The Lockdown Chronicles.

There will come a time when people say what did you do during the Pandemic lockdowns. Just like my generation remembers where they were when they heard that Elvis had died or when the Americans landed on the moon. I will proudly say that I did 3 campaign seasons of Gloomhaven in solo mode. Gloomhaven is the kind of game that has a long set up and near impossible tear down to get it all back in the original box. It's ideal for leaving set out for long periods. I am very fortunate in that I have a room dedicated to playing games with an 8 foot by 4 foot table. I still did not feel that I had that much room to play the Gloomhaven campaign though, this game set out takes up a lot of real estate. Because I was putting hours of commitment into this game, I kept an adventure diary and all sorts of statistics as I knew this was probably going to be the biggest longest solo game of my life. I couldn't imagine a single game holding my attention for weeks, but I now had the perfect opportunity to try and at the time it was the most I had ever paid for a board game. Try that as a motivator. 

I am full of praise for this game that really is to me, D&D in one box. I played this through the lockdown From April 18th, 2020, to 28th July 2020 in 112 game hours as season 1 then and 2021 from 27th January to 26th February in 22 hours as season 2 and then finally season 3 from 29th June 2021 to 19th July 2021 putting in 31 hours.  A staggering 165 hours on one game solo. I think I got my moneys worth. To go one step further I only consumed 62% of the campaign scenarios. I guess you can add a generous 10% of scenarios that wont be used because of the story choices I made. That still leaves a conservative 28% of the game left without delving into the one off dungeon builds you can do for non-campaign play. Not to mention over 40% of the minis never came out of there box. I never finished enough of the character side missions to activate them. I just plowed on with the main story arcs. I should take them out now and paint them. Cant bear to think of unused mini's hidden away in their box unpainted.

The trouble is that since this time if I have been asked to recommend a dungeon crawler to play I tend to go for one of the lighter WOTC games. I think I am Gloomhaven burnt or at least done for the foreseeable future. Still, I have the adventure diary to read through for when I get nostalgic.

This game is a monster in every sense but what a glorious consumer of time it is.