This is a review from a group of casual gamers who meet weekly to play games, and are relatively new to narrative-based games.
Intro
If you like campaign games with a fantastical, narrative-driven story involving quests, adventures, and stunning visuals, this game might be for you.
General Setup
Imagine minding your own business with your crew before hitting a storm and spiralling through a portal, leaving you stranded, lost, and confused. To make matters worse, you are now forced by mysterious powers to collect totems while exploring an unknown world populated by strange and cryptic people, chaotic places, wild terrain, and—last and certainly least—giant monsters who mostly want to kill you.
Sleeping Gods is, at its heart, an adventure story. Mechanically, it is a narrative-based campaign game. It comes with a 170-page storybook filled with detailed stories, quests, and rich world-building that allows you to explore its many realms. Your captain guides you as you and your crew begin to uncover the locations marked on the map.
Playing the Game
You play using a spiral-bound atlas, with each spread showing a section of the world. The game begins by offering small hints to ease you into exploration, while introducing the setting, mechanics, and rules.
You are encouraged to complete quests, which carry the narrative forward. Successfully completing them rewards you with keyword cards. As you collect keywords, you feel encouraged to explore further, making the world larger and more complex—and giving you even more to discover. Some quests feel more relevant than others.
You have a great deal of freedom in where you go. The world is vast and continues to deepen as you play, with countless numbered locations to explore. From dark caves to weavers’ cottages, sprawling cities to chaotic markets, each site presents a short story and a set of choices. Some are free, while others come at a cost. As a co-op game, you must decide together what risks to take.
Some members of our group loved this open-ended design (myself included), while others found it frustrating and somewhat aimless. The fantasy nerd in me loved it—stories, worlds, and maps are my thing.
Expect many skill checks throughout the game. One positive aspect is that failing a test rarely blocks the story. Instead, something bad may happen, but even negative outcomes move the narrative forward and can lead to fascinating alternative paths.
The map itself feels mystical. Players weave through mist and mountains, uncovering totems, standing stones, and green isles. For me, this evoked a strong sense of adventure. The game encourages you to collect totems, but the reasons are unclear and their locations even more so. You will need to explore widely and make many decisions.
Sleeping Gods is a true co-op experience. Decisions are driven by story snippets, and cooperation is essential. You spend most of the game on your boat, moving around it to take different actions. Our group enjoyed this system, as it helped each turn feel different.
You will also find many items throughout the game—not just totems, but plenty of useful equipment. Unlike many games, you do not need to limit what you carry. After all, you have an entire boat to store your gear.
Speaking of the boat, it constantly needs repairs. Expect to spend time patching planks, bartering for supplies, and dodging overly persistent sea serpents.
After several rounds, scripted events trigger battles against elements of the god that stranded you in this world. These fights become increasingly difficult as the campaign progresses. The ending was… well, we’ll let you discover that for yourself.
The Combat
Sleeping Gods uses a very unique combat system. It combines skill checks with items and weapons found during the campaign. Wounds are placed on a grid representing body parts, including hearts and special abilities that differ for each monster.
Combat is especially interesting because players must place wounds strategically to help the next person. Defeating a monster takes several rounds and requires teamwork. Another notable feature is that damage “splatter” from one monster can harm another nearby, depending on wound placement.
Although combat was challenging, it was genuinely cooperative. It is impossible to defeat a monster alone—everyone must contribute.
Game Ending
This is a narrative game shaped by countless small decisions, so it is no surprise that there is more than one ending. In fact, there are 13 possible outcomes.
Thoughts on Narrative Structure, Replayability, Combat, and the Ending
Overall, the cooperative nature of the game was excellent. We truly made group decisions about where to go, which options to choose, and how to respond to threats. Every new keyword or object required consultation and discussion, often ending in majority votes.
For fans of cooperative storytelling games, this will be a strong selling point.
The Storyline
We enjoyed the story, and each session left us wanting to know more. The storybook is extremely well produced, and we were impressed by the effort that went into it.
However, the overall narrative is very long and requires significant campaign time. As casual players who could only meet once a week, the game stretched across several months. Some members enjoyed this scale, while others grew fatigued. If you cannot fully invest in the story, it may feel like a very long commitment.
The game also relies heavily on creativity and open-ended choices, which is not for everyone. One member of our group struggled to engage, as he was unused to narrative-driven games and found it difficult to become invested in story-based decisions.
Aside from the general push to collect totems, the game allows you to explore freely. If you prefer tightly structured systems with clear, strategic objectives, this may not suit you.
That said, the world-building is exceptional. It is one of the game’s greatest strengths. For fans of adventure and portal fantasy, this is a standout experience. The atlas is beautifully illustrated, and the world feels vast and alive. The game successfully captures what it might feel like to be dropped into an unfamiliar world with unknown rules and hidden dangers.
Combat
Combat was perhaps our favourite element. Its grid system is unlike anything we had encountered before and balances strategy with cooperation in a distinctive way. We enjoyed the “realistic” feel of damage spreading between nearby monsters.
One caveat is balance. At times, monsters felt disproportionately strong. Their attacks could seriously injure us far more easily than we could harm them. Combat sometimes felt unfair—though perhaps that is fitting when facing giant, god-like creatures.
Another major issue was length. If combat occurred on your turn, it could easily still be your turn 45 minutes later.
Replayability
The game is marketed as highly replayable, particularly due to its 13 endings. Your first ending naturally encourages another playthrough, and you retain collected totems, giving you a stronger starting position.
However, the sheer time investment leading to a mediocre ending can be demotivating. For us, this was a significant drawback. As casual players with young children and busy schedules, our time is limited. So far, we have not prioritised replaying, though we hope to return to it eventually.
The Ending
Our ending was moderately good. It was not disappointing, but the emotional payoff felt limited. While it is nice that progress carries over, we questioned whether the final result justified the many hours invested.
As players relatively new to narrative-heavy games, we expected more from the conclusion.
That said, the game remains intriguing enough that we will likely be tempted to replay it in the future.
Scores:
Score out of 100: 70
Artwork - 5
Complexity - 3.5
Replayability - 4
Player interaction - 4
Component quality - 5
Likes:
The storyline and storybook
The gorgeous artwork
The rich worldbuilding and adventure aspect
The unique system of combat
The total co-op nature of the game
Dislikes:
The lengthy time commitment to complete a full campaign
When monsters fought back, they felt overpowered
Combat turns were long
Impossible to explore the whole map in a single campaign
Our ending, which felt unsatisfying
