive stuff.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

Yeah, no, it is that kind of stuff, but that's cool though, isn't it? It's it's you're excited about the game and actually doing things and you're engaged to that level. I mean, that's that's fine, that's really positive table talk.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

Yeah, so for me, absolutely 10 out of 10.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

What did you score it?

SPEAKER_00 43:04

10.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

Oh, I missed that.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Um, so our next rating is about, in this case, cooperativeness. How well does it play as a co-op game?

SPEAKER_02 43:13

So, what I'm gonna say is there's absolutely no opportunity for quarterbacking whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

No, there is not.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Because you can't see other people's cards and you've got so you just have to say that.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

And if you play the rules as they are, you have no idea what they're doing, really.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Which means that sometimes you have to be quite adaptive and do things on the fly, but also because initiative varies each round as well, once you can probably guess that if you get a really low initiative, you'll be going first. You know, and again that's not always the case. You have to be really adaptive with the way in which you play.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Yeah, and I think this is one of the odd things for me with this one because it's a bit of a double edged sword. Because I think because of the all of that that we've just mentioned, it kind of prevents the ability to do really cool joined up planning and combos. Um, and it's one of the only things that puzzles me a bit about the game. As to why they didn't let you communicate to the level that you do. Like I understand it thematically, but I think from a gameplay perspective. Perhaps. That's probably an absolutely fair point. But for me and what I enjoy out of co-op games, there's an element of it that is lacking for me, and it's probably the only chink in Gloomhaven's armour for me.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

But I don't still don't think that would make a huge amount of difference because again, so your initiative values range from like what 1 to 100. And I mean, generally if you're going under 10, you're probably gonna go first.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Well, you say that.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

But yeah, you say that, and actually that's not always the case. So even like the best lay plans, I've gone in there with an initiative of like 10, expecting that I'm gonna do X Bish Bash Bosch, and you know what? That just never happens. So I I think and when it does happen and it happens really organically, and we've just got shot after shot, and actually it's worked really, really well, or you've been able to do special things. Um, so for example, one character allows you to do an extra thing of damage or extra move. You know, it's really amazing when that happens because it's almost like unforeseen, I didn't know I could do that, and boom, look at that, I've just knocked him out.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Yeah, I I get that and I agree with you, but I also disagree with you in some scenarios because some scenarios just become really annoying and frustrating because you can't coordinate things. And I don't I I think again it's down to the the character combinations and scenario combinations where you get these combinations where you just it's it just becomes really frustrating because you're you're dealing with a consistently ticking clock and you end up with people with completely wasted moves because you couldn't coordinate.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

And that I don't think that happens all that much though. I think that's the teleportation thing.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

It really winds me up when it does. No, it happens outside of the teleportation thing, and this is a personal thing, it why it it it it knocks down the co-op the the co I don't know what the word is cooperability, cooperativeness, I don't know. One of those words, the cooperative nature of the game, it does negatively impact it for me.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

So on that basis, I'm going to give it my lowest score so far, which is a seven.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

Okay. Um I scored it a ten because I just we differ.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Yeah, we differ. Right. Scalability and FOMO. Do you need more people? Um the the the core of this rating is is this game a game that would be that that allows five players but is actually perfect for two would get a ten, for example. Um this plays one to four. Playing as two players doesn't need more people.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Well, you answer that.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

No.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

No. You can play this entire thing, perhaps, with a strimmed-down scenario length time with two people. I do think it needs four characters.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

Yes, yeah, very much so.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

So if you're not au fay with playing two characters each, you might want to consider third person. I think that this is very much our rating from our experience.

SPEAKER_02 47:11

And rules is written, theoretically, we shouldn't play two.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

We shouldn't be allowed to play with two characters. But playing it with two characters each, absolutely don't miss another person involved at all.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

And you said it yourself the other night. Who who are you gonna find that's gonna commit to weekly gaming that's three hours plus long on a regular basis?

SPEAKER_00 47:33

Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to mainline the main quest, you're still looking at like six months of weekly gaming.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

I mean like who are you going to get to commit to that? If you have somebody like that in your life, congratulations.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

But I don't think I even when I like lived in house shares and stuff, I lived with anywhere for like three years. Would commit to that.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

Yeah. It's it it's an incredibly large commitment, and I imagine it's probably the most unfinished campaign game in history because of that. I mean, I don't know, but I just I mean you could always play it solo, and people could drop in and drop out, so you could always have people some social.

SPEAKER_02 48:03

Well, can people drop in and drop out?

SPEAKER_00 48:05

They can, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

I don't know that I I mean I uh having played a campaign and being really experienced and familiar with Greenhaven, then yeah, sure I would do. So if I went to like a board game night or whatever, that would be fine.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Yeah, a complete newbie.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

But as a newbie, it would be completely overwhelming and intimidating, especially if you picked up like a level eight character.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

It'll be an arrendous experience, nobody would be. It'd be awful.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

You wouldn't know what you were doing, everyone would hate you.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

So yeah. Um so yeah, it I I mean, if you can find other people, I don't think having other people negatively affects it, but it doesn't need them.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

I think that's the key here.

SPEAKER_02 48:39

And would having a third person add anything? Oh, I think probably not.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

Not particularly, no.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Because I think it's not about the strategy necessarily that you bring to the game, it's about people on the map and you know the characters. With different characters and how you play the how you play the characters. So I don't think you know that would add anything particularly.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

No, I I completely agree. I completely agree. I haven't scored at a 10 just because I imagine this is an incredible journey to go on with people. And if you are somehow I'm people with people.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

I'm people.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

I know you're people, but you know No, you're not people.

SPEAKER_02 49:19

Um going on the journey with me!

SPEAKER_00 49:21

I am! But if you went on the journey with like four if if you somehow managed to find four people that committed to this and went on this journey together, that that would be incredible because it'll be a shared experience with a group. Um so I've given it a nine. That's the only reason I've given it a nine, because there is always that that that 1% of people that somehow managed to find that. Which I imagine.

SPEAKER_02 49:43

Would we love to hear some of those people's experiences?

SPEAKER_00 49:45

Yeah, I wonder if there's anybody out there who has actually managed to play through the entirety of Gloomhaven with a static group.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

Yeah. Like and how do they make it work?

SPEAKER_00 49:53

You guys must be unicords. Like, how did you think about it?

SPEAKER_02 49:55

But are there ways of making this like remote and and doing it online and stuff?

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Can you no, not really, I don't think so. I think you just resort to the either ball game arena or the the the ball game, the the the video game version of it, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_02 50:08

Um I scored it a ten because I don't I don't think three people would bring anything at all, and I think actually it's better suited to two people as a result.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

Alright. So despite Hannah's perfect 30 out of 30 rating for this category, uh my my seven has pulled out down a bit, so we've got an overall two-player rating of nine.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

Um go out and buy Gloomhaven.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

Yeah, go go get Gloomhaven if you haven't already. Um I'm quite glad because we haven't found the perfect game yet, but there's a nine out of ten and a nine out of ten, which is I think that's pretty much as close to perfect as the perfect. Um great. So I hope you've enjoyed that. As I said, uh stay tuned after the little musical interlude if you want to hear us talk a little bit more uh about spoilery stuff. So if you have already played the game or you just don't mind getting stuff spoiled for you, we'll have a little bit more after the end of this. But if you're leaving us now, uh thank you very much for listening. Obviously, we've got all of our social media's up, so please follow us on the platform of your choice. Haven't gotten to threads yet. Mean to do that. Not yet.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

We're on threads.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

Yeah, we just haven't done anything with it. Um, but until next time, uh be good to each other, have fun, and play lots of board games. So, this has gone long, so congratulations if you're still with us, and thank you for joining us for this spoilercast version of the the podcast, where we are going to talk a little bit more about the things that you're not allowed to know when you start Gloomhaven and some of the characters, etc. So, should we perhaps kick off by talking about the story and the plot?

SPEAKER_02 51:57

Yeah, but I don't think I remember much of the story and the plot of over what I think.

SPEAKER_00 52:01

I think that's that that that's that's kind of the point, really. I think um the story is quite fractuous and I don't often swear on this podcast, but the ending shut the bed for me.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

Um the ending is an enormous damp squib. You basically get stuck in a room with a boss and nothing else who has a chance.

SPEAKER_02 52:24

He teleports, which as we know is one of his favourite mechanics.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

Um, has a huge number of hit points and you just basically burn them down. There's nothing more to the scenario than that.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Um it just felt very, very phoned in in comparison to everything else. And the actual plot line around the um around the final boss battle is oh, there's huge vortex spears, you go into the vortex, you fight the boss, and everybody's like, oh, you fought the boss, great. Um I think there's something I could tell you a character says, but I won't, and then that just ends.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

I was just like it just for the amount of effort that they put into it, do they not expect people to get there? I I don't know. I just um it it's such a shame, really, because they could have done something quite really cool and epic. I was expecting the last scenario to be this massive thing that used most of the monsters and you know seven map times.

SPEAKER_02 53:16

And maybe you got like extra bonuses when you reached certain point from achievements, perhaps.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

And it was the quickest game of Gloomhaven we ever played.

SPEAKER_02 53:25

Yeah, I know it was.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

I think it was less than an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_02 53:29

I mean, that said, also I do think we had like a decent party combination, and by having played the number of scenarios we did, we kind of knew what we were doing.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Still, yeah, it should have been so much better and so much more epic. Um there was more story cohesion and epic boss battles in the first half of the game, I thought, than there was in the second. Um the second is very much uh oh, you need to choose this pathway and you need to keep unlocking things to get to the end, and that was kind of it, strung together with a very rudimentary story.

SPEAKER_02 53:59

And I just I I I I now you say it like it does it it does make more sense to me. And I remember we agonised over that first choice about whether we followed Jas or Jasper. Jasper? Jas?

SPEAKER_00 54:12

Jasper, Jasper, I can't remember. But it was basically a good and evil binary choice that you can make.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

And we were like, we we put so much stock and emphasis on that, and actually I kind of feel like it didn't really make any difference.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

No, it didn't know the choice didn't really matter in the end of the day. I think it would unlock slightly different scenarios, but that was it.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

Um again, there wasn't enough cohesion through the storytelling to make it matter.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

No, no. So yeah, I do th I do think the plot was a real sort of weakness, particularly towards the second half. The first half was quite well done. And there are elements of the plot, again, when you encounter our old characters and things like that, which are really cool and really well done. And again, the the town records, you get this little book of town records that you unlock more of as you progress through certain gates.

SPEAKER_02 54:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Um, so prosperity level, the number of characters inside. But we didn't finish.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

And I don't feel like I mean, to be fair, towards the end we were like, yeah, we're gonna we're just we're gonna get to the end, we're gonna do the main boss. But I don't feel like we we dithered particular No. No, no we didn't explore the content that was available to us. I do think we kind of give it a fairly fine. Yeah, we did.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

I mean, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 55:23

And there's a lot that we haven't seen, but also that's a really good thing. I think we also did make a decision that we were like, well actually if we replay it, we might replay some of the stuff that we haven't seen.

SPEAKER_00 55:31

Yeah, we've got a slightly different tack, yeah. Um, yeah, I just yeah, they could have put a lot more effort into that side of things, I think, particularly towards the second half. I feel like it started out really strong and then they just kind of lost their way a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 55:44

It doesn't attract from the world, the world is a very, very cool fantasy setting, but I love I love all the different races and characters.

SPEAKER_00 55:53

Yeah, they're they're very unusual and very unique.

SPEAKER_02 55:55

Yeah, really unusual. And on the back of your character cards, you obviously have like a little bit of an explanation as to who they are, and I really enjoy getting to know each of our characters they do in our party. So on that note, kind of who was your favourite then?

SPEAKER_00 56:07

My favourite character that you played. That I played. Um I think it's probably between two. Um I really liked the Night Shroud, which is the one that I complained about in the miniature actually earlier. Um who was very much sort of a rogue y character that worked on a mechanism of going invisible and then doing loads of damage when they came out of invisibility, basically. Um I really enjoyed playing with them. Yeah. I really enjoyed playing with them. I really enjoyed um the character called the Sooth Singer, which I also entered the game with, who was very much a sort of support character, but I quite liked playing that because it was a very different playstyle to the other ones. Um she was all about sort of stunning enemies and crowd control and curses, which is my favourite mechanic. You you chuck curses into the monster attack deck, and if the curses come up, they're a card, and if they come up, then they miss their attack entirely.

SPEAKER_02 56:58

And because the the um modifier deck is shared between all your enemies, it doesn't really matter.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

It's really powerful, and it doesn't detract through the whole entirety of the scenario. So if you shove loads of curses in there, then they weakened the colours. Even the boss that can't be cursed, every enemy's weakened. No, it isn't. You just have to curse other things, and then the bosses also cursed, essentially. Um so yeah, those are probably my two favourites.

SPEAKER_02 57:23

So the first character I picked was I can't remember what her name was.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

The Crystal uh Spellweaver.

SPEAKER_02 57:30

Yeah, the Spellweaver, Orchid.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:33

Um, she was absolutely amazing, but she was not a long time with this world. Like she she ran up cards really quickly and usually ended up expiring before anyone else because she had a really small hand size, but what she did was huge amounts of damage, and I really enjoyed playing with her, she was great fun. And then Beast Tyrant as well, who was this tiny little vermling, which was like a rat like people, but for some reason she had control of this massive bear.

SPEAKER_00 57:58

Have you got two miniatures? You got the bear.

SPEAKER_02 58:01

And this massive bear used to go properly in and used to do huge amounts of damage. Well I used to sit on the entrance going.

SPEAKER_00 58:11

Yeah, just let the bear go. Though she was amazing to play with as well. I mean, the amount of damage that character used to kick out was just insane.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

And tank.

SPEAKER_00 58:17

Yeah, and tank, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

Um, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

Yeah. Um, what I would say I think that frustrated me, and I don't know whether this is a a a a spoiler or not, really, is that when you have your city events and you have your um road events, is there a lot of cards that obviously you rip up because you've done them and they go away and we took them out of the deck. But there are an awful lot of ones that got repeated.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

You do them and you shuffle them back in.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

You shuffle them back in, but I feel like there were so many and there was so much content we didn't get to see because we kept drawing out cards that there were duplicates of them, so it'd be like, shoot some birds, and then either you get poisoned or you get blessed.

SPEAKER_00 58:57

Yeah, and the uh and the the duplicate would have the opposite result. Yeah. So it was really frustrating to do that.

SPEAKER_02 59:01

So either get poisoned or nothing happens, or get blessed and nothing happens, and it got really frustrating to draw those same events.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

Part of that was just luck because they kept, for some reason, off the shuffling, they just kept coming back up, and you're off, you know, you only get so many cracks in it. Um but yeah, I just they they were annoying. I I think it would be way better if all of them were just like, okay, discard them after after use. The the repeated ones were irritating.

SPEAKER_02 59:24

How many characters did we see and how many have we not seen?

SPEAKER_00 59:27

We only didn't see two characters.

SPEAKER_02 59:31

Oh really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

Well, I think again we made a concerted effort to try because. Yeah, you had two games with him.

SPEAKER_02 59:46

Two games with him, and I I loved him.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

Um that was uh the Doom Doomstalker or Doom Strider, I can't remember.

SPEAKER_02 59:52

Doomstalker, who I felt was a bit of a boss killer, which actually really helped in the final scenario. We were quite lucky with that. Um again I engineered him so because I knew where we were going, so I engineered him specifically, or her, specifically them, specifically.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

Which again, I think, speaks to what we said earlier about well, I I knew where we were going, I knew what I needed to do, I clocked on quite quickly, that's what one of the things that he could do, so I just mainlined it, and that was kind of nice to know.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like Alan knew where we were going, didn't you? Um I think honourable mentions Plague Lord, uh, just because they were so cool. There's uh there's a character that's basically uh you fight these enemies called harrowers in the game, and you get a player character that's one of them, and it's basically uh it's like three guys in a trench coat, but instead of three guys it's a bunch of bugs. Um trench coat. And um they had a really unique playstyle. Like I d I I unfortunately lost him quite early on, like just because he his personal quest was really quick and easy to do. Um, and I think he probably would have developed into one of my favourite characters if he had hung around, but I didn't get that much time with him.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:02

Yeah. Sunkeeper was my other one who I thought was rubbish, and she took so long to come into her own. Yeah, but once he got to like seven or eight. She was just a boss, like she was awesome. Um, and I really quite liked playing with her in the end.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:18

Yeah. I mean, there were two starter characters that we never used. We didn't use scoundrel or tinkerer.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:23

Yeah, I would quite like to play with Tinkerer because I feel like actually now I have a again, they felt quite support classy, and I felt like to begin with, I wasn't ready to be. You weren't ready for that. I wasn't ready for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

Yeah. Um I think it's fair to say that the starting six, there's a big power jump between the starting six and the characters you unlock after. Um, whether they suit your playstyle or not, I think there is a the power difference, and there's a real impetus to start unlocking the characters in order to get that that um uh advantage. I think one of the characters that you didn't play, I don't know the name of them because we never opened the box, but the the symbol of three spears, I've heard online that they are one of the most powerful characters, so we probably missed out on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:03

Well, maybe look at it next time. Um But isn't that cool though? It is cool. We get to still have that anticipation for next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

Yeah, there's still things that draw us back to it after the playthrough. And I like I say, I think we characters-wise, we saw a lot.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:18

But again, there's also characters that I'd like to go back that you played that I'd quite like to play. And that as I said in the the main review, there's there's different builds, so taking completely different builds of some of those characters. Beast Tyrant's a great example. You took very much the build that's like the bear's gonna go and like kill everything, but there's another build you can take with it if I remember. Summoning one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:37

Summoning, we didn't talk about summoning.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

Well, it's an unlockable cast, so okay, fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

Summoning in general, there were a couple of characters that allowed for summoning, so you would summon like a a bird or a wolf or whatever. You had one of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

The summoner.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:52

And they were just nasty.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:53

Yeah, terrible.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:54

Because your summons didn't level with you. So they still only had two hit points, and they were all burner cards? Yeah, they so it made you unviable come like level three or four.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

Definitely like bottom of the tier. The definitely the weakest class I played was the summoner. I just uh summoner and mind thief, which is one of the starting classes that I used.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:10

I just ran for a while though, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:12

Yeah, I just couldn't get my head round either of them really. Um again, I don't know if it's a balance issue, if it's a me issue, or it's a build issue, but for whatever reason I just didn't have the same amount of fun with them.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

I also think what sucks about the whole summoning thing is, and again we didn't play this to begin with until we realised, was that your summons move as monsters do, so you don't have control over their movement.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:33

No, you don't, so you can't really control what they're doing to certain extent.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:36

Yeah, not only are they really weak, but they're also and they're not strategic either because you don't control them.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um the only other like spoilery thing I want to to mention is Envelope X.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

Oh. Do you know what though? This was so amazing! When it first happened, I got so excited, so there's like a market.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:01

You'll probably have to explain it first. Very excited. So there's an envelope that you open at a certain point in the game. I can't remember how or why you open it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:08

And there are little mini puzzles throughout the game as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:11

But it's basically almost a code. Um, it's basically sort of like a dictionary, you've got there's all these runes, and it's a dictionary of how to translate them. And that was amazing when it came out, it was really interesting. It's like, oh my god, there's this entire hidden depth here. And there is, I'm not gonna deny that. But where we got to in the game, where I just didn't really see it crop up again.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:32

No, we had like various little scenarios that would give us clues and we translated stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:37

We had And we do have some stuff translated, but it doesn't really I think it's clues as to who the big bad really is in the story, but it doesn't There was no resolution to it. There's no resolution, and I don't know if we just didn't unlock enough content, I don't know if we missed something along the way, but I feel like they could have done that a lot better.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:56

It said something like look to the town records page three or something like that, and I was like, Okay, but but then what No, it just said look to page three.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

You didn't know if that was the town records, you didn't know if that was the rule book, you didn't know if that was the scenario book, it was the whole thing was just a little bit vague.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:10

And from what you've said, from reading on nine, they've kind of fixed that with Gloomhaven because again with Frosthaven. Yeah, with Frosthaven, sorry. But again, it was one of those things that made me feel like this was such an immersive experience, and it just I saw it's like, yeah, make me work for the plot, that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:28

Yeah, but also don't put it up there and then not give me any links or any cohesion to try and pull it back together.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:33

I mean all these bits of paper and all these envelopes And then it just kind of got dropped.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:39

So it didn't come up in the end either. And it was just a bit like, okay, what are you trying it it it lacked the hooks, it needed the way it needed a way to transpose it. If it was stuff that we've already done and needed to be a little bit more explicit to oh, you need to go back to this and look at it again and yeah. Um I was just I I felt like it was a really great idea that was really poorly implemented.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

Okay. Anything else? Anything else you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:05

Based on any of that, we always said that we would have a conversation about spoilers and whether we would adjust any of our scores as a result of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:12

Yeah, fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:13

I mean, would you? I don't know that I would.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

I don't know if I would really.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:17

Um These are like niggles.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:20

Yeah, these are absolute niggles. Um no. I don't think I don't think I would. I don't think I I don't think they I don't think any of this is logical. I think I spoke to the variability of characters in my scores anyway, and the variability of scenarios. By the way, when scenario 72 comes up, don't bother.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:37

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:38

It's the one with the never-ending oozers that just keep proc'ing. We tried it twice and just said never again.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:43

There was another teleporting one that was over a massive map.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:47

That's not a side quest, that's a main quest, but yeah, that's an absolute nightmare. Yeah, there's a demon lord that teleports around. I think we tried it five times, and after that, we just like never again. Um yeah. Um but yeah, I think I've taken all that into account in my original scores. I don't think I'll change any of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

No, absolutely agreed. I still think that it's an absolute brilliant game. Absolutely brilliant. I think it's absolutely meant for two players, and if your your budget stretches that far, then it's definitely worth the investment.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

Yeah, if you peeps can afford 250 pound Kickstarters, I definitely recommend this. If you know it's going to be quality. I mean, Frosthaven's out now. Frosthaven looks like this but more complicated, which I'm a bit on the fence about because I don't know if I need this, but more complicated. Um, probably. Um, but yeah, it's I cannot recommend it enough. It's an incredible game, it's an incredible journey, and I really do want to hear about anybody who has found more than two people to play this with, just how how you how that journey came about. Our experience has been so drawn out and so massive. Like, I how did you achieve that? I'd love to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:50

And also, how did you feel when it ended? Because actually, I felt uh not just because the ending was a bit of a hack and slash, like just stand there and punch him in the face, um, but also there was like a little bit of an emptiness inside of me. This has been part of my life.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:05

Well I said to you, it's like it's like a thing where you f where you finish a very long but very good book. You always feel, or a very long like RPG video game. There was like this weird emptiness, like what do I do now? It's over.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:17

Make a review.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:18

Make a podcast, apparently, is what I did. Right. Well, thank you very much for joining us on this bumper episode. I think this is definitely the longest we've ever gone. Um, really appreciate the the listens and the support, and we will see you next time.