Gloomies

I feel like I may have said this before, but I am very much one to judge a book by its cover, and Gloomies has a great cover—that is to say, it's a beautiful game. So beautiful, in fact, that when my girlfriends saw it in my hands, they immediately said, "I want to play that!" Apparently, it seems, I'm not alone here: Gloomies truly is a beautiful game. 

The Concept

Gloomies is a newer boardgame from Ravensburger, for 2–4 players, ages 10 and up. It features little interstellar creatures with a love of colorful flowers. These creatures help you grow and harvest your garden of flowers in a two-phased game that's relatively simple to learn, and fun to play.

Stage 1 involves using up to three cards from your hand to plant flowers using the sequences shown on the board. You receive certain bonuses for where you end your turn (like a "little helper," a stardust counter, or order tiles) that work to gain you more advantages throughout the game. Stage 1 ends when you fill up the full side of the board with flowers up until the white line (flowers can extend past the white line, but those spaces aren't required to be filled for ending this portion of the game). Scoring in this stage is based on how many flower cards you end up playing and how many stardust counters you collected.

Stage 2 starts immediately after the scoring of stage 1 is complete. In stage 2, you're using the cards you played from stage 1 in a similar fashion as you did previously, however instead of putting the flowers down, you're now picking them up and choosing how to use the harvested flowers to gain the most points. You can either use them to complete the orders you received as a bonus in stage 1, or you can simply collect them on your game aid. Again, you can gain bonuses to help you throughout Stage 2, or with your final score. Stage 2 ends when the same space before the white line is empty from being completely harvested.

Players will then tally up the stage 2 points, adding them to their stage 1 score, and declare a winner. Simple enough!

Set Up

Gloomies involves the exact amount of set up I expected. Game pieces need to be popped out of their cardboard holders, and the little flower holder needs to be assembled. It's fairly straightforward and maybe took me 10 minutes to complete. Once that's finished, day-to-day set up is extremely easy, simply removing and shuffling cards, pulling out the necessary tokens, and setting up the board. Setting up the board is interesting, though, because the board uses the box as a base, and it works very well both for stability. And for an organized nut like me, it really helps declutter the area because I don't have to look for a space for the box.

Again, something I absolutely love about Ravensburger Games, is that they include mini baggies to house each of the different playing pieces for the game. I am so used to having just little slots or cups in the plastic insert of the box, that this is continually a major win for me when it comes to their games. Reference once more, I am an organization nut, so keeping the pieces nice and organized is a chef's kiss for me.

Instructions

Ok, fam. This is where I get honest with you. These written instructions are not the most clear. We tried playing a couple of times from the instruction set and crashed and burned miserably. It's not that they aren't well-written, but they feel a bit scattered and non-linear. I think due to the multiple elements to the game, it's nearly impossible to be linear with these instructions. However, something to note is that there are a lot of names for items and it can get really sticky trying to decipher between them and retain what they all do. When we're talking about the flowers, instead of saying "Pink flowers" it's "Galaxy Poppy" and instead of "Bonus Point Token" it's "Stardust Counter." There are also quite a few additional callout notes throughout the written instructions that are helpful reminders, but also threw me off course a bit. Same with the examples. I know, this is a tabletop strategy game, so I anticipate some level of confusion when reading through the instructions, but having to step away from the game twice to maintain composure is not the best feeling.

Alas, Ravensburger continues to check all the boxes for me, because despite my frustrations with the written instructions, Ravensburger has a YouTube channel where you can find supplemental videos to assist with your understanding of the game. See: This quick overview from the makers that lightly shows how Gloomies gameplay works:

After reading through the instructions, I watched the video and then felt like I had a really solid understanding of the game. I love this feature, especially as a dyslexic boardgame player. Thank you, thank you, thank you for investing in this feature, especially with those of us who are not neuro-typical—it's inclusive in a way that I don't think most realize.

Design

I have mentioned before, but I'll say it again, Gloomies is a gorgeous game. When I think of Ravensburger, I think of the intricate design work that's put into each and every game. From the emerald green of Malificent's fire, to the use of light and dark in Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons, the designers, in my opinion, deserve a standing ovation. Gloomies is no different.

The Gloomies truly are the ambassadors of the game and shown heavily on the box. They are soft, glowy, intergalactic little bug-like beings that lure you into the game. Their presence within the elements of the game appears in Stage 2, when you're fulfilling the orders. Each order is specific to its Gloomie, requesting certain amounts of the harvested flowers, so each Gloomie also has its own look to them. Again, kudos to the design team for developing these characters, it's clear that so much thought was put into not only the functionality of the game, but also into making sure it was stylistically compelling.

All in all, no notes on the design elements. Perfection for the light and airy strategy game that it is.

Gameplay

Despite my initial hiccups with the instructions, once we picked up on gameplay, it was smooth sailing. There's a certain flow to the game that fits with its exterior. As I said above, it's light and airy, but that's not to say there isn't an inherently competitive nature to gameplay. There are multiple avenues to weave in strategy. Some of my favorites include:

• Planting the flowers specifically to get the bonus you want (for me, I even shorted my hand to get stardust because I feel the stardust goes a long way)

• Using the joker cards (which allow you to select from two flower options) to ensure my hand had plenty of variation for harvesting

• Selecting both high number and low number order tiles—this way I can make sure that at least some of my order tiles are completed before the end of the game

I'm sure I'll find more strategies as I continue to play, but if you're just starting out, you can steal my newbie tips. Just make sure you're not sharing them with your opponents. Let them figure it out on their own!

For us, gameplay was under an hour, perhaps close to 45 minutes. For a two-stage game, that's relatively short, which is nice for a game night, in my opinion, because I like to make sure we're able to play two or three games throughout the night. So, this is my sweet spot for a game of this caliber (again, light and airy).

Overall Thoughts

When we finished the game the first time, my husband said, "Wow, I can't wait to play that again!" and honestly, I felt the same way. This game isn't exhausting, it isn't overtly cutthroat, and the two stages keep gameplay interesting. This game will easily be in regular rotation at the Gray house, and will travel with me to my friends when we're looking to have a chill boardgame night.

Additionally, this game is listed for ages 10 and up, and I think this is a great lean into strategy game for those younger audiences. I saw children playing the demo at Gen Con, and they seemed to be having fun, fully grasping the concepts of the game.

I highly recommend Gloomies for anyone who wants to add more of a cozy strategy boardgame to their collection.