I don’t actually like dungeons, or the crawling thereof. Broadly talking, I discover the method to be fiddly and component-reliant, with extra time dedicated to working the dungeon than taking part in your flip.
I additionally suppose the time period “dungeon”, no less than in board video games, has turn out to be unhelpfully broad. The phrase has taken on a lifetime of its personal, to the purpose the place the “dungeons” being crawled in board video games extra carefully resemble scavenger hunts than precise dungeons, filled with hidden trinkets and treasures.
Dungeon Legends is just not going to quell my irritation on that time—the truth is, it includes a whopping zero dungeons. That mentioned, it’s additionally much more minimalistic than your typical dungeon sport, and also you don’t actually crawl round in them. However is that sufficient to win me over?
Dungeon Legends is a cooperative tower-defense-ish card sport for 1-4 gamers. It performs in round 45-90 minutes, and performs effectively in any respect participant counts.
Gameplay Overview:
Dungeon Legends is loosely structured right into a five-chapter marketing campaign (though every chapter could be performed by itself), and every situation has the identical fundamental setup. Gamers begin out clustered round their fort, and over the course of the sport, monsters will come out and advance their means in direction of it. If even a single monster reaches the fort, gamers instantly lose the sport.
Every participant controls a hero, primarily represented by a deck of motion playing cards. Playing cards can present quite a lot of completely different actions, comparable to attacking the monster in your present house, shifting to an adjoining house, or producing Mud. After your flip ends, you reveal a brand new card from the sport deck, which might both alter the sport state by way of one-off occasions or add new monsters to the monitor.
Monsters are defeated and discarded by dealing harm equal to their well being. When that occurs, the defeating participant will get some reward–normally, a brand new superior motion card so as to add to their deck. These playing cards are a lot stronger than your beginning playing cards and even have an extra-powerful motion, which could be activated by spending Mud.
Whereas killing monsters makes heroes stronger, it doesn’t do something to win the sport. As a substitute, every chapter has a novel goal tied to that chapter’s places. Places are randomized on the monitor throughout setup, and every has a novel motion that heroes can take when at that location. Some present extra assaults or power-ups, however some are used to progress within the situation, like filling a bucket with water to place out a raging hearth. Gamers win if they’ll obtain the chapter-specific goal earlier than time runs out.
Recreation Expertise:
Regardless of the rulebook could let you know, Dungeon Legends is NOT a marketing campaign sport. The connective story between chapters is paper-thin, and the mechanical adjustments for the marketing campaign are nearly equivalent to the way you play situations on their very own. This might not be a detrimental for people who find themselves bored with campaigns, however you need to come into the sport realizing it’s meant for one-off play.
In that area of interest, although, Dungeon Legends is plenty of enjoyable. Regardless of its dungeon-crawl appearances, the sport is admittedly a mixture of tower protection and finishing goals, and people two halves play off one another very well. Gamers must kill monsters to keep away from dropping, and it’s a crucial course of to improve your deck, however you must ignore them to some extent to truly win the sport. You by no means really feel like you could have sufficient time to each maintain off the invading hordes and full the chapter targets, which ends up in enjoyable tradeoffs and stress.
The mechanisms encourage an excellent quantity of cooperation too, because of how deck-building is tied to killing monsters. Gamers will specialize in direction of sure roles, however everybody must kill some monsters to earn these superior actions, so there may be plenty of dialogue round who ought to tackle which monsters.
Dungeon Legends additionally deserves credit score for the way accessible it’s. There are plenty of elements right here, however none of them are notably complicated; the cardboard play and deck-building are easy, the monsters can principally be boiled down to some fundamental values, and there are solely six places to think about in anybody chapter, which retains issues from being too overwhelming. The 5 chapters additionally discover plenty of flexibility in that framework. Every chapter feels very completely different from the others, and the way in which the places work together with one another and the remainder of the sport is at all times altering. The mechanisms are maybe too easy and repetitive for “seasoned” avid gamers to be drawn to, however it’s an ideal weight as an entry-level co-op…
…or it might be, till you take a look at its rulebook. For such a easy sport, the foundations are a number of the worst I’ve learn in a very long time, with a number of essential ideas both under-explained or separated into piecemeal chunks of clarification. The precise actions aren’t even defined in any respect, apart from a reference on the final web page of the marketing campaign e book itself. It’s so dangerous that I wouldn’t truly suggest it for individuals new to the passion, until they’re being taught by another person.
Ultimate Ideas:
Dungeon Legends is an especially strong family-weight co-op sport, and a very good entry level into board gaming at giant. There are plenty of little mechanisms current, however none are overly sophisticated or complicated, and so they all work together in fascinating methods. It’s a surprisingly mild sport with out feeling insubstantial, and there may be sufficient replay worth amongst its chapters to maintain a sport group coming again to it many times. Sadly, the foundations make it a a lot more durable promote, and the simplicity of the mechanisms makes it much less interesting for individuals used to dangerous rulebooks.
Ultimate Rating: 3.5 Stars–A fantastic entry-level tower protection sport with some damaging guidelines points.
Hits:
• Attractive and considerate manufacturing
• Enjoyable interactions between tower protection and goals
• Excellent for much less skilled teams…
Misses:
• …Aside from the rulebook
• Marketing campaign is mild at greatest
• A bit too easy for extra skilled teams
