The Goonies: Never Say Die Cooperative Strategy Board Game

We played this on a rainy day. The kids enjoyed i

You need DnD experience to play it, but if you don’t have it then this is a good game to start learning how to play these types of games. You might need to watch videos to learn to play it. Overall, it’s fun once you know how to play it. I recommend it!

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C’est bien retranscrit et vraiment bien fait
On peut en plus le jouer faons JDR un peu
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Le film reprend les 3 premier scnario et aprs cela continu

“Goonies never say die!”
Great game for Goonies fans or those you’d like to introduce to the storyline. I would advise watching the movie first if your not familiar with this iconic 80’s adventure movie. The game play can be a little hard to grasp for those not familiar with this type of board game. I would recommend the person playing the role of GM (Game master) watching a play through on YouTube. The GM runs the storyline for each adventure as well as all the “Foes” you’ll encounter. Game play is around an hour but we did “pause” our play and come back to it several times. We have enjoyed the game and are happy with our purchase.

I am a MASSIVE fan of The Goonies ‘motion picture’ – it is literally my personal no.1, favouritest(!) film of all time. I was born in 1980 so the adventures of Mikey, Ralph, Data and Chunk are indelibly marked upon my childhood.

I got this game as a gift from my wife, and settled down to learn the rules and play the simple first scenario with two friends of ours – Rich is a conniseur of board games with plenty of relevant experience, and his wife Kate worked for decades as a casting agent in HoLlYwOoD cAlIfOrNiA! I recommend getting yourself a Rich and a Kate, as they made the whole experience much easier and more enjoyable!
The basic structure of the game is – 2 to 4 players play as the Goonies, which is Mikey, Data, Ralph, Chunk AND Sloth! Each of them has special skills and abilities, and if you llay by the rules you will need to leave one of them out of the game.

Meanwhile, another player adopts the role of Game Master (I took on this role), who is tasked with throwing as many enemies, traps and obstacles in the way of The Goonies. This is achieved in various ways – you can summon up animated skeletal pirates and swarms of bats, who basically act like cannon fodder but can inflict serious harm on players if not dealt with quickly. There are also spiked pits, rolling boulders and various other means at the disposal of the Game Master, whose aim is to prevent the Goonies from entering a ‘win state’ (it is not really about reaching a finish line) until such time as the GM has forced the Goonies into a ‘lose state’.

As others have stated, the rules can be complex and dense at first. For this reason I recommend playing through the various missions/campaigns in the order presented in the game guide. This does a reasonable job of drip-feeding new ideas at a decent pace.

When playing, the Goonies tend to collaborate closely, as they can openly discuss tactics in front of the GM. They each have individual skills/resources, as well as access to a shared pool ot resources represented by various types of cards – these include Brandon, Andy & Steph who have ‘Teenager powers’ (lol).

This is where having a player with experience in this type of game comes in very handy – Rich was great at guiding and supporting the 2 ladies, without being over-bearing. He didn’t say ‘do this then this’ but instead clarified what options were open to them, and the likely outcomes of each. This was the perfect approach for this group of people.

The role of GM contrasts strongly with the group dynamic of the Goonies. As GM, I was essentially operating as a General overseeing the implementstion of a broader range of offensive and defensive resources. The different campaigns vary the resources availible to the GM – e.g. there is at least one scenario where the Fratellis (family of gangsters featured in the movie) and another where the Goonies have to face off against the giant octopus that was actually part of the original script for the movie.

(The octopus scene from the script was actually filmed with the intention of including it in the final movie. However, the special effects apparently looked so bloody awful that the entire scene was sadly cut and left on the editting suite floors……. At the end of the movie, when the Goonies are speaking to the reporters on the beach, someone says “The scariest part was fighting the octopus!”. I always just assumed it was just a made-up boast by kids, until I read more about it. I LOVE that they included it in the game!)

Playing as GM can be a little intimidating – you have to keep track of a lot of moving parts, including looking out for opportunities to use certain situation-specific effexts. It made me feel a little lonely, but it also meant I was able to keep the game “interesting” – I kept them on their toes, and threw lots of threats at them towards the end, but ultimately didn’t fight all that hard to win. 😉

Anyway – this is rambling so I will end by saying that this is a fun game, that is not easy to pick up but is rewarding and fun. Expect to set aside a whole evening (2-4 hours) for each campaign/scenario (there are 10 in total). Once you have exhausted these suggested scenarios, you are likely to be experienced enough that you could start devising your own! Check sites like Reddit too, cos people.love to share those sorts of things.

A final word regarding the physical contents of the box – you have a double-sided board, various cards denoting things like caves/environmental details, traps (only placed on board once stumbled upon by the Goonies lol. There are also lots of resource cards, and plastic figures for the main characters. The quality is reasonable, if unflashy. Everything is also quite small, which can be a bit anoying.

Thanls for reading!