FUNKO GAMES The Goonies Board Game - French

Product Information

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. Gain a GM Token. The GM can use tokens to upgrade dice, draw or play additional GM cards, defend, or perform an “End is Nigh” roll. The game is basically divided up into a Goonies Round followed by a GM Round and the rounds keep cycling through until the game is done. Upgrading Dice: Players can upgrade a d6 or d8 with a Wish Token. For each Wish Token, a Die is replaced by one of the next highest value. The GM uses GM Tokens. a d12 cannot be upgraded. Teenager Cards: A Goonie can flip a face-up Teenager Card down to gain an extra Die as described by the Teenager Card. A Teenager Card brings another Die to a roll. Photo by Elizabeth MacAndrew.

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 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. 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

Take Actions: Take up to 2 Actions unless Stunned, then they use both Actions to Discard the Stunned Token. The Goonies: Never Say Die hits the nostalgia button pretty hard with its evocative art style and gameplay. You’ll feel like a Goonie yourself, working together to find One-Eyed-Willie’s lost treasure. At its core, this is a co-op game with a splash of roleplaying. The gameplay is solid and the mechanics blend perfectly with the theme. Adventure 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. Setup does take some time, but I feel after our first time playing and not needing to initially punch out the tokens, it will go a lot faster. My kids could probably set it up with some experience, but not until they’ve played the game a few more times themselves. After we got rolling, I could see all the fun details and mechanics that represent the movie so well. In the second scenario the players encounter the Bone Organ. To play it correctly they have to get at least one success on one die of each type. This is where the Teenager characters do have a small part. The Teenagers can be used as either a one-time use to get an extra die based on their character’s ability (Brand is Strength, Andy is Dexterity, Stef is Search) or as an automatic success in certain situations. In the movie, Andy was the one to play the organ, so if her card is still available she can count as one of the successes.

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. 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. Treasure Actions are actions listed on treasure cards. Follow the directions on the card and discard it. Adventure Actions

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! Setup the Starting Room and only the Starting Room (it will be the room with the Start Token). Place any Tokens that go in the room and Passages going from the Room. An Unexplored Token goes in each connected by a passage room. 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.) It also allows the game to stay streamlined and light on rules while still creating the moments of wonder that the movie is most remembered for. 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.

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.

“Andy, this whole ship is a treasure.”

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. When a Goonie enters an unexplored room, the GM will setup the room, adding whatever tokens and foes are shown in the guide. Search 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. Flooded Token: Foes are not impacted by Flooded rooms, but any Goonie in a Flooded Room must spend 2 Wish Tokens instead of 1 for Upgrades and Teamwork. In each adventure, the Goonies have an objective they will need to complete, but they might not know it to start! The GM’s objective is always the same: thwart the Goonies long enough to run out the hourglass. The game plays over a series of rounds, starting with the Goonies, followed by the GM.

Search a pirate stash or bone pile in the room by rolling search dice. Goonies receive one item card no matter the outcome of the challenge, but draw a treasure card if they succeed. Mikey is successful in searching the Pirate Stash Bone dice faces are success, 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. 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. 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.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. 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. 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. The Game ends when the Goonies achieve their which gives the Goonies and victory or when a GM Round starts with all 4 Sand Tokens in the bottom half of the Hourglass Tile which means the GM wins. Why You Should Play The Goonies: Never Say Die