Gloomhaven
A campaign-driven cooperative dungeon crawl with legacy elements.
Gloomhaven is a cooperative board game for one to four players, created by Isaac Childres and released by Cephalofair Games in 2017. It is a campaign-driven dungeon crawl with a branching narrative, 95 scenarios, and 17 character classes. Critics have praised it highly, and it is often called one of the greatest board games ever made.
In gameplay, Gloomhaven is a fantasy tactical skirmish game where players complete combat scenarios that adjust in difficulty based on player count. The campaign uses a legacy system: stickers are placed on the board, cards are modified, and sealed envelopes are opened when certain conditions are met. Though compared to role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, its mechanics resemble modern eurogames. Characters and monsters move on hex tiles representing dungeons. Each turn, players pick two cards from their hand, each with a top and bottom half, then use the top of one and the bottom of the other to perform actions like moving, healing, or attacking. Instead of dice, randomness comes from an "attack modifier deck." As the campaign progresses, characters gain new abilities and improve their modifier decks.
Childres began creating Gloomhaven in 2013, focusing on production in 2015. He cited inspiration from Final Fantasy, Diablo, Willow, Labyrinth, and especially Dungeons & Dragons. The game first sold via a 2015 Kickstarter that raised $386,104 from 4,904 backers. After strong early reviews, a second Kickstarter in April 2017 raised about $4 million from over 40,000 backers, with delivery in November 2017. It then went to retail at a suggested price of $140.
The first expansion, *Forgotten Circles*, released in Q2 2019, adds the Aesther Diviner class, 20 scenarios focused on that class, and new items and monsters, with a story set after the main campaign. *Jaws of the Lion*, a smaller standalone version, launched in July 2020 as a Target exclusive. Designed for casual players, its story takes place before the original game and involves investigating disappearances. It includes 25 scenarios, five of which are a tutorial, and some components are compatible with the base game. A digital edition for Windows released on July 17, 2019, and for macOS on November 25, 2021.
Quick Facts
- Subject Name
- Gloomhaven
- Designer
- Isaac Childres
- Publisher
- Cephalofair Games (2017)
- Illustrator
- Alexandr Elichev · Josh T. McDowell · Alvaro Nebot
- Players
- 1–4
- System
- Legacy
- Playing Time
- 90–115 minutes (per scenario)
- Random Chance
- Moderate
- Skills
- Strategy, tactics, logic
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Gloomhaven is a fantasy-themed, campaign-based tactical skirmish game in which players try to triumph in combat-based scenarios that scale in difficulty depending on the number of players. The game is cooperative and campaign driven, with one to four players working through a branching story consisting of 95 scenarios. The campaign develops in a legacy format, with stickers placed on the board and cards and sealed envelopes opened when certain criteria are met. While it has drawn comparisons to role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons and other dungeon crawl board games, Gloomhaven uses game mechanics similar to modern eurogames. Characters and monsters move about on hex tiles representing dungeons and cellars. Players simultaneously choose two cards to play each turn, each with a top and a bottom half, and choose the top half of one card and the bottom of the other to allow their characters to take actions such as moving, healing, and attacking monsters. Randomization is handled by a deck of cards called the 'attack modifier deck' rather than dice. As the campaign progresses, characters can increase in power, gaining new abilities and improving the cards in their attack modifier decks.
Reader's Guide
Gloomhaven received critical acclaim, culminating in the game reaching the No. 1 spot as the top rated board game on leading website BoardGameGeek in 2017, where it stayed until February 2023. It won six Golden Geek awards from the site, including for the best overall game of 2017, best strategy game, best cooperative game, most innovative game, best solo game, and best thematic game. Gaming website Geek & Sundry described Gloomhaven as 'a masterful design' and suggested 'it belongs in a museum.' Matt Thrower called it one of the best fantasy board games available, while noting that 'Gloomhaven was the critical hit of the year.' Ars Technica praised the game's strategy, action system, gameplay, and solitaire mode. Games Radar awarded the game five stars and dubbed it 'the ultimate tabletop dungeon crawler,' and Board Games Land described the game as 'truly a masterpiece.' The game was also commercially successful, selling approximately 120,000 copies as of August 2018. In a review in Black Gate, Jeff Stehman played the game with his wife and said 'In short, our campaign so far has been a rich experience punctuated by moments of awesome. And many, many decisions.'
Did You Know?
- Gloomhaven was originally funded via a 2015 Kickstarter campaign that raised $386,104 from 4,904 backers.
- The game's first expansion, Gloomhaven: Forgotten Circles, was released in Q2 2019 and includes a new character class and 20 new scenarios.
- A digital edition of Gloomhaven was released for Microsoft Windows on July 17, 2019, and later for macOS on November 25, 2021.
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