Okay, forget all the hype about Cards Against Humanity, here's a game that really hates you. This game is truly at war with its human players. This game can turn on you in the very first turn...I have seen one of my fellow treasure seekers flip a tile on his very first turn only to fall in a bottomless pit and die. On the first turn! Over! Finito! Ka-put! This game is MERCILESS and I love it for that - few other games are so fantastically evil. But, we are getting ahead of ourselves. On with the review...
The Short of It: DungeonQuest is an epic game of pushing your luck to gain the greatest horde of treasure while trying to avoid the dungeon's many perilous traps, let alone the dragon that sleeps at its centre, and racing your fellow treasure hunters to escape the labyrinth before it seals itself shut with you inside it. However, it is merciless and you can die viciously and unexpectedly at any point, but if you're up for that you'll have a great time.
The Long of It: Life is for the taking. Only the good die young. Seize the day (carpe diem). Seize the throat (carpe jugulum). Die with your boots on. Who dares wins. All those and many other sentiments (and Iron Maiden song titles) will not be enough to brace you for what's in store with DungeonQuest.
First, the mechanics: the game is very simple (mostly). On your turn you can either move or search. That's it. If you move into a previously unexplored space, you flip a dungeon tile and encounter whatever that brings (this can range from traps to chasms to bottomless pits to portcullis that seal themselves behind you - determined by different cards that are drawn to match the type of tile you have landed on). If you choose to search you draw a card from the search pile and, again, that may bring you great fortune or instant, horrible disaster.
First, the mechanics: the game is very simple (mostly). On your turn you can either move or search. That's it. If you move into a previously unexplored space, you flip a dungeon tile and encounter whatever that brings (this can range from traps to chasms to bottomless pits to portcullis that seal themselves behind you - determined by different cards that are drawn to match the type of tile you have landed on). If you choose to search you draw a card from the search pile and, again, that may bring you great fortune or instant, horrible disaster.
The aim is to progressively work your way into the centre of the dungeon where the dragon lies sleeping on top of his gleaming treasure horde. Once there it's about seeing just how far you can push your luck. On your turn you draw a dragon card, revealing whether the dragon remains asleep or comes out of his dark dreams to blaze fire in your direction.
And to add to the tension every turn the time marker progresses another space. Once it reaches a certain threshold you must roll a dice. If the dice falls within the range shown on the time space, the game instantly ends and everyone still within the dungeon is instantly dead. That's it - not even time for a burial.
And to add to the tension every turn the time marker progresses another space. Once it reaches a certain threshold you must roll a dice. If the dice falls within the range shown on the time space, the game instantly ends and everyone still within the dungeon is instantly dead. That's it - not even time for a burial.
Working your way to the centre of the dungeon is perilous and frequently requires backtracking from deadends and impassable traps, so there is another option. Entering the catacombs below the dungeon where you can travel in a straight line to pop up closer to the central horde...if you survive. The catacombs, you see, are crawling with monsters - which is yet another way to die.
So, what did the World Domination Collective make of it? Well, DungeonQuest pretty much made a meal out of us. Reasonably early into the game, Glynn came sailing through the dungeon halls quite unscathed for a while until he walked straight into a bottomless pit. Somewhere out there he is still falling. This provided endless hilarity at his expense, for which we were all thoroughly appreciative. Then it was Andrea's turn. He walked into a giant spider's web. Finally breaking free he ran screaming out of the room only to have his torch blow out. Disoriented in total blackness, he lost track of his bearings and ran straight back into the spider's web. Only to break free and have his torch blow out again. Wash, rinse, repeat. It was AWESOME!
The dungeon was proving so brutal I decided to chance my hand in the catacombs underground. How bad could it be? I was doing alright too until I got bitten by a vampire! Each turn I lost health. I even made it to the centre of the board, took some treasure from the dragon and turned around to make haste for the exit, a beer at a tavern somewhere and a healer. I almost made it too, but the curse of the vampire drained me of my last drop of blood just as I made it to the final square before the dungeon exit. My shrunken corpose lies there still, reaching for the so close but yet so far sunlight that would have saved me. Blaine, the final member of the party was the wisest of us all - as we began to drop like flies he turned tail and ran. He never got to the dragoon's horde but he did get out alive and in DungeonQuest that alone proved to be sufficient to win the game.
It's not for the faint hearted. There will be blood on the floor and most of you will die - but they will be such glorious deaths. I couldn't recommend this game more - but only to those with the stomach for it. Do not play with anyone who takes themselves too seriously or has not learned to lose graciously...then again, it could be the very thing they need. Enjoy. We sure did.
(Note: Fantasy Flight Games are just about to release a revised and updated version of the game that streamlines it even further. You can keep an eye on its progress here).