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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. 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 Thoughts
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 character placards and GM screen do most of the heavy lifting in terms of “frequently asked questions,” but players will need to keep the rulebook handy for the first game or two. It’s not a major problem but it does mean that more experienced gamers will need to be the GM for at least the first few adventures. (I was the GM the first time I played and made a mistake that told the Goonies exactly which room they needed to get to. Mama Fratelli would have made me walk the plank for this blunder.) 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. 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.That may be the one obstacle the game doesn’t quite overcome. If you aren’t a huge fan of The Goonies, there’s a lot of quotes and easter eggs (the Octopus from the deleted scene!) that you might not get. It’s still enjoyable as a game but the nostalgia element might be lost on someone who didn’t grow up with it. 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 game works in 2 teams, the GM vs the rest of the players who will represent their chosen Goonie. The GM’s main goal is to gain points by defeating goonies and stopping them from completing their secret goal which only the GM knows. The Goonies’ goal is to try and complete their secret goal and to keep the GM from gaining points along the way. To complete these goals the GM follows a story set for that adventure and the Goonies traverse through the map trying to gain loot and defeat enemies and ultimately try and get clues for what their secret hidden goal is.
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. 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. This is the optimal scenario – a family playing an RPG-style game based around a movie that is a family favorite. The parents get to enjoy a classic story from their childhood and the kids get to enjoy it through play and excitement. 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 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.
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