Flooded Token: Foes are not impacted by Flooded rooms, but any Goonie in a Flooded Room must spend 2 Wish Tokens instead of 1 for Upgrades and Teamwork. The Game ends when the Goonies achieve their which gives the Goonies and victory or when a GM Round starts with all 4 Sand Tokens in the bottom half of the Hourglass Tile which means the GM wins. Why You Should Play The Goonies: Never Say Die The Goonies start each adventure with a basic goal that typically involves finding a specific room or item, but they will have limited information on how to achieve this and not know which direction will lead them to their destination. So, crank up some Cyndi Lauper, rip open a Baby Ruth, and let’s gather around the game table for The Goonies: Never Say Die, designed by the team at Prospero Hall. Gameplay Overview:

But why was it fun? It was fun because it told the story of the movie and added just enough complexity to make it interesting but not bogged down in rules. It’s a family RPG in a Box. Final Score: 4 Stars – The Goonies: Never Say Die is a light but tense adventure game with great artwork and exceptional theme integration that will surely satisfy people who grew up wishing they could go on a treasure hunt with their favorite group of fictional friends. The game plays a lot like how D&D plays in terms of having a GM (Games master) and having a bunch of stories and adventures that the rest of the players travers through in the aim to defeat a final boss or get to a specific goal. The main difference though would be the fact that this game is a lot more structured out for you already and there is a limited amount of things that both the players and the GM can do. Now this may put some people off if you’re more of a die-hard adventure board gamer and can’t deal with the limitations of such a game, but to the others who don’t mind this at all, this is a great introduction to adventure games and D&D as a genre. There’s loads of player interaction throughout making it fun and different with each group of players, and with each adventure/level of the game there is a story to follow alongside it making players fully immersed into the world of the Goonies and thus make their decisions within the game seem more dire and important. Prospero Hall games are known for quality production value and game design that captures the spirit of the story. Funko Games delivers that once again in this game. Then, the GM will draw and play cards, most of which involve spawning new enemies or making rooms more hazardous. There are also cards that relate to the specific adventure being played as well as reaction cards that can be played during the Goonies turn if a certain event occurs.Adventure Action. These are used to remove Rubble tokens, Trapped Tokens, or activate Adventure specific actions.Data uses an Adventure Action to activate an Invention. Photo by Elizabeth MacAndrew. So, I grabbed my two boys who are pretty close to the age of The Goonies and played through that scenario again. This time with me as the GM and them as The Goonies. We had a blast! The heroes I watched were brave, but still easily frightened. Smart, but still easily fooled. Rude, but somehow still friendly. I was invested in what I was watching because these heroes reminded me of me. And all I had to do once it was over was wait for the VHS to rewind and I could go on the adventure with those heroes once again. Gain a GM Token: These Token can be used to Upgrade Rolls, Draw/Play extra GM Cards, or Defend with an End is Nigh Roll with an Hour glass Card.

Draw One GM Card: The GM Draws 1 GM Card for free but may spend GM Tokens to Draw additional Cards. The GM must finish Drawing Cards before playing any. GM Cards have a variety of challenges to throw at the Goonies. Photo by Elizabeth MacAndrew. In each adventure, the Goonies have an objective they will need to complete, but they might not know it to start! The GM’s objective is always the same: thwart the Goonies long enough to run out the hourglass. The game plays over a series of rounds, starting with the Goonies, followed by the GM. Setup does take some time, but I feel after our first time playing and not needing to initially punch out the tokens, it will go a lot faster. My kids could probably set it up with some experience, but not until they’ve played the game a few more times themselves. One of the ways the theme is tied into the mechanics is in the distribution of each character’s skills. For example, Sloth is the best at fighting enemies, but not good at dexterity or searching. (Although Sloth did pull off that impressive rope swing in the movie, so I actually think he’s more dexterous than the designers give him credit for.) Mikey, on the other hand, is the best Goonie at searching but very weak in combat.I know it feels like a lot of steps, but between the diagram and the clear step description is goes pretty fast after all the Tokens have initially been punched out and sorted, and I honestly believe the next time I play I can leave a lot of Tokens in the box and just pull out what I need as needed which will cut down a lot of setup time. My kids are ten and seven, and I admit i might be able to let A set up since he’s ten, but W probably could not do it on his own. Gameplay Similarly, the game is also objectively easier with more Goonie players since the GM only gets a single turn after every hero has gone. It’s not necessarily broken, but the game doesn’t scale very well in terms of its difficulty even if the fun remains the same regardless of player count. (The game comes with five playable Goonies but is not meant to played with more than four of them at a time.)

The gameplay is set in turns where the Goonies go first and do their actions, the GM is next and plays any enemies or actions that they can, then the GM controls the active enemies and tries to take as much health from the Goonies as possible. This is the main chunk of the game really but is always intense and never seems to drag on for long as there are only 2 actions that each Goonie can do, and the GM actions cost GM points so they can’t exactly go crazy with their turn’s actions either. I love that this is the case and that it keeps it from feeling boring or slow, making for a better experience throughout. No matter which side of the game you control, the best part of The Goonies: Never Say Die is easily the way the theme is implemented. Obviously, the specific powers and artwork contribute to that, but I found the light gameplay and pseudo-danger of the secretive GM to underscore exactly the feelings that the movie was meant to evoke. Special Ability: Use a Special Ability as indicated on a Placard. Data’s Special Ability is his Inventions. Photo by Elizabeth MacAndrew.There is a pit trap with many nostalgic property based games that look enticing but fall flat once you play. The nostalgia isn’t a pirate’s treasure hoard but just a bunch of counterfeit fifty dollar bills. In other words, it is superficially that property but once the gameplay is examined it could be any other game. The Goonies Never Say Die is not that. The treasure is in the details and you should explore those unknown tunnels with kids to discover it.

Stunned Token: Foes and Goonies may be Stunned. A Stunned Token is placed next to them. Stunned Goonie cannot use Cards, Special Abilities, or give Teamwork. If a Goonie is Stunned during their Turn, that Turn ends immediately. If a Goonie or Foe starts their Turn or Activation Stunned, they skip both their Actions to remove the Stunned Token. A Goonie can use Item Cards, Treasure Cards, and Special Abilities in the same Turn their Stunned Token was removed as long as they don’t require Actions to use. The game is basically divided up into a Goonies Round followed by a GM Round and the rounds keep cycling through until the game is done. When I realized it was essentially an “RPG in a Box” I had conflicting thoughts. The veteran RPG player voice said, “That’s it? You don’t even level up your character.” But, at the same time that little 80’s kid voice said “Yeah, but what did you expect it to be? It was fun!” Upgrading Dice: Players can upgrade a d6 or d8 with a Wish Token. For each Wish Token, a Die is replaced by one of the next highest value. The GM uses GM Tokens. a d12 cannot be upgraded.

The stories are great and keep the players immersed in the Goonies world and into their chosen characters. The certain events and actions that can happen during the game are written out simply as instructions for the players, but the GM always has the choice to act out and make a story out of them if they wish to make it more immersive and “D&D-like”. This is however fully optional depending on how each group of players wish to play through the game. If you are a player or group who loves deeply complex RPG-style games like Gloomhaven, this will seem light to you and may not keep your attention as well. But then, that’s not the target audience.