Gloomhaven: Buttons and Bugs Review
Small Gloomhaven is huge solo gamer value.
A literal palm sized Gloomhaven allows for the popular Euro-Dungeon Crawler gameplay in 20 minutes! With minimal components, BnB provides a up to 20 scenario campaign with 6 classes, fueled by a streamlined card system. However, it isn’t designed by Isaac Childres anymore!
Video published May 3rd, 2024
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Use 4 upgrade-able cards for 1/6 classes.
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Smallest GH box ever!
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Attacking modifiers are now just a card, and you roll dice.
This is a sponsored review.
Story
Disclaimer, Shelfside is pretty buddy buddy with Cephalofair, specifically Daniel!
However, it is me (Ashton) who is writing this, who is not the hardcore haven fan. Rather, I’ve only beat Jaws of the Lion in a group, and was part of the play testing team for Frosthaven. Beating Buttons and Bugs, where you have shrunk down to the size of a button/bug and try to get big again, was a new solo campaign experience for me.
Beating BnB with the Bruiser class took about 12+ hours.
Need to learn how to play? Or want more reasoning for our points? Our review video’s got you!
Component Pros — Game is good at being TINY
Fits inside other boxes or jacket pockets
Setup takes 2-3 minutes
Double-sided small and big cards (scenarios are double sided) keeps things condensed
Double-sided health dials that flip intuitively
Resetting scenarios takes about 15 seconds, just move a couple of cubes and health values
No element board
6 minis, one for each class
Art Pros
New art for the 6 classes
Maps actually reflect fact you shrunk down
Fruit peels & daggers are entire spaces
Tons of new monster art
Gameplay Pros — Condensing lots of Gloomhaven gameplay!
Double-sided combat cards (A/B sides) is intuitive way to plan our future B placements
B’s open up new realm of possibility, different initiatives
Small bonus progression of starting with A’s, then getting to use B’s
Maps are extremely tight with plenty of hazards, no separate rooms, cannot hide
Constantly on feet to survive, action happens ASAP
New A’s/B’s for gloom haven classes means you can grab this to see how it handles your favorite class
Asymmetry is still as strong as always
e.g. Cragheart big guy who uses obstacles
e.g. Spellweaver has ways to manipulate discard/lost piles
Dice rolling for modifiers really condenses modifier system
No longer setting up physical decks or shuffling
Still get planning of strengthening yourself to avoid misses
Some rounds you know you can’t miss
Only 9 actions total with hand keeps scenarios about 20 minutes
Campaign Progression Pros
Scenarios leveling up means you can bring more level 2 combat cards
New attack modifier card (not deck) just slapped on to progress quickly
No stickers or separate cards or writing needed
Can get you additional targets, or healing yourself
Items are very streamlined
2 items included to your item pool with every completed/passed scenario
More puzzling you can do throughout campaign, as look back at all previous items
Complexity of monsters ramps up well
Play with different types of conditions and map interactions
Multiple boss fights (don’t want to spoil these though)
Encourage you to play A/B cards differently
Replayability Pros
After completing campaign, can approach scenarios standalone
Just pick a new class, optimize items, and you can instantly play
6 classes + 20 scenarios
Physical Rulebook Cons
It’s just too minimal, only gets you started on scenario 1
Online rules are fine, but included physical rules could’ve had more explanation
e.g. leveling up scenarios, how items work, changing difficulty
Included icon references doesn’t include levitating or item tapping symbol
If you know Gloomhaven well, not an issue. But if are a bit unfamiliar with systems, getting through entire campaign has rule research detours
Component Cons
Green and blue health dials look too much alike
Color matters a lot because they correspond to that color cube on map
Remember: no standees like GH
Tricky to remember what color cube corresponds to what monster at times
specifically when spawn place gets covered up, 3+ types of enemies, or monsters spawning mid-scenario
Scenario cards fold up by themselves
Cubes and minis don’t always stay put while playing
Not unusable as is, a paperweight solves issue
Gameplay Cons — Possibility for weird monster behavior
With die, can roll same action 4/5 activations, or 3 times in a row
GH you had a deck to usually never see same action 3x in a row
Dealing with healing 3x in a row can be auto-lose because you don’t have enough stamina (cards) to win
Not a huge deal, just have to know what you’re getting into with the variance
Just scoop some scenarios from not being your fault
POSSIBLE FIX: If same activation is 3x in a row, just re-roll
Gameplay Cons — Difficulty is weirdly labeled for game’s scope
Reminder: Used bruiser (low complexity class)
Maybe it’s just a weak class from what I’ve read?
Class balance aside, BnB is inherently harder than GH with less room for errors
Standard difficulty is fine early campaign until hit Scenario 5
Throws 3 really strong enemies at you, one of which has few solutions for what I’d imagine is most early game kits
Far from impossible, especially if pick right items
I tried 15 times on initial playthrough, then reasoned that hoping for perfect die rolls almost every round were not worth time investment
Very easy is akin to Jaws of the Lion difficulty
‘Easy’ let me beat scenarios between 2-4 times
After scenario 5, game is a bit easier, then difficulty ramps up again to end almost as hard as scenario 5
Difficulty is not inherently bad, is just a con because it stretches the campaign time out more than expected
20 minutes on the box shouldn’t mean you dump 3-5 hours playing an early game scenario
Forced to restart with nothing else happening, so can feel like straight repetition
BnB made by different designers (Joe and Nikki), not Isaac Childres
Game is tuned to different preferences
Easy is actually standard difficulty
Standard difficulty is hard
Wouldn’t be as bad if game made it more obvious you can reduce difficulty
Recommender Score: 8/10 Great
Buttons and Bugs isn’t doing anything remarkable aside from 2 things: accessibility and sheer value at the $20 price point. But it does those things so well it has to be really shot up in recommendations. It is one of the BEST bang for buck games we’ve ever reviewed, and has a huge x-factor in having a box you can dump dozens of solo hours into while every turn means so much.
I mean come on, it’s 6 classes, 20 scenarios! And you can play those scenarios by themselves! Granted, this has an unfair advantage by just piggy-backing off of Gloomhaven’s established classes and systems, but that means that if you never wanted to shell the money initially, now you get kind of close to that combat experience at a fraction of the price- although it definitely doesn’t feel as much of a dungeon crawler, but that’s ok!
Buttons and bugs is even easier to setup than Jaws of the Lion in how small it is, but yep it’s only for single player, and so if you have a anything but that, definitely start with jaws. But if you’re just solo, you get JOTL for the deeper world building, playing scenarios 2 headed in controlling 2 classes, and the fact that your opening hands won’t always be just 4 cards, where the initial combat card options in BnB is drastically reduced from normal Gloomhaven.
But with Buttons and Bugs you get sheer speed! We joked here that if you’re good at Gloomhaven combat, you could probably finish half of the campaign of Buttons and Bugs in less time than it takes to unbox and store Frosthaven! Maybe some speed runners can test my theory one day.
No, it doesn’t have all of the fancy stuff that may keep those very invested into the bigger haven games, like branching story paths, puzzle books, tons of unlockables, secret objectives, more specific ways to spec your character… and that’s what also keeps the game so short. Funnily enough, the storyline still kind of feels like Gloomhaven in that stuff just happens and you’re along for the ride with buttons and bugs around you as you’re shrunk down in size, and you mostly just kill things whoopee! Yep, even with “kill all enemies” not being strictly every mission, a lot of them are VERY similar to that mantra.
Reduced components doesn’t take away from those cool moments of strengthening your attack, and landing that 2x modifier, it’s just now through a dice roll now. Or pulling and pushing enemies through all of the hazards and giving them your favorite negative conditions. And now, you have your B sided cards to worry about as you win the game in 9 solo turns. Though the game is so tight I’m not sure how much you’ll be long-resting, I think I only did it once throughout my campaign?
Sure, to complete the campaign you’re gonna have to play with your laptop or phone next to you for the rules, but other than that, the cons are not really that big of a deal if you know you enjoy this combat system.
I’ve already read people online trying to house rule this to work with 2 players, just because the package works so well with them. And potentially this is also because of how much tighter and demanding getting through a scenario by yourself in Buttons and bugs is!
Just like how I actually completed this small story about becoming big again (haha), this might be the Gloomhaven that you will ACTUALLY see “the end”. And you don’t have to invest an entire room to keep this game setup!
We are reaping the rewards of Cephalofair getting their cash infusion from big boxes, and now getting these fine tuned, small box games to enjoy. And for a combat system as interesting and already tight as Gloomhaven’s, condensing totally works. May this be a haven to those who want accessibility and value in their solo games, not just GH fans.
