Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs

This one lives in my bag now, next to the granola bars and the second phone charger. Solo, twenty minutes a scenario, resets in under a minute when you lose, which on a night with call bells going off every ten I need more than I need depth. My downtime clock loves this thing. Set it down, pick it back up, no memory required.

It really does feel like Gloomhaven, just tighter, meaner. The four-card A to B hand is the best change they made, rewards planning your turn in a way the big game almost doesn’t bother with. Losing an ability card stings worse here too, since you lose both the A and the B side at once, so what looks like giving up one card is really giving up two, and that math catches people off guard a few scenarios in.

No rulebook in the box. None. You get a learn-to-play leaflet and a QR code, and that decision made a chunk of the reviews I read genuinely angry, understandably, since half the point of a travel game is not needing a signal. I didn’t mind it as much, the Dized app walks you through it well enough, but I get why people call it insulting for a boxed retail product.

The health dials are the real sore spot, blue and green look nearly the same in bad light, which on a plane tray or a hospital cafeteria table is exactly when you’re using this thing. Cards warp out of the box for a lot of people, mine included, sleeves fix it. Some want a two player variant that doesn’t officially exist yet, and more than one review mentioned building their own 3D printed insert because the stock box wastes the space. The minis are stupid tiny, one reviewer joked they’re small enough to inhale. My debrief instinct says the swinginess is the actual design flaw, not the missing rulebook everyone’s mad about, the die roll can just end your run on turn one before you’ve made a real decision. Still keeps a permanent spot in the go-bag.