Gloomies Board Game Review
Gloomies has a really eye-catching production with tons of little wooden pieces that pop when on the table. Ravensburger has been putting out some fantastic games with great table presence, while also keeping the games simple and accessible to all. Gloomies is a card driven game, which I generally really like, but does the gameplay hold up over time? Let’s take a look!
This card driven game is broken down into two phases: the growing phase where you will be playing cards and placing flower tokens down on the board, and the harvesting phase where you will once again play cards but this time you will be harvesting the flowers and placing them in your play area to score points. These are dual use cards in a not-so-dual-sense way, and I think that’s really cool. While most dual-use cards are partitioned to show different uses, these cards are just the same, just function differently depending on the phase.
During the growing phase, players will be playing up to three cards and placing flower tokens into columns, playing the matching card for the matching flower. The harvest phase will be triggered once all the columns reach a certain level, but with lots of columns to choose from, early on you’ll basically have free reign to play your cards. As the columns fill up, though, you might find it more difficult to find the correct match.
What’s really interesting here is that once you play these cards to plant some flowers, you’ll actually move those cards over to your play area and place them for scoring later. When you place in a row, there are also bonuses you can unlock as well, which can get you helpers (play more cards), straight points, or additional special cards.
When you enter the harvest phase, you create your own draw deck using the cards you played into your play area. You will draw cards from your deck and do (essentially) the same thing as before, except this time you collect flowers as you play cards instead of placing them. As you take flowers and bonuses (again) you will also get to place them on your player board or order cards (special cards you could earn) to earn end game points. It’s a really smart system that I think works really well.
The production here is fantastic as well. The central board is really nice, and while I have some reservations on how it will stand up long term, for now it’s perfectly fine after about a half dozen plays. The wooden token pieces are a nice touch, although I find that Ravensburger continues to produce really nice looking games, and rarely cuts corners to save a few dollars.
The game itself is quite fun, and I love the idea of placing and then removing flowers from the board. You’ll attempt to stack your deck with specific cards based on what you see so that when the time comes to score points, you are getting the flowers you need. The bonus tokens are pretty important, and while I find that the order cards you can get are the best bonus to receive, they all seem to serve a purpose and I never found any of that game breaking.
I also enjoy how accessible this is. With no writing on the cards, you can play this with younger players assuming they can grasp the concepts at play. Kids from board game families might pick this up really quickly, although I could see the strategy lost on kids less familiar with playing board games.
Overall, it’s a quite impressive experience. I think it’s doing some unique things here without over-complicating the entire process. You are basically doing the exact same sequence of actions two times; the way the game plays is pretty innovative I think, but the simplicity is what really draws me into this experience. It is an easy game to teach, and a fairly easy game to play, even if there is some strategic thinking required.
Article By Adam Roffel
