5 Games Like Gloomhaven

all right so you've played through gloomhaven maybe you've even played the rest of the content like forgotten circles jaws of the lion and maybe even some of the community created content and you're thinking how do i replicate this experience what other games are out there that are like gloomhaven well i've gone ahead and i've compiled the list of the top five games that i think are just like bloomhaven we're gonna go through in order of similarity from number five to number one so make sure you stick through to the end and these games are going to give you a very gloom haven like experience and i'm even going to talk about whether they're still available where you can get them and how all that stuff works number five is shadows of brimstone and maybe while you've been watching my other videos you see it on my shelf this game i got many years ago you know even before i got bloomhaven i was looking for something that was sort of like dungeons and dragons but didn't require a dungeon master this is a great game very thematic um the one i have swamps of madness you know is kind of old west themed with like mutations and all kinds of cool stuff there's a really neat town mechanic where you go in between adventures you go into the town and do a bunch of cool stuff maybe not the most balanced of games but still really good really thematic you've got various classes like a preacher and a gunslinger and stuff like that and you can go ahead and level them up choose different variable powers it's got tactical combat like gloomhaven so you know you move around on maps and you use ranged weapons and use melee and some really cool stuff like that it also has a campaign of sorts so it's got different missions um but they're not linked together in an overarching narrative so you've got character progression from you know story mission to story mission let's call them but the stories aren't actually linked it's more like a thematic kind of description that tells you what's happening and then you play it you level up your characters each time you go back to town and then you play another adventure so not all tied together but still a campaign of sorts and also there's another really cool mechanic i love in this game you essentially can go through a gate and then go into like an alternate world where the gear is totally different and i believe better i mean maybe that's objective but anyways lots of cool stuff going on here go ahead check it out it's been out for i think about seven years and it has a bunch of corsets because it's been around for so long and each one has a different theme we've got forbidden fortress we've got swamps of death we've got city of the ancients and more and each of them has you know a different theme and different characters that are a part of that theme and so there's a ton of variability in here so that you know if you're really partial to a particular theme you can go ahead and buy that core set so is shadows of brimstone still available yeah it pretty much is i think there's some sets that are harder to find go ahead check it out it's flying frog productions is who makes it and then you can check out amazon or something along those lines as well i'll leave links down in the description at number four we've got too many bones which is billed as a tactical dice builder rpg it's really cool game it's made by these guys called chip theory games they have a bunch of other games essentially they use really high quality poker chips for you know monsters and for players and in this case they're actually called gear locks is what they're called it's a really cool theme it's kind of hard to explain you know i'm putting a bunch of images up here on the screen so that you can kind of see what it looks like you're going to have these characters and they've got all these really cool abilities and then on the dice like there's all these individual dice that you know these guys create that have different symbols on them corresponding to different abilities and you know sometimes you have to have you know prerequisite abilities where you get a weaker ability and then you have to move along uh kind of like a build path to get the strongest ability there's a ton of variability in how you can build these classes out it's kind of like gloomhaven where each class is going to have a you know a few different build paths super fun the combat is not quite as good as gloomhaven's though it's on this little map and they've they've made some additions to this in in later expansions like undertow where they've added water on the sides however there's not quite as much movement but when you do move it makes a big difference great game i've played it a lot and i have a really fun time with it you know trying out all those builds and trying to figure out you know which character works the best it doesn't have a campaign in the original box it's kind of just you know one-shot missions let's call them but it does have cards like the road and city events in gloomhaven but later on there are expansions which allow you to run a persistent campaign now it's not like gloomhaven it doesn't have an overarching story but what it does is it links you know a bunch of sessions seven of them and you fight you know essentially these guys they're called tyrants they're like the big bosses of each level you play seven in a row and your characters change over time with things called scars and boons really great game go ahead check it out i'm gonna put links down in the description it is still definitely available at number three we've got kingdom death monster this game is insane it's rootless it's thematic it's not suitable for work it's got crazy miniatures you're gonna make potions out of animal parts it is also insanely expensive and it's not for kids but it is absolutely an amazing game um essentially what you're doing is you're trying to build up a society and so there's a really cool um like town type of mechanic where you're building up a society essentially from caveman days into something bigger and you go through a campaign which is 30 lantern years and essentially the goal is just to last to the end this game is absolutely rootless it has perma-death for your classes and you're gonna have to make some really hard choices it is going to completely change how you think about playing a board game it doesn't have a campaign in the sense that gloomhaven does but it has events that are tied to progression and you can make different choices in those events and then it will change how your campaign plays out and it's amazing there is a bunch of nudity and stuff in this game but it's just a great game and in some ways it's unbalanced but it's so ruthlessly hard that it actually has a weird kind of balance in its own way so it can be really swingy in this game sometimes you've gotta sacrifice a guy even though it's permadeath you've gotta sacrifice somebody so that the rest of the people who are on the hunt can go so yeah it's broken down into three phases you hunt you fight a crazy monster and harvest its parts you go back to town and you make separate decisions my second favorite game of all time so worth checking out the combat in this game is amazing you're fighting a big bad monster and they have a huge ai deck where they can do a ton of ruthless stuff they may attack the weakest they may move way further they may attack everybody everyone has a ton of description and it's very different from the others and there's a ton of different effects and if you've ever wanted to have your face ground into the ground by a huge armored boot this is the game for you and also the gear it's so good you've got a gear grid and you're gonna put your gear which you've crafted you know from monster body parts onto this grid and different gear has different colors there's blue green red etc and if you arrange it so that you make colors match you get extra bonuses and it makes your gear even better so there's almost like a bit of a puzzle mini game where you're trying to line up colors on your gear to make it even better love it the problem is it's really hard to get and it is like crazy expensive go ahead and check the store i'm going to put a link down here i have no affiliate to this one um but you know once in a while they just like do like a reprint or something like i think 1.6 was just done and you can go ahead and get a copy basically whenever they feel like putting them up for sale or you're gonna have to go buy a used one at number two we've got descent journeys in the dark this game's been around for a really long time and originally it had an overlord mechanic where you had to have another player play as the overlord and essentially they would have cards to play against you and it would go in phases and then in 2016 they actually created an app that would do all of this for you so what it did is it turned it into more of a gloomhaven like experience for me because the one thing i don't like is having to have a dm it's really tough to find a really good dm who's going to be really consistent and so that's why i gravitate to towards games like gloomhaven where you can just all band up and you know do that cooperative thing and and go after monsters as a team without having to have one person kind of you know be outside that group um it is basically the closest to d d light you know you roll a lot of dice it's got quite a bit more luck than gloomhaven but it does have an overarching campaign and because it's been out for so long there is a ton of content for this game and so you can get a lot of expansions and do a lot of really fun stuff it's got great gear it's got great character progression and you know variable powers overarching campaign it's very similar to gloomhaven in a lot of ways i mean clearly not quite as balanced but still the amount of content and the theme and everything make this a great game really fun go ahead check it out links are down in the description before we get to number one please go ahead hit that like button it really helps me out a lot it helps me grow the channel and hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications so that when i put out new content you're notified and also i've got this video i'm gonna i'm gonna put a link up here go ahead check it out i think you're really gonna like it and then down in the description i've got recommended products for a bunch of different board games and 3d printing and stuff like that go ahead and check it out help support my channel so that i can keep putting out great content all right let's move on to number one at number one we've got an amazing new game and let's call it partially out so it's called arena the contest and the first version let's call it came out a couple years ago and it was essentially half pvp and half campaign cooperative and use the same characters mostly and you would you know play this campaign which had a story and everything so very similar to gloomhaven but it wasn't that long now fairly recently last year to be exact they came out with arena the contest tenaris adventures and this game has an epic campaign now i haven't played it but i have backed it and we should be getting it hopefully in the next few months here but it's got a crazy campaign with a ton of really cool mechanics it's super thematic it's got huge dragons i went all in on my pledge and i got fully painted huge dragon miniatures and everything and it's super tactical um maybe slightly simpler in some ways um this remains to be seen i guess you know to figure out definitively the heroes themselves the powers are a little bit simpler but now in tanaris adventures they've added upgrade paths so that you know your heroes change as you go through the campaign and even there's the possibility of running two separate crews within the campaign so you can switch back and forth there's essentially a main party and a secondary party and the amount of heroes in this game it's just amazing and like the campaign structure every single adventure in the campaign has a different cool mechanic in it it's not just go and kill all enemies and they've worked really hard on making the game streamlined it's based upon a d20 system but there's not nearly as much luck as there is in something like descent journeys in the dark it's far more tactical there's a ton of great decisions i just love everything about this i believe you can still get in on the pledge manager and if not i mean it was a really big kickstarter i would expect there to be another kickstarter in the next year or so or you could maybe go ahead and get a used copy or something like that and that's why it's my number one it's so similar to gloomhaven you know in presentation and campaign legacy choices all this kind of stuff the stuff that i love i love really immersing myself in a board game i need you to tell me if there are any games that i've missed anything that's got a really cool story or is similar to gloomhaven in that it's you know tactical combat with variable powers and unlocking stuff oh yeah i forgot to add tenaris adventures also has a lot of hidden stuff i love hidden stuff it's what really took gloomhaven from a great game to my number one game the most exceptional game i've ever played is that hidden aspect to it and that drives you forward to play more so you can unlock to see the next cool class or item or whatever it may be so go ahead comment down below let me know if there's anything i've missed any games that are similar to gloomhaven and thanks so much for watching the video

Channel: Neural Net Games

Views: 4,025

Rating: 4.9361701 out of 5

Keywords: board games, table top games, SHADOWS OF BRIMSTONE, TOO MANY BONES, KINGDOM DEATH MONSTER, descent journeys in the dark second edition, arena the contest, tanares adventures, arena the contest board game, too many bones review, kickstarter board games, arena the contest how to play, chip theory games, GAMES LIKE GLOOMHAVEN, GAMES LIKE FROSTHAVEN, GAMES LIKE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, too many bones board game, arena the contest kickstarter game, boardgames, gaming

Id: Z7K9XCVf3g4

Length: 15min 13sec (913 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021