by sedateape
Can't do Gloomhaven, but I frequently play the other two.Mage Knight: MK has growth through deckbuilding mechanics, while City of Kings has growth through direct stat/skill upgrades. MK has more locations on the map, but City of Kings will have you revisiting the same place to do different things more often. City of Kings is heavier on resource gathering/management, and has a more complex enemy generation. Positioning on the map plays a far heavier role in CoK than MK. CoK has considerably more story and structure, although I'd say MK wins out on establishing theme. Combat is deterministic for both, and both are overland adventures. I'd argue that there is more variability in character builds for MK than CoK, through the various card offers, although CoK lets you build your character more purposefully, with no random elements in character growth. CoK blows MK out of the water in terms of art and production value -the two aren't even close. In terms of gameplay, MK feels tighter and more polished. I love MK, but I don't like CoK that much.
Spirit Island: Very different from CoK. Other than the features of the overland map and asymmetric characters, I'd say these games are very dissimilar. Again, deck building mechanics for growth, with slight stat upgrades that are somewhat similar to CoK. No aspect of exploration here, or combat. While CoK may seem somewhat like an upgraded MK (though I'd argue against that), Spirit Island is very much the next step up from Pandemic.
I love puzzle-y games, and both Spirit Island and Mage Knight are frequent plays for me, but CoK didn't feel fun to me.