Play Cards: The GM can play 1 GM Card for free, but others cost a GM Token each. The same GM Card may not be played twice in the same GM Round. Used GM Cards are Discarded. Wandering Foe Cards can be used for the GM to place one of the Wandering Foes set by the Adventure in any Explored Room without a Goonie. During a Goonie turn, a GM may play a GM Card for the React Effects. These GM Cards are Discarded after use. They can be used whenever conditions are relevant and multiple GM Cards of the same type can be played at once. For an End is Nigh Card, the condition must be met of a GM Token spent. The GM takes 3d6, Upgrades if desired, and rolls. If the result is 2 or more successes, a Sand Token moves to the bottom half on the Hourglass Tile. 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 The Goonies: Never Say Die plays very much like a lite-version of a tabletop RPG. A large map is placed in the center and the GM populates the starting room. As characters move through and discover each new area, it's the GM's job to fill it with monsters, traps, and obstacles based on the Adventure Guide. In the early missions, games come down to simple move, fight, and search mechanics, with players not really knowing the end goal until a certain event is triggered. As the story progresses, the game adds new mechanics and obstacles that The Goonies must overcome. The movie on my screen was 1985’s The Goonies, one of the many relics from my childhood now being reborn to rake in bundles of nostalgia-fueled cash. This latest form of rebirth is in the new game The Goonies: Never Say Die and from the moment I looked at the cover I was hopeful that playing it would make me feel the same way watching the movie once did. 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.

Each of the kids and Sloth (no playable teenagers in the base game) have their own abilities and strengths which help everyone move on to the next goal. Dice are rolled to resolve conflicts and everyone has tokens (Wishes) that can be turned in to increase their chances. 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. Each Goonie has their own abilities specific to their character which helps them in different ways and there are enough Goonies included in the game that allow for the players to mix up who they play each time to make the game feel new and different each time (if they want to swap that is). The GM controls a set of enemies as well as a boss character, and these enemies are different for each of the adventures provided. The enemies are spawned and drawn by certain actions that happen during the game and are usually quite easy for the players to defeat, but the bosses are the real difficulty and main threat to the Goonies. These characters come with their own skills/abilities and come with more health too thus making them extremely difficult to deal with. Final ThoughtsAdventure 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. But is it an RPG, with a GM after all? It depends on the company. There is a GM working against other players collectively and adding story-telling elements. If players aren’t afraid to roleplay and immerse themselves into a character, it could feel more like one. The GM does have an adventure script to follow, but there’s leeway for them to embellish the action as it takes place. For the Goonies, choosing which member of your team to send off alone into potential danger is where much of the game’s tension lies. If a new room shows a few searchable items, it’s best to send Mikey in because he’s the best at searching, but if he gets trapped in there alone with an enemy, he’s in a lot of trouble. (This happened in a game I played where Mikey’s room didn’t even have a proper exit and his team was way on the other side of the board. I actually uttered the words, “Guess I’ll just have to sacrifice Mikey for the good of the team.” It felt like a depressing deleted scene from the movie.)

At the start of the game, the GM will use their secret adventure guide to prepare the board depending on which scenario is being played. Whenever a Goonie enters a room during the game, the GM will have to populate the room with new items to search through or spawn specific enemies. The GM will also reveal secret information only if certain events are triggered by actions the Goonies take. (Succeeding at a type of skill test, for instance.) Players will be rolling a lot of dice during their Goonies adventure. Take Actions: Take up to 2 Actions unless Stunned, then they use both Actions to Discard the Stunned Token.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.

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.

“It’s our time down here.”

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. On my first playthrough I did it solo. None of my family have the same love for The Goonies that I do. So, I thought I’d step through a game to see how it played. The game plays very simply and is easy to understand. It’s a Dungeon Crawl game which makes perfect sense. You move from room to room, searching for “rich stuff” encountering hazards (pit traps and cave-ins) and creatures (mostly bats and rats). Defeat them and move on to the next room. The game is an adventure game that allows for 2-5 players with the age range of 12+. The play time shown on the box is 50 minutes although it’ll definitely take you longer to play on your first few playthroughs just to be able to learn the gameplay and to allow for set-up time as the map has a different set-up for each adventure/story. Overall, I’d have to say the time to play would roughly be anywhere between 1.5-2 hours depending on the players understanding of the rules. D&D, But Not Really..

The goal of The Goonies: Never Say Die depends on your role. Unlike most tabletop rpgs, there is a win scenario for the GM. The GM wins if all 4 Sand Tokens are at the bottom of the Hourglass at the start of their turn. The Goonies win if they can complete their Starting Goal which varies by the adventure. I freely admit, as a GM, I didn’t care about winning and focused on creating a game that would be fun and challenging for my kids so I reined in at times I could have gone after the characters more and I highly recommend considering this approach for younger and/or new rpg players. Setup A game with 3 Goonies set up. Photo by Elizabeth MacAndrew. The world's favourite family board game brings you another exciting edition of MONOPOLY – The Goonies! 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.) 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.

“Andy, this whole ship is a treasure.”

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. Overall, well done, and well put together. Any fan of the movie should be excited by all of the little details for the pieces. How to Play The Goonies: Never Say Die Goal 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: