Spin Master Games Goonies, The Goonies Game Retro Vintage 80’s Family Movie Board Game, for Kids Aged 10 and Up

Product Information

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 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. 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. 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. In the ancient time of 1985, a trailblazing film was released that captured the imaginations of many kids. The Goonies is a classic tale of kids adventuring through caves in search of pirate treasure to save their homes. Along the journey they encountered traps, puzzles, and a family of dangerous yet bumbling bank robbers.

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..

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 world's favourite family board game brings you another exciting edition of MONOPOLY – The Goonies! But if you allow yourself to get swept up in the adventure, then that’s when the game really sings just like a Cyndi Lauper tune blasting overhead as you ride your bike toward Astoria’s shore. 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.

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.

Reviews

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: 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. 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. As the GM I could throw obstacles in their path and not feel like I was piling on them unfairly yet still create challenges that required them to strategize.