Let's Take the Shortcut (Review of Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion)

Gloomhaven is king of the hill over at BoardGameGeek (it's the number one ranked game of ALL the games), but then along comes the little sibling. Will the upstart show up their older relation? Or can they cannot compete with the bigger version? 

For those who don't know anything about Gloomhaven, it was created by Isaac Childres and it is BIG. Twenty-two pounds of miniatures (18-ish), scenarios (100-ish), boards (a bunch) enemy standees (like a zillion), and every token and card imaginable (immeasurable). It's a cooperative campaign-style game with some legacy elements (stickers added and whatnot) taking place in a fantasy world created by Childres. You choose one of the starting characters and level up as you progress through the campaign, making choices that affect what happens to your party and what your character becomes. There's a whole lot more, but you can read about that in my review of the original game here.

in 2020, Childres made some kind of deal with Target to bring a scaled down version of Gloomhaven to the shelves, something that more than just hardcore gamers could get into it. Jaws of the Lion was born and contains around 25 scenarios, 4 characters, but still a buttload of enemies to battle and cards to acquire. How does Gloomhaven: Lite compare with the original? Let's find out together.

Don't Cry over Spilled Milk or Zombies (Zombie Kidz: Evolution Review)

This week my daughter was eager to play just one more game of Zombie Kidz: Evolution so that we could open up the very last envelope. So eager, in fact, that when she opened the box she spilled some of the pieces into her cereal and milk. After a few tears and the wipe down of a few pieces, we were ready to go for our final game of the campaign!

It's not often that I have a game that one my kids begs to play, but that was certainly the case here. From when we opened the game Christmas morning to our final envelope opening on January 8th, we played the game a total of thirty times. But, why? Was the draw for her enough to make it a good game? How did it feel for a parent playing it with her? 

First, an overview of the game. You play cooperatively as a group of kids protecting your school from zombies. On your turn you spawn new zombies, move, and then remove/kill/scare- away/insert -your-age-appropriate-verb-here zombies. Your job in an individual game is to get two kids(you can play up to four players) in a entranceway together and lock the gates. If all four gates are locked, you win. If the pool of zombies is empty (i.e. they're all on the board), you lose. Without spoiling anything, as you play the game multiple times and complete missions, you open secret envelopes (13 in total) that change the rules of the game and add more elements. This, to my knowledge, is the first legacy-style game geared towards kids. How successful was it? Let's find out!