Thanks man (and your posts have been excellent lately). I am not super familiar with the world of tabletop gaming but I chuckled at the EA comparison. The bonus content for online users is irksome, but local hotseat is definitely awesome and would make it worth it if they include it. Without the circumstances of all the DRM/online stuff these days, this one borders on a must-have but I guess until we can confirm that it's a wait and see.

"Lately"? I resemble that remark!

EA of board gaming is apt for Asmodee. They went on a huge spending spree buying out tons of designers and publishers, and gutted them. They own tons of properties that are out-of-print because they aren't in the top 10% most profitable of games in their portfolio. They release new print runs of highly desired games just to announce a new edition just a couple months later. They do new editions of games intentionally not to have backwards compatibility with the previous edition, and then do expansions that then will work only with the new edition and not the old. They'll take heads of studios and shuffle them around, and then wonder why studios die out. And if you won't sell your company? They'll just buy up the *distributor* that you use and force you to sell. Oh, and they changed their piece replacement policy for if you have a missing or broken piece: They just don't do it anymore. Return the ENTIRE product to the store you got it and exchange it for a complete replacement. Et cetera!

Asmodee Digital is "the big name" in board game digital adaptations. They license out their dev teams to work on other people's things (Gloomhaven isn't an Asmodee product, but since it's [GH] such a big one, they [AD] were licensed out for the digital adaptation since they're [AD] the big name in the biz.) They're not the only one, fortunately.

EDIT: Clarify antecedents.

I'm still blown away that this game is coming to GOG! Between this and the return of Blade of Darkness... some good gaming

Imagine there are people who arent comfortable supporting a company like that :(.

GH looks interesting regardless.
Thank you very much for the info :)

Thanks for all the info. Also worth nothing the issue in Scythe with frequent (5x per game last time I tried) popups to create an account even in single player mode. Unfortunately even for those of us who have older versions they fixed an annoying bug in the same version they added the popups. That is a different developer, although I would be very surprised if it was the developer and not Asmodee pushing the popups. I'm adding Asmodee to my avoid list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86-CyHYv5Sg

Agreed. I would be interested in Gloomhaven, but the Asmodee popups in Scythe have annoyed me enough that I will avoid Asmodee products until the popups are removed.

Haha. Ah, I do recall reading about that replacement policy.
And, this has gone from a wait-and-see to bordering on an insta-lost sale if that "feature" is included in Gloomhaven. We need to not be harassed for wanting to own products we buy and play them without being watched over our shoulder by these greedy nannies.

i would DEFINITELY watch video for this particular game.

[and particularly the video game implementation.]

it's a cool board game that is VERY difficult [and there's often a lot going on in combat scenarios] - so it's not a game you just play because it's light and easygoing.

if you like that style of thing, then i'm pretty sure you'd LOVE gloomhaven.

[i don't mean this as a slight on you or the game, by the by. complex is great in the current climate of games that hand-hold and it's cool to see people interested in that kind of thing.]

Thank you for your feedback and no slight at all taken. I have heard this game is very intensive mentally so maybe not the right pick for me at this time anyway (regardless of the other business practices). The appeal for me in a game like this would be more the atmospheric dungeon exploration versus the more puzzle-y/thinking elements.

fair enough.

if you haven't played them, some of the very old blobbers have good atmosphere.

the "modern takes" on eye of the beholder like vaporum and legend of grimrock might be worth exploring.

those are all first person.

i can think of a handful of isometric games that might fit the bill [titan quest has some dungeons, for example and book of demons is an interesting twist on the diablo formula that takes place in a single MASSIVE dungeon], but most of those games are hit and miss when it comes to actual atmosphere.

but i can't really think of any very good third person dungeon crawlers, i'm afraid. typically when the camera gets zoomed out like that, the developer tends toward more overland/open world rpg development and that might not be what you're after.

Agreed, I appreciate the recs and basically have much of those already :) Though from what I read, the newer Vaporum seems more "puzzle-based" than I'd prefer, so perhaps that too is an indication of where I'd stand with Gloomhaven.

As far as I'm concerned, digital board game adaptions are always welcome.
This and Concordia (https://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_concordia_digital_edition_552bc) are two great new additions to the GOG catalogue.

Gloomhaven is more game than puzzle. Some tabletop super-optimizers (who played at intentionally elevated difficulties) liken it to a puzzle, but I never felt that way while playing it. (And I am one who *hates* puzzles in my games.) Gloomhaven did have a couple "puzzle" elements in the meta-plot for unlocking some stuff, but we just looked that up. Not a clue how or if the digital adaptation will be handling that.

Note, however, the tabletop game's expansion, Forgotten Circles, is near-universally panned for being terrible scenarios, most of which are puzzles (and most of which don't give proper feedback or guidance toward solution even for those who like puzzles.) I don't believe this includes or is currently set to include the Forgotten Circles content, though.

To answer the question:
* Games have good, meaningful choices and you can get to the result (winning the scenario) in a wide variety of ways with creativity.
* Puzzles are rather constrained in your routes from start to finish and there tends to be a "perfect choice" at any junction.