Campaign Games

Gloomhaven is currently ranked #4 on BoardGameGeek, rated 8.53 by over 67,000 players, and widely considered one of the greatest cooperative games ever made. It also sits unplayed in more collections than almost any other game in the hobby. You probably know this because yours is one of them. The box is enormous. The rulebook is 56 pages. There are hundreds of punch-out components. And every time you’ve thought about setting it up, something has come up or something less daunting has gone on the table instead. ...

Most board games have a theme. A few board games are their theme - where the mechanics do not illustrate the story but actually become it, where every design decision from the map layout to the card icons exists in service of a single coherent feeling. Sleeping Gods is one of those rare second cases. This is a game about being lost. Not just strategically lost - not the pleasant puzzle-solving kind of lost you feel in Wingspan or Brass. Genuinely, disorienting, where am I, what am I doing here lost. And the extraordinary thing is that this feeling is not an accident or a side effect. It is the entire design intention, and Ryan Laukat - who designed and illustrated the whole thing, solo - has constructed every mechanical layer to produce exactly that sensation. ...

BGG Rank: #4 | Rating: 8.53 / 10 | Weight: 3.92 / 5 | Players: 1-4 | Play Time: 60-120 min per session Gloomhaven is the board game that broke the internet in 2017, shot to the top of BGG’s all-time rankings, and set a Kickstarter record. It has since slipped to #4 on BGG - beaten by Pandemic Legacy S1, Brass: Birmingham, and Twilight Imperium 4th Ed - but it remains a fixture in every “best games ever made” list. It also costs around £130-180 depending on where you buy it. ...

There’s a moment in Sleeping Gods that hits differently when you’re playing alone. You’ve spent three sessions mapping this strange realm, building relationships with your crew, following a rumour across sea and jungle to a crumbling temple. You push open the encounter book to the right entry. You read a few paragraphs. Something unexpected happens. And there’s no one at the table to react to it with - just you and your journal and the atlas spread open before you. ...

If you’re into solo board gaming, you’ve heard about Arkham Horror: The Card Game. It comes up in every “best solo games” thread. It sits at #33 overall on BGG with an 8.12 rating from nearly 48,000 users. Over 370,000 plays have been logged on the site - an enormous number for a card game that needs no randomised booster packs. But you’ve also probably heard the warnings: it’s expensive to collect, the learning curve is steep, true solo is harder than two-handed. Those are all true. This article doesn’t soft-pedal any of that. ...

The Gloomhaven universe sits at the very top of the modern board game canon. Gloomhaven has held a spot in BGG’s top 5 for years. Its successor Frosthaven became the most-funded board game in Kickstarter history at the time of its campaign. And yet somehow Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion - the smaller sibling - is often the smarter buy. Which one should you actually get? That depends entirely on who you are, who you’re playing with, and how much dungeon-crawling chaos you can actually commit to. ...

A giant alien mothership descends toward your city. Five columns of enemy fighters rain down between you and oblivion. Your only weapons? Five dice and whatever you can build in an underground bunker before the sky literally falls. Under Falling Skies is the rare solo-only game that feels like it was born this way rather than bolted on as an afterthought. Designed by Tomáš Uhlíř and published by Czech Games Edition in 2020, it evolved from a 9-card print-and-play contest winner into a full retail release packed with one of the most impressive campaign modes in solo gaming. And it does it all in a box that fits in your coat pocket. ...