Greetings my fellow mercenaries,

It has been a couple of months since we last spoke and a lot has been happening since then. We've been forming new features, refining content, slaying bugs that sneak their way into the game, and upgrading everything we can in the world that we are building. We've also had many screenshots and content about the game finding their way onto the internet through our Discord Server and Facebook Group!

If you're wanting to keep up to date on everything Gloomhaven, chat with developers, or just chat with like-minded fans, come join us on these channels!




Today I come before you humbly in order to discuss a topic that has been all-consuming in the minds of many—information about the release date of Gloomhaven. As much as I want to come in here and declare a launch date, we're not quite there yet and do not feel comfortable committing to a specific date right at this moment. While we will unfortunately be missing our projected Q1 launch date by a small margin. To quote Shigeru Miyamoto: "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."

For all of us developing and working on Gloomhaven—and especially for you, our fans—we want to make sure that you know we cannot commit to a date without being absolutely confident that the game we will deliver to you will be truly worthy of your passion and dedication! Even if the game will be launching in Early Access and won't be the final product, we want to be sure that the content and experience you have will go beyond your expectations.


As we know that this is not the news that you want to hear, let’s talk about

We're excited to announce today that we are going to be implementing a highly requested feature that you as the community have made us well-aware that you want to see: ONLINE COOPERATIVE PLAY

While this mode is still heavily in development, we want to share some of our plans today so that you can know what awaits you within the dark world of cooperative play!

REMEMBER that all of this content is still under heavy development and subject to change. We will continue to offer more information and clarification as development continues.

By the grace of Gloomhaven, this is awesome! What modes is this available in?
You will be able to play in both the Adventure and Campaign mode cooperatively with up to three friends, depending on the size of your group of mercenaries.

HELP! I feel I'll need a Tinkerer to figure out how to work this thing!
Not to worry, we're designing this system so that even an Inox can work it out! Game modes are not split into a selection of cooperative or single player; instead you can simply invite people to your game to play with you in any mode. Hosts can assign character(s) to whoever joins their game.

A member of our group cannot join us... WE'RE DOOMED TO THE GAMELESS VOID!!!
Not to worry! Saves and game modes are not split between solo and cooperative play, nor are they constrained to specific members participating. Simply load up a game you were previously playing with others to continue it solo or to invite less, new, or completely different players to it. But be sure to keep your save for later if you're wanting to keep playing from that point with specific people!

Hey, they stole my turn! Wait... how do turns work in cooperative play?
Each turn consists of the same phases as in a normal game, but it is simply broken down in a fashion to allow for multiple players. Each turn starts with your card selection phase where each player selects their cards or Short/Long Rest. The combat phase will play for each character as per normal, with each player taking control when it's their turn to move or make a choice.

So many choices, so little time. Hang on...who's making them anyway?
The host has control over choices and decisions that affect the whole party. We are looking into ways we can make this more of a "party choice", or to allow members to offer suggestions on choices. Choices pertaining to a specific character will of course made by the controlling player.

Well, keep going...I MUST KNOW MORE!
Cooperative play is an ongoing development for us right now. We'll reveal more information as we can, but we're not ready to talk more about it at this time. We hope you've enjoyed reading about this new experience that we are planning to implement and look forward to you having fun playing Gloomhaven on your computer with friends!


We appreciate all the support and commitment to Gloomhaven that everyone has shown so far! The team is giving its all to deliver the best game they can, so please bear with us a little longer. The light at the end of this deep, dark dungeon is growing ever brighter!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/780290/Gloomhaven/

Hello to all of our fellow denizens of Gloomhaven!

So much has been happening over the past months, we dove deep into the development of Gloomhaven and spoke with the developers through Q&As and even a "Making of" video—we are looking to create an episode two in the near future due to interest in the previous one!

Amongst all of this content we've also released information on both our Facebook Group and Discord Server that have caught the attention of the community; more specifically, character reveals! We're excited to talk with you today about the four characters that will be released with the Early Access Roguelike mode.






The Cragheart is the one that throws rocks and makes explosions! But it is so much more than that in Gloomhaven.

The Cragheart is one of the most versatile classes in the entirety of Gloomhaven and can play a variety of playstyles—a frontline tank, utility through heals and crowd control, or even an AoE damage dealer. Take advantage of the Cragheart's flexibility to complement basically any team, but watch out for its AoE skills which are capable of dealing friendly fire damage!

As such a versatile class, capable of so many ways to play, it is perfect for players of any skill level.






The Spellweaver is the most well-rounded mage in the game, but at the same time the most complicated of the starting characters. Like the Cragheart, she is very versatile, able to be played as a ranged glass cannon, a support/utility character, or even a mix. She has a low health pool, meaning you always want to keep her far from the fight, but has some key abilities to help with this. She is capable of preventing damage, healing and even summoning minions.

As a high damage character with lots of cool single target and AoE abilities, as well as the capability to heal and support, she works well in any group to round out the team.






The Brute is your team's powerhouse. He is a straightforward character that makes him easy to understand and enjoy for any new player. He has a high health pool and massive single target damage which, at later levels, can pierce through armor! This makes him capable of hitting hard, but also have the ability to take heavy hits in return.

With all of these traits added together, they make him an optimal starting character that can be used for taking down even the tankiest of opponents.






The Scoundrel is a guerrilla-style assassin—she gets in range to deal as much damage as possible, then gets out just as quick with stealth abilities. She has super-high damage, but sacrifices defence and utility. She is capable of hitting multiple targets with some of her skills, applying poison to her foes, and assassinating vulnerable targets.

She is straightforward and excels at what she does, making her a solid damage dealing choice for your party. Her looting abilities are also unparalleled, capable of grabbing up gear and gold like no other.



We still have so many things left to reveal (without spoilers 😉) for this amazingly complex and beautiful world that was originally created by Isaac Childres. Even from the starting six characters, we still have the Mindthief and Tinkerer to show off.

We will continue to share as much information as we can with you, without making any spoilers. So be sure to follow our social channels below to stay up to date!






https://store.steampowered.com/app/780290/Gloomhaven/

The developers of Gloomhaven over at Flaming Fowl Studios took some time last week to sit down with our community on Discord to hold a Q&A about the game and it's RogueLike mode, better known as Adventure Mode.

Sit back and enjoy! If you listen in, you might even learn how to put your name forward to be a part of the beta test! ;)



Come join us on our social channels via the links below to be a part of future events, as well as get the most recent news, updates and sneak peeks of everything Gloomhaven!








https://store.steampowered.com/app/780290/Gloomhaven/

Greetings my beloved denizens of Gloomhaven!

For the past ten months we have been working on a very exciting title: Gloomhaven. What usually happens when you spend that kind of time working on a game, is that you end up wanting to talk about it. Our friends, families and pets ultimately begged us to stop chewing their ears off about it every second of the day, so I will talk about it here on this blog from now on.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/780290/Gloomhaven/


To get you started, we just released our first “Making of” video: The Dungeon Crawl. This episode focuses on Gloomhaven’s conception as a video game. So, strap yourself in, watch the video and then keep on reading to learn more!



Let me take you back to a time, when dreams resided in the hands of those who would reach out and grab th—I guess this might be why my friends and family hate me talking to them… It all started with Isaac Childres. In 2017, this epic man came up with a huge legacy board game—the kind no one had ever seen—and built his own Kickstarter success story. If you are new to board games, “Legacy” means that the game is supposed to be discovered and played only once. When it comes to Gloomhaven, once means hundreds of hours crawling through 90+ dungeons and a huge story.

However, I think it is something else that makes the game so unique and successful. To keep you entertained for all that time, the game offers a massive amount of gameplay mechanics and tactical depth: the kind of scale you would usually only find in video games, Isaac put it on the table then polished it with love, cardboard and numbers. It felt only natural to us that Gloomhaven needed a video game adaptation. I like to think that it was a video game in the first place, but Isaac only had pencils and papers at his disposal at that time.



We’ve managed to change that. A few phone calls later, I was on board with ex-Lionhead members’ new studio: Flaming Fowl. I was nervous at first, these guys worked on the Fable games which I played when I was a teenager and had enough beard creativity to humble me instantly. Isaac has been involved with us since the very beginning as well of course, sharing advice and opinions along the way. If you ever read this Isaac: thank you.

Today we are ten months into the production and I can start to reflect upon the work that has been done, which is far more comforting than looking towards all the work left to be done. Our first challenge was to respect the source material and give it justice while working with very limited information about the world and the characters populating it. We needed to deliver, for the fans to recognize their favorite heroes, just like a movie adaptation but without all the context and personality a movie provides. We had visuals and illustrations made for 2D board game tokens, we had color palettes from dungeons tiles; the rest came down to our imagination, which was kept in check by Isaac’s comments.

Our talented artists came up with a very cool style: a 3D game to provide a good tactical isometric view of the hex-based levels and hand painted textures to give the game a unique, comics-ish look. It allowed us to stay close to the source material while expanding on the universe and giving it flesh. Isaac’s world is incredibly unique, which is admittedly pretty hard to come by these days in high fantasy. There are no goblins and no elves here! The best part was that the board game only started to cover all of it. Races, cultures, religions, spells… so many concepts and ideas only mentioned in the board game for the artists and designers to elaborate upon.



With a pretty solid creative process in place, the team was able to move onto what would prove to be the game’s most challenging and most interesting part: combat. Gloomhaven has 16 playable characters, each character has around 30 abilities, each ability is comprised of 2 distinct and unique powers. Add the enemies in the mix, and you have more than a thousand abilities with unique gameplay and mechanics to implement, and ultimately play with.

Gloomhaven is all about tactical decisions, using your abilities and combining them in the best possible way. The sheer amount of options at the player’s disposal is what makes the game so dense and addictive, and what gave the developers a few cold sweats on occasions. Spoiler: it still does.



Overall, we feel privileged to be working on this game and we want it to reconcile two worlds: Gloomhaven fans of the highest order and tactical gamers, like myself, who spent one too many hours on far too many rogue-likes. Speaking of which, we also decided on implementing a brand-new Rogue-lite mode to complement Isaac’s campaign: you guys will discover that one when Early Access kicks in. Talking about you guys, the community and support has been amazing so far, thank you so much for that! It keeps us going and dedicated to make the best game we can!

If you haven't already, be sure to join us on our Discord and Facebook Group channels to keep up to date on everything Gloomhaven, even getting sneak peeks of the game!



Congratulations for reaching the depths of this Dungeon Crawl. Fear not, I could go on and on and probably will in future posts.

Cheers!
J.