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Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs box art
2023 Ranked #18,413

Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs

This solo campaign adventure game has a miniaturized mercenary use double-sided abilities to defeat enemies and reach the Crooked Bone. Each compact scenario develops the hero through upgrades, while limited cards must last through every encounter.

Adventure Card Game Campaign / Battle Card Driven Card Play Conflict Resolution

Players

1-2

Play time

20-30 min

Age

14+

Complexity

?/5

Rating

7.08

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.3/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 3.9/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.8/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

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How it plays

How does it play?

Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs is a solo play game, with an original campaign story written by Isaac Childres, that features a playstyle similar to Gloomhaven in a fraction of the size. Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs is set after the events of Gloomhaven and Forgotten Circles.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs is a solo play game, with an original campaign story written by Isaac Childres, that features a playstyle similar to Gloomhaven in a fraction of the size. Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs is set after the events of Gloomhaven and Forgotten Circles. The Aesther recluse Hail has earned a reputation for being highly instrumental in saving the city from recurring disasters, and she absolutely hates it. Wannabe heroes are constantly barging in on her studies at the Crooked Bone, looking for help in becoming famous themselves — not to mention all the demons that come by looking for vengeance. She briefly considered moving, but as that would require effort, she instead just placed an enchantment on her front door: Anyone who attempts to open it becomes miniaturized and therefore is no longer a problem. Your character is one such wannabe hero. In an ill-advised attempt at fame, they try to visit Hail, and poof. Now they're the size of a mouse and have entered an entirely different realm of lawlessness and self-preservation. They must find a new way into the Crooked Bone to convince Hail to return them to their previous size. Each scenario is a single card, pitting one mercenary against a handful of enemies with simplified actions and AI. Each mercenary has a hand of just four double-sided cards, but they can be used twice — both the front and the back — before they are discarded. Attacks are resolved using a die in conjunction with a modifier table, and both the table and the mercenary ability cards can be improved as you level up throughout the campaign. —description from the publisher

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
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Player resources

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Game and edition data

All specifications (4)

Play and group

Players
1–2
Best with
2
Play time
20–30 min
Age
14+
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

2
Joe Klipfel Nikki Valens

Artists

1
Mofei Wang

Publishers

1
Cephalofair Games

Linked items

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