We played through about ten sessions before our kids took it over. in the realm of campaign gaming we are more keen on higher emphasis on exploration and story like in games like 7th Continent, Legacy of Dragonholt, Tainted Grail, and we’re big Middara fans. Our kids seem to like Gloomhaven for when they have gaming gatherings with extended family, though they say they don’t intend to play the whole campaign. They are very focused on 5e dnd, and have their own campaigns that they run every week.

In Gloomhaven, the players read a short intro to a chapter of the campaign, and set up a dungeon according to the chapter’s requirements. They then enter the dungeon, cooperatively clearing it room by room of monsters and treasure, and then at the end they can choose one of two branches of the story to continue with (one quite good, the other more evil). Combat is done via a deck of cards, and there are two options of action on each card. In many ways the game is mostly a tactical dungeon combat game. As the characters level up, they can get more cards, and their dice roll deck can change (with better outcomes hopefully!). Players can also switch to other characters (other classes) as they are discovered. We never played with the forteller app, but I hear it’s quite good.

I think the sequel to Gloomhaven (Frosthaven) will be a better experience because it should have a shorter set up time, and perhaps a deeper story. The shorter set up time will be due to Frosthaven adopting the book of dungeon maps concept originally found in Mice & Mystics. We found the amount of time we took to set Gloomhaven up was a deterrent to playing. The organizer we got from Broken Token helped but not enough in that respect.

Good effort for a first game from the creator. I think he was very savvy by going for mass market vendors like Walmart for wider market exposure. He has benefited for sure for being a leader in launching the concept of a campaign game in a box, and is a smart creator and businessman.

Other “campaigns in a box” that are out there or will be released in the coming year or two are: Sword & Sorcery, Hel the Last Saga, Middara, Isofarian Guard, Oathsworn, Tainted Grail, Etherfields, ISS Vanguard (space campaign game), Solomon Kane, Bard’s Tale, 7th Continent, 7th Citadel, Kingdom Death Monster, Bardsung, Shadows of Brimstone, Arydia, the Paths We Dare Tread, Roll Player Adventures, Aeon Trespass Odyssey, Darkest Dungeon, and Secrets of a Lost Station. I’m sure there are others!

i didn’t really like it much. It was rather dull and long and i had to force myself to finish it. I brother hated the game and refuses to play it.
The pieces and board were decent but the game play just felt like a repetitive waste of time. It’s like monopoly but shorter and without properties to buy. I can barely do monopoly let alone this.
If you can borrow it rather that buy it, i recommend. It isn’t worth having it and paying for it though because you will probably only play this one once.

I’ll tell you right away – I’m not impressed with the game. And I’m not going to explain its rules or tell you how to play it. You’ll learn about it in other reviews.

The rules are poorly written. Considering that I’m a wargamer, that means something. I had to look at them to make sure I was playing them correctly. Even after a few games, when I more or less got the hang of it, I still had to do this because of the various exceptions in the rules in certain scenarios. Thematically the game does not shine, it’s the mechanics that pull it out. In many ways Level 7 [Escape] is comparable to Gears of War. The mechanics here are themed and the game is not overloaded with all sorts of tokens. Also, Level 7 [Escape] is similar to Dundeonquest. Flip over a crayon and maybe you die, maybe you don’t. There were games where I had -1 to shields and +2 to intelligence, which means it’s best not to face monsters. But according to the rules, the more players there are, the more monsters activate before your turn, so you can’t say you’re in control. I also tried playing solo with one character, and the game seemed uninteresting and unbalanced. So, in a solo game, it is better to take 2-4 characters.

The game lacks variety. The characters seem to be the same, although the skill cards bring some variety. The monsters also seem the same. And if you move your characters correctly, the monsters will just stand there and do nothing instead of attacking you every turn (like in Space Hulk). So the game lacks tension and turns into a puzzle game.

The complaints about the game come down to this: the theme doesn’t feel good enough, the monsters and heroes look the same, and overall things aren’t very interesting.

It’s hard to win here, you’ll lose often. I’m usually indifferent to “lost to the system” situations, but here it was more of a bad dice roll rather than a loss.

Everything seems too chaotic in this game, and it distracts from the puzzle problem (which is exactly what the developers wanted us to do), and whether I won or lost, it wasn’t interesting.

Another observation is the components. Tiles are a little bent, but you can live with it. The cards are not bad quality. And the game has no miniatures, although I expected to see them. In games of this genre there are often figurines. For example, Gears of War immediately comes to mind. The miniatures make the game more thematic, which is exactly what Level 7 [Escape] lacks. I won’t even try to compare the components of this game to Space Hulk. It’s just heaven and earth.

At the very least I was expecting thematic games like Arkham Horror, where the gameplay and mechanics serve one purpose: to tell a story. The story in this game is contrived, it lacks imagination. The most positive feature of Level 7 [Escape] is the design. But while the illustrations on the tiles, cards, and tokens are very nice, they look a bit monotonous, and the palette is dominated by too dark volumes.

I haven’t definitively decided yet and will play more, but after five scenarios, I rate this game a 5.5 out of 10. I suppose this rating may change a bit, but I don’t expect any surprises.