Preview: Dungeon Roll by Tasty Minstrel Games

6 Notes

When it comes to decision making on purchases, I run it through the following filter questions:

Does it have Dice?
Does it have a Fantasy Theme?
Is it a Burrito?

Dungeon Roll, a game by Chris Darden and published by Tasty Minstrel Games, is a quick and easy dungeon crawl. The game is currently on Kickstarter, and has not only funded, but has reached a stretch goal (at the time of this review). I’ll spoil the review: back this project. This game is definitely worth your 15 bucks.

And as a bonus, Dungeon Roll encompasses 67% of my life long loves: Dice and Fantasy Themes! And I won’t hold back on this review, based on the absence of burritos. But rest assured, good reader, that I ate a burrito prior to this preview.

Much like other push your luck type games, Dungeon Roll takes that mechanism and drops it right in the middle of a dungeon crawl game…as it should be. A lot of times, this whole luck pushing gets a bad rap. But don’t let this deter you. The luck in this game is what makes it so endearing, and frankly, rather addicting. Why shouldn’t it be? You’re risking it all to loot a treasure, or risking it all to delve deeper, into potentially a dicey situation. HA! Get it? See what I did there?

The dungeon crawl (roll?) lays out like this: as a hero, like a Paladin, lead a party of troops through a dungeon. Your party is determined by tossing out 7 dice, each die bearing a mark of a typical fantasy rpg-type of party: Champion, Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Thief. There’s another polymorph face on the die as well. And the dungeon is determined by a separate set of dice, all bearing similar rpg-type marks: dragons, goblins, skeletons, oozes, treasure chests, and potions.

Once all the dice are rolled, you use any one of your party members to fight agains any potential monsters rolled. But be careful! Certain monsters can only be defeated by certain party members! For instance, the Mage can only defeat one Goblin, one Skeleton, or any number of Oozes. So, if you roll two oozes and one mage, your Mage die will defeat both of the oozes, there by placing all three dice into the graveyard, left to be untouched until the end of your turn. The Mage can be retrieved with the polymorph die face…so it isn’t lost forever.

And you begin to start pushing your luck when you discover you rolled a treasure chest icon: loot the treasure and you permanently lose the chance that you could at all get any experience points in the next dungeon levels..choose to not loot the treasure and you could run into the Dragon! Aaaah!

I won’t exhaust all of the rules here…in fact, let Michael Mindes tell you about how to play it here:

In all, this game is absolutely fabulously fun. It contains all of the fun elements of a RPG / dungeon crawl, and condenses it into a 20 minute game. I even played this solo and really enjoyed myself. Chucking tons of dice, fighting monsters, leveling up heroes…what’s not to like? While I can’t review the components based on my preview prototype, I can confidently say that based on the renderings on the Kickstarter site, it’s going to be delicious. And made by the same folks that cranked out Martian Dice? I know this will be crazy great quality.

I really dig the push-yer-luck thematic elements, especially when deciding to loot the treasure and prematurely ending your turn. Do it too much, and your opponents may be able to delve deeper into the dungeon and grab just a few more XP to outsmart and outclass you. It’s a race for points, and a race for posterity. If you liked Martian Dice, you’ll definitely like this. If you love a good dungeon crawl but don’t want to invest the ridiculous time to jump into one, this is definitely for you. Can’t wait to get this game out on the table during my work lunch-hour! (If someone comes up with a fantasy burrito with diced meat, let me know…I’m in)

I was blessed with getting a prototype from Tasty Minstrel, and grateful they chose me to write up a preview. Thanks! Please go to the Kickstarter page and submit your pledge. You know this is going to be a fabulous game!