RPG
games are something great. They give you the chance to live a lot more lives
than you can in reality. But they have one very big draw back - they take a lot
of time. RPGs eat your time like the Cookie Monster eats...cookies!
Because of this today I will tell you about a game
that have all the exciting sides of an RPG, but it takes around 20 minutes.
This is Dungeon Raiders.
Designed of the game is Phil Walker Harding and it is published by Hamoludicus
and Pasport Game Studios.
Components
- 30 Dungeon cards
- 25 Power cards
- 24 Items cards
- 5 Heroes cards
- 5 Gold tracking cards
- 5 Purse cards
- 11 Boss monster cards
- 50 life cubes
Light the Torches, ready the Keys, whet the Swords
In the game there are 5 classes and each
one is better at something than the others. The Knight has a Sword, The Mage
has a Crystal ball, and The Barbarian is the toughest and so on. Also each
player gets 5 power cards with numbers from 1 to 5 on them, life cubes equal to
his life and marks his starting gold. When this is done you are ready for the
first floor of the Dungeon.
You kick the door and...
Dungeon Raiders remind me of Munchkin,
because of the doors at the start of each floor, but also because of its semi
co-op Dungeon crawling. The players can help each other, but they can also
trick each other. At the end there is only one winner. On other hand it reminds
me of reversed Boss Monster...wait,
this is classical RPG...forget that last sentence.
Here light, there darkness...
At each floor there will be five rooms. In the last
room at the last floor there will be a Boss Monster. Some rooms will be
"lighted", while others will be dark and unless you don't have a
torch you won't be able to know what is inside without entering. Rooms cannot
be skipped. But let’s see what happens when you enter a room. This will give
you an idea why it matters is the room lighted or dark.
When the players enter a room they play one power card
from their hand. The card is put back up in front of them, when everyone are
ready cards are revealed. According to the number on the cards different things
occur - you take an item, evade a trap or fall in it. Sometimes you will
trigger traps with risk for your life only to see how others suffer too...oh
come on, don't deny it.
The only time when players are forced to play together
is when they fight a monster. Unless you're sure of your opponents cards or
trick someone into playing low number card. After all the monsters in this
dungeon are interested only in the weaklings.
This way the game continues until you leave the
Dungeon. At this moment two things happen. First those with lowest health lose
the game. Second the one with most gold wins.
Conclusion
Let’s imagine that we open the box together. The cards.
As you probably have noticed 98% of the game is cards. And I have nothing bad
to say about them. They are made of nice paper, drawn with diligence and a bit
of humour. If you don't believe me you can ask the Skeleton playing maraca and
the Zombie doing the Moon Step. Next thing is the the Rulebook. It’s very well
done, short but instructive and detailed; containing everything you will need
to play.
From the several games that I played I have learned
that Dungeon Raiders can be played very fast and then it ends in around 15
minutes. Or very slow and deducting in which case it ends in 30 minutes. Bear
in mind that if you put your head too much into it though there is good risk of
"analysis paralysis". The game can be a lot harder than it looks at
first glance. It all really depends on how much you want to win.
But regardless of the way you play, there will be
monster fights, tension and race for treasures. Also at the end when you're the
winner there is definitely the feeling that you have achieved something.
Dungeon Raiders is great filler or even an introductory
game for fantasy fans. If I have grabbed your interest,
the links are bellow.
Links:
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