I'm obviously a huge Gloomhaven fan but always looking for more stuff to check out. Mage Knight has been on my list for a while... I'll eventually get to it. :) I hadn't actually checked out Dungeon Alliance yet. I'll have to put it on my to-do list. Thank you for that!
Gloomhaven shines as a 3 player game, though. The politics of greed, and the last minute gelling together of self-interested mercenaries with secret battle goals that ensure no one acts all too altruistically whereby the adventurers stop skirting the edge of disaaster and come together as a single team to annihilate the opposition, cannot be overstated just how wonderful it comes together. Gloomhaven makes you feel like a mercenary. You have your secret campaign goals to unlock new characters, nobody is allowed to share gold, nobody can discuss exactly what they're going to do, and everybody wants those battle goal perk points. Gloomhaven successfully made a co-op game feel like a 'co-operative' experience with bickering anti-heroes in a dark, depressing, fatalistic legacy world. Mage Knight is definitively great solo, and good as a competitive game ... co-operatively it falls apart a bit. Way too glacial. Gloomhaven is much easier to learn however. And the rule book feels like it actually had an editor. Mage Knight feels like you're studying a legal codex. There's bylaws, clauses, and more. Gloomhaven I ave successfully taught to a new player in my group in a single scenario. The Gloomhaven rule index on the back is amazing. Takes seconds to get a rule clarification, and all of it is intuitive. Everybody should read Gloomhaven's rulebook if they're interested in game design.
yep, honestly mage knight and gloomhaven are completely different genres. comparing them is apples and oranges. the only thing they have in common is tolkien themes.
Thanks, Mitch, Very interesting as I own Mage Knight and your comparison criteria helped me understand what I am looking at in Dungeon Alliance. Cheers and good gaming.
I'm interested into solo dungeon RPGs, but rather than buying these I'm slowly making one huge. Gloomhaven seems to catch the atmosphere for me, but imo it has major flaws too. 1. Square or hexagon, both enforce certain structure - my D&D maps are made out of circle tokens, movement through connection points. You can make your own maps, you can follow any angle or number of movement options up to six. 2. Literally no randomness should take place, because every scenario should have a solution to it, which can be written down, with goal of completing it in as few moves as possible, so you adjust pre-fight preparation time to the strength of enemies and always end up winning on the edge of death. 3. All these games take too much time, in my case it's easy to go through, brain-eater is to write down an unbeatable record and it's on players how seriously they take it. You can use as many expansions as you want, adding the depth to the game, but you must write it on first line of your solution. Once someone finds solution they think can be the fastest, they write number of moves into the scenario, so for other players that's a challenge to find it, or beat it. 4. In my version, since it's D&D, scenario only limits you in how many heroes you use. Their avatar+name tokens, their backstory, investment in their stats and abilities are up to your adjustment, according to obstacles they're about to face. You can make cooperating machine, or prepare for split of the party etc. 5. You can play one scenario, or connect more of them into campaign. If campaign-maker doesn't like that player must write down moves, he has to do more work: training and healing paid in moves should be disallowed and campaign-creator must find out how strong enemies should be, which materials should only be available etc. to ideally leave only one option how to prepare for critical obstacles, leaving space for mistakes between them. So my game allows you to make campaign where challenge is to just make it through - how games usually are set up - but I argue that's in fact the ultimate major flaw in games, it kills joy to create your own campaigns, makes it too hard, so you rather end up buying new games instead. For solo it is much better to be able to create quickly your own campaigns and play them without knowledge what the solution is, even though you made them. D&D with plenty of combinations, no Randomness and no need for Dungeon Master. Because great game is not just about taking player to whole new world. It is about set of rules and components by which worlds are not only lived through, but easily created by players themselves.
That was a great comparison - thanks! I have played a lot of Gloomhaven with my gf (and she loves it too). I own Mage Knight (for about 3 weeks now), but haven't played it yet. This is the first time I have heard of Dungeon Alliance - looks interesting! I don't think you can go wrong with any of these three.
Euro style dungeon/adventure games are my niche too! I'd also really recommend City of Kings and Perdition's Mouth as games in the same category. Have you found any others since you made this video?
Wonderful video and thank you for the content! I love Mage Knight but passed on Gloomhaven for solo as I found it too brain burny controlling multiple characters… but Dungeon Alliance is of interest. Cheers!
All these big adventure games always have the same downside: long setup with a million pieces. Too Many Bones is another great example. Excellent game with wonderful mechanics and design, but it's got a long playtime and setup takes like 50 years. Not to mention it's one of those with a Godzilla-sized box that weighs like 5 tons when everything is in it. Adventure games in general just cant seem to avoid those issues at all. Anyway, good video, I'll check out DA then, I think. "Mage Knight in a dungeon" is really all that I even needed to hear for it to grab my interest.
I dont know if there's an English release, but if you want to play a more casual dungeon crawler check out the legends of Andor (the original one is on German), there is a ground game and a tale two sold as an expansion pack, also there is an other expansion that's called dark heros and theres the chapter 3 which is a separate game. I played it all trough with and know im playing gloomhaven for about a year and a half, looking forward to get the expansions of forgotten circles and the solo scenarios, didn't hear about the other two games you are comparing.
You should check out Runebound too, its like a mage knight lite, though I strongly recommend Unbreakable Bonds expansion since it adds so much in regards to coop and automated AI. Its sadly out of print now and discontinued, so expect to pay too much for it.
Nice video mate, just a bit too long. While I have and love all three of these games, not even I have the time to watch 54 minutes :-/ (you still get my like)
Thanks. I understand. In this case, I was mainly thinking about myself, before I bought the games and was imagining I could only buy one, but which one :o For general viewers, I thought at least I'd include a blurb for TLDW (Too Long Didn't Watch), so they could get the main point quickly. But I definitely get your point and in general I prefer shorter videos.
Mage Knight is amazing. One of my favorite solo games.
thank you for taking the time to compile the differences, this was very useful!
Glad it's useful
I'm obviously a huge Gloomhaven fan but always looking for more stuff to check out. Mage Knight has been on my list for a while... I'll eventually get to it. :) I hadn't actually checked out Dungeon Alliance yet. I'll have to put it on my to-do list. Thank you for that!
That's one of the main reasons I did the video. You don't hear much about it, but many people, including me, think it's great.
@@lightrangergames9354 Just tried it out on Tuesday, we'll have to play more. Thanks!
Loved the video!!! Thanks for turning me on to Dungeon Alliance. I will check it out!
Have fun!
Gloomhaven shines as a 3 player game, though.
The politics of greed, and the last minute gelling together of self-interested mercenaries with secret battle goals that ensure no one acts all too altruistically whereby the adventurers stop skirting the edge of disaaster and come together as a single team to annihilate the opposition, cannot be overstated just how wonderful it comes together.
Gloomhaven makes you feel like a mercenary. You have your secret campaign goals to unlock new characters, nobody is allowed to share gold, nobody can discuss exactly what they're going to do, and everybody wants those battle goal perk points. Gloomhaven successfully made a co-op game feel like a 'co-operative' experience with bickering anti-heroes in a dark, depressing, fatalistic legacy world.
Mage Knight is definitively great solo, and good as a competitive game ... co-operatively it falls apart a bit. Way too glacial.
Gloomhaven is much easier to learn however. And the rule book feels like it actually had an editor. Mage Knight feels like you're studying a legal codex.
There's bylaws, clauses, and more. Gloomhaven I ave successfully taught to a new player in my group in a single scenario. The Gloomhaven rule index on the back is amazing. Takes seconds to get a rule clarification, and all of it is intuitive. Everybody should read Gloomhaven's rulebook if they're interested in game design.
yep, honestly mage knight and gloomhaven are completely different genres. comparing them is apples and oranges. the only thing they have in common is tolkien themes.
Thanks, Mitch,
Very interesting as I own Mage Knight and your comparison criteria helped me understand what I am looking at in Dungeon Alliance.
Cheers and good gaming.
same here!
I'm interested into solo dungeon RPGs, but rather than buying these I'm slowly making one huge. Gloomhaven seems to catch the atmosphere for me, but imo it has major flaws too.
1. Square or hexagon, both enforce certain structure - my D&D maps are made out of circle tokens, movement through connection points. You can make your own maps, you can follow any angle or number of movement options up to six.
2. Literally no randomness should take place, because every scenario should have a solution to it, which can be written down, with goal of completing it in as few moves as possible, so you adjust pre-fight preparation time to the strength of enemies and always end up winning on the edge of death.
3. All these games take too much time, in my case it's easy to go through, brain-eater is to write down an unbeatable record and it's on players how seriously they take it. You can use as many expansions as you want, adding the depth to the game, but you must write it on first line of your solution. Once someone finds solution they think can be the fastest, they write number of moves into the scenario, so for other players that's a challenge to find it, or beat it.
4. In my version, since it's D&D, scenario only limits you in how many heroes you use. Their avatar+name tokens, their backstory, investment in their stats and abilities are up to your adjustment, according to obstacles they're about to face. You can make cooperating machine, or prepare for split of the party etc.
5. You can play one scenario, or connect more of them into campaign. If campaign-maker doesn't like that player must write down moves, he has to do more work: training and healing paid in moves should be disallowed and campaign-creator must find out how strong enemies should be, which materials should only be available etc. to ideally leave only one option how to prepare for critical obstacles, leaving space for mistakes between them. So my game allows you to make campaign where challenge is to just make it through - how games usually are set up - but I argue that's in fact the ultimate major flaw in games, it kills joy to create your own campaigns, makes it too hard, so you rather end up buying new games instead. For solo it is much better to be able to create quickly your own campaigns and play them without knowledge what the solution is, even though you made them. D&D with plenty of combinations, no Randomness and no need for Dungeon Master.
Because great game is not just about taking player to whole new world. It is about set of rules and components by which worlds are not only lived through, but easily created by players themselves.
Dungeon Maker Deluxe is also a euro-style game on the dungeon-crawler theme. Definitely very puzzly and euro.
That was a great comparison - thanks! I have played a lot of Gloomhaven with my gf (and she loves it too). I own Mage Knight (for about 3 weeks now), but haven't played it yet. This is the first time I have heard of Dungeon Alliance - looks interesting! I don't think you can go wrong with any of these three.
I think they're all great games for when you want a deep puzzle it out experience, especially if you have a couple of hours to play.
Euro style dungeon/adventure games are my niche too! I'd also really recommend City of Kings and Perdition's Mouth as games in the same category. Have you found any others since you made this video?
Nice comparison of 3 games I love.
Too beige is absolutely a valid critique. If your food looks gross is absolutely impacts desire to eat. Not really different with games
Excellent overview of these 3 games, it was very helpful. Thanx alot !
Glad you enjoyed it!
Wonderful video and thank you for the content! I love Mage Knight but passed on Gloomhaven for solo as I found it too brain burny controlling multiple characters… but Dungeon Alliance is of interest. Cheers!
All these big adventure games always have the same downside: long setup with a million pieces. Too Many Bones is another great example. Excellent game with wonderful mechanics and design, but it's got a long playtime and setup takes like 50 years. Not to mention it's one of those with a Godzilla-sized box that weighs like 5 tons when everything is in it. Adventure games in general just cant seem to avoid those issues at all. Anyway, good video, I'll check out DA then, I think. "Mage Knight in a dungeon" is really all that I even needed to hear for it to grab my interest.
Agreed. DA is the best that I've found so far, about getting it to the table, of the Euro styles.
YOU ARE AWESOME! ❤❤❤
You should get the campions expansion and adventure packs for da. Makes it way better than it already is
I've heard it's really good. Thanks.
I dont know if there's an English release, but if you want to play a more casual dungeon crawler check out the legends of Andor (the original one is on German), there is a ground game and a tale two sold as an expansion pack, also there is an other expansion that's called dark heros and theres the chapter 3 which is a separate game. I played it all trough with and know im playing gloomhaven for about a year and a half, looking forward to get the expansions of forgotten circles and the solo scenarios, didn't hear about the other two games you are comparing.
Thanks for sharing. I'll have to check out legends of Andor.
Cool review man I have mage knight ultimate edition and gloomhaven jaws of the Lion
Cool :)
You should check out Runebound too, its like a mage knight lite, though I strongly recommend Unbreakable Bonds expansion since it adds so much in regards to coop and automated AI. Its sadly out of print now and discontinued, so expect to pay too much for it.
Thumbs Up on Runebound. 2nd Ed. is best. Like BattleLore 1st is superior to 2nd Ed. Battlelore. Dunnoi why they always change for the worse.
Thank you so much! So much helpfull!
Glad it was helpful!
I rather Dungeon Alliance in comparison with the other two
Nice video mate, just a bit too long. While I have and love all three of these games, not even I have the time to watch 54 minutes :-/ (you still get my like)
Thanks. I understand. In this case, I was mainly thinking about myself, before I bought the games and was imagining I could only buy one, but which one :o For general viewers, I thought at least I'd include a blurb for TLDW (Too Long Didn't Watch), so they could get the main point quickly. But I definitely get your point and in general I prefer shorter videos.