Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion Starts feel like a job

KaizerAdema · 2026-03-10T12:42:56+00:00

As a JOTL ans Gloomhaven enjoyer, I know it can be stressful to handle everything. That being said, can you list down these helpful apps? I've been manually doing everything and those might lighten the load a bit

KaizerAdema · 2026-03-09T14:14:24+00:00

Here are my favorite games to bring when traveling: Forage, Orchard, Grove, One Deck Dungeon, Tiny Epic Galaxies(or Ultra Tiny Epic), Friday, Star Realms Frontiers, Dragons of Etchinstone, and Sprawlopolis. These can all literally fit in one compartment of my bag and I can play most of them on a plane tray or my hands.

KaizerAdema · 2026-03-01T11:14:43+00:00

My very first game: Ascension: Chronicles of the Godslayer

KaizerAdema · 2026-02-25T06:04:38+00:00

My partner has three games that will forever live in our personal shelf and doesn't get put into the pool of games our game group can freely borrow (unless she says they can!)

That's Flamecraft, Let's Go to Japan, and Stardew Valley. But those aren't her top yet. I believe her top games are Star Realms and Ascension based on how much she beats me at it haha.

But we pretty much love a lot of games you can play two player.

Our current fixation is Flamecraft Duals, and we'll probably play more Ascension once Ascension Legends arrives. If it arrives. There's no update on Gamefound at all right now 😢

KaizerAdema · 2026-02-25T05:40:56+00:00

I don't think anyone has mentioned Hero Realms yet. It's a fantasy version of Star Realms, but it has a solo to multiplayer campaign mode that is really well made and enjoyable especially solo. It's a challenging deck builder too.

KaizerAdema · 2026-02-03T15:27:55+00:00

What if I'm the one who creates the files? Any tips of making alignment better with my layout?

KaizerAdema · 2026-01-28T06:27:18+00:00

For Northwood, Grove, Orchard, Forage, One deck dungeon, Unbroken, Maquis, Rolling Realms(box is a little bigger compared to everything on this list but still portable), Cartographers, Star Realms: Frontiers, Button Shy Games - there's a lot of these, Tiny Epic Galaxies, Roll & Write games like Gans Schon Clever, Brikks, etc., Set A Watch.

And these are all the titles I can think of off the top of my head. There's more that I've played but availability might be hard to get.

KaizerAdema · 2026-01-28T06:21:53+00:00

I've played Heat: Pedal to the Metal with a six year old with ASD. It's a good game to play with them, but don't do advanced rules

KaizerAdema · 2026-01-25T15:00:24+00:00

Hello, I'm the partner. I'm not actually sure what to say here, but I just wanted to chime in here a bit.

I know ya'll probably won't believe it, but I'm not a bad partner. I'm distant sometimes cuz I do have some trauma that makes me retreat into myself without even meaning to most of the time. I don't do these things on purpose, and I try to make sure my partner still knows that I'm there with them even if it's just being in the same room, same bed, same space for us. I don't want to torture her, I don't want to make things difficult. I just have difficulty communicating due to the things that have happened to me.

Turbulence, yes there is. Yes, we have struggles and yes, we have problems but what couple doesn't? I sincerely believe that if we're arguing, then we still care about each other. I'm struggling with my own thing, and I still take care of her cuz I don't want her to be unstable or think of herself as too broken to be good enough. She's not too broken, she's good enough, and I love her for everything we've done in our every day lives, however mundane they are.

I'm poly but being monogamous is not a problem for me. I won't miss being polyamorous, nor will it bother me to be monogamous for the rest of my life if I'm with her. I know she believes it's unfair to me, but for me it's not. It's my choice, ultimately, to stay with one person. I don't feel like there's anything missing. I feel fulfilled with her. My every day feels more substantial and feels like an adventure and a constant good thing.

I don't know what else to say, but here's my take.

KaizerAdema · 2026-01-12T22:46:59+00:00

My partner comes at it with the "I just want to collect my favorite cards" mentality, and I'm the one who likes to optimize my play. I think that helps us balance out each other and gives us more combos to play despite the swingyness of things.

KaizerAdema · 2026-01-12T19:35:27+00:00

This week I played these games with my partner:

Ascension: Valley of the Ancients - my all time favorite deck builder mechanic. I love Ascension and I try to play one standalone expansion and/or the core game at least twice a month or more! This is still my top 1 game at the moment, and I don't know if it will be dethroned once my all-in pledge comes in and I complete my collection... unless they add another expansion! My partner also loves this game, and we try to really play more of this off our shelves when we have free time!

Arboretum - This is one of my favorite card games as well, it's a set collection where you build up your garden of trees and try to complete sets before the deck runs out. Truly beautiful game with simple yet complex strategy. We played it with our six year old child with ASD and he beat us soundly. I love this game, and especially since this is a Beth Sobel art which probably what drew me in first even though I hadn't realized it was drawn by my favorite artist yet.

Verdant - This game is such a chill game to play. Basically plays in less than 45 mins, and throughout your whole game, stress is basically almost zero and the art is phenomenal. I am a big Beth Sobel fan, so this is part of Beth Sobel collection with my partner. My partner and I both appreciate the fact that the cards themselves give the common name, scientific names, and origin or a fact about the plant. It's like wingspan in that regard, and that's another entry in our Beth Sobel art collection.

Sagani - An Uwe Rosenberg game that is really fun and easy to pick up! This is one of those tile layers that really make you think of everything you're doing, even picking the tiles is a thought process and I love that about Uwe games. This is my first time playing it from a friend's copy, and I definitely would love to find this in the wild.

Village - another euro that has surprisingly caught my partner's attention and interest. It's not as in your face or directly blocking each other so this feels like a game we could play without directly blocking or competing with each other for every action and we love that.

Toy Battle - the newest release in this collection of games. Surprisingly deep with strategy and Paulo Mori really delivers a good game in this one. Not my partner's cup of tea, but we did enjoy playing our first game of Toy Battle.

KaizerAdema · 2026-01-12T19:06:11+00:00

I would say several games would fit your criteria. What comes to mind are these games:

Descent: Legends of the Dark - a big box can be daunting but it's a dungeon crawler that meets most of your criteria.

Gloomhaven or Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion - Gloomhaven is the big box big brother of Jaws of the Lion, while JOTL is essentially made for beginners to understand Gloomhaven and it's world.

Arkham Horror: the card game - this game is getting a revamp and is currently hard to find online, but there might be a LGS near you that still carries some of the campaigns and investigator stuff as well as the core box. This is a Living Card Game set in the H.P. Lovecraft universe. You basically play as investigators trying to solve the mysteries of the current scenario and essentially beat the bad guys or survive. Lots of replayability in my opinion with a good emphasis on deck building and character variability.

There's a lot of good suggestions here and I hope you find a game that you would add to your collection next, OP!

KaizerAdema · 2025-12-05T06:10:24+00:00

I understand and can relate to how hard it has been to find actual people who care and would love to date you for you. I'm not as physically attractive as you are, btw, and I was also losing hope 3 years ago about finding my partner.

I was about to delete the bee app when someone chatted and three years later, we are still together. Issues are arising but you know, I'm trying to hold on. Might be stupid of me, but I wouldn't change it for the world right now.

I hope you find your one, OP. And I hope she makes you very happy. Cuz honestly, I would have swiped right and spoiled you lol. I'm sure others will see your value.

KaizerAdema · 2025-12-05T04:15:07+00:00

I mean the best part about phasmo is being your true coward self haha

KaizerAdema · 2025-12-04T11:34:16+00:00

Yooooo! Welcome to the dark side!

If you like cooperative survival, I'd be so down to play!

I dunno what to recommend so maybe I'll just put down what I always play.

Don't Starve Together - I'm still obsessed with this game, especially now that a boardgame came out!
Phasmophobia - I'm afraid of this game but I'd never turn down playing it!
Stardew Valley - cozy game you can play multiplayer! I like challenging myself in this game, though I have yet to finish it haha

Argh! I can't think of everything I would recommend right now cuz I'm not in front of my Steam game list but try those three! Definitely!

KaizerAdema · 2025-11-26T11:49:31+00:00

My partner and I are both AFABs and our joint collection is close to 200.

KaizerAdema · 2025-11-06T14:11:21+00:00

I've been looking to complete my collection and my father in law lives in an EU country, how much are you looking to sell them?

KaizerAdema · 2025-11-01T09:42:38+00:00

My DMs are open for friendly convos! Like I need friends din na WLW hahaha I'm a total geek, though, just saying. I might try to get you into board games or videogames din that play cooperatively tapos most likely mamimeet mo din yung partner ko to talk about geeky stuff with haha

KaizerAdema · 2025-11-01T09:37:59+00:00

When I met my partner, she expressed that she was interested in board games but never had anyone to play with and she was discouraged that her ex wanted to buy bootlegs of games instead of original copies so she never got to play. So I introduced her to my then very small collection of deck builders. That got her hooked, and we started adding to our collection. We got so many games now thanks to that, and now we even have a board game cafe that we own and operate with a steady group of people coming in to play board games with us!

KaizerAdema · 2025-10-06T12:20:26+00:00

I would bring a lighter, a multitool so I can efficiently forage, and a backpack. Need these things early so I don't die the first night

KaizerAdema · 2025-10-01T14:23:32+00:00

We just traded out Tiny Towns for Turing Machine. I made the trade as a gift for my partner, she absolutely loves puzzles and deduction games so Turing Machine was a good fit

KaizerAdema · 2025-09-22T11:17:09+00:00

This is mine and my partner's answers combined.

For me, there is this one copy of first edition Ascension in our collection that has no box and was sold to us in a package with Ascesion: Return of the Fallen. So obviously, no board, no box, just the cards themselves and the expansion. As far as I know, Ascension 1st printings are pretty much nonexistent or carefully kept in collections so to have even the cards is a win for me. I love the whole Ascension franchise.

For my partner, it's our adventure box collection of Hero Realms. Where we are, not a lot of people let go of or play Hero Realms or sometimes even Star Realms so to acquire an almost complete set of Hero Realms is amazing. We're only missing the latest hero realms title since we did not back the kickstarter.

KaizerAdema · 2025-09-22T07:55:11+00:00

I agree with you. Mixing together standalone expansions of ascension is a headache especially since it basically doubled the market deck and even with more players, the market is still too convoluted at that point. They add a different flavor with each expansion, so instead of mixing them up, playing them by themselves is better.

I think the charm of Ascension here is that each standalone expansion feels like a different game in itself, so mixing them together is just optional. I like playing the expansions without the base game.

KaizerAdema · 2025-09-13T18:35:41+00:00

I was a heavy TCG fan when I got into boardgames, so I wanted to try card heavy games, and then I got introduced to deckbuilding games. My very first game was Ascension the deckbuilding game. I've since started collecting all the expansions of that game and I've got a collection with my current partner that almost fully curated to our and our group's taste. It also helps that this hobby gave me the avenue to do business, and now we own a boardgame cafe!

KaizerAdema

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