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

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Bring back your best childhood memories and watch your kids fall in love with this classic adventure movie. I’m a newish GM type myself, and this is the kind of game that feels like GM training wheels: I can start to learn the feel of being a GM and not a player without being crazy overwhelmed. If you answered yes to both of these questions then Goonies Never Say Die may be the game you’ve been looking for.

Foes Attack similarly to how Goonies do, but if there are multiple Foes and Goonies in the same Room, the GM needs to spread out the Attacks as much as possible. I love that this is the case and that it keeps it from feeling boring or slow, making for a better experience throughout.He loves all things RPG-related and is the creator of Chronicle, a fantasy RPG setting and webcomic.

In case you don’t remember the plot to the 1985 classic, The Goonies, in which a group of low-income children manage to foil escaped convicts and rich snobs to find pirate treasure and save their homes, Prospero Hall has managed to capture the movie perfectly in board-game form for you and 1-4 friends to enjoy. Based on the popular ‘80s movie, join the Goonies as they navigate hazardous booby traps, outsmart the Fratellis, and save the Goondocks in this custom edition of MONOPOLY. As a child of the 80’s, I grew up watching epic adventure movies like Indiana Jones, Willow, and Labyrinth. The first rounds go a little slower, but as players pick up on it, things do start to move along nicely.

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. Never Say Die and its expansion, Under the Goondocks, play a lot like Mansions of Madness, wherein one player controls the enemies and everyone else a character. 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). Seeing how long overall the game took us, I can’t see wanting to do the entire thing in one sitting, unless maybe as part of some kind of Con event or gaming marathon like Extra Life.

Players will choose from Mikey, Chunk, Mouth, Data, and Sloth in the base game while one person will run the game as GM (Goondocks Master).Some of the puzzles we got almost instantly while others that took us quite some time to figure out. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Also, should enterprising GMs find the Goonies winning too easily, they have at their disposal 6 Peril cards that can make the game harder for the player characters.

One of the ways the theme is tied into the mechanics is in the distribution of each character’s skills. It’s a system that I really enjoy and I really hope they continue to release more games in this series. It’s not a perfect game—not by a longshot—and many gamers might find it too simplistic or, considering it’s one versus all, not tactical enough. On a positive note, later printings of The Shining now come with a separate pack meant to fix these issues, including replacement cards, journals and an envelope. Aside from the obvious fun that comes with knowing all the map’s secrets, the GM has a straightforward method of impeding the Goonies.

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. The pieces in the game are all either thick cardboard or plastic but don’t let that steer you away because it all still looks and feels very nice to handle and doesn’t feel cheap in any way. Our kids got nice practice in sorting out which character would be the best in each Skill Check situation and even managed to learn why one must be careful to split the party (ooops).