Dungeon Raiders. In underground corridors. Board game Dungeon Raiders Dungeon raiders board game

Today in the board game Dungeon Raiders we will go into a dungeon full of treacherous traps, hungry monsters and other dangers.

Up to five people can play, and it is advisable that the number of players be at least four, otherwise the feeling of competition and enthusiasm will disappear. Read more detailed rules of the game in the corresponding section.

Dungeon Raiders is a simple and fun underground adventure game for up to five people, which will take an average of 20 minutes to play. Not You should expect depth and complexity from it. It is intended more for a fun get-together with friends. Graphic design board game not for everyone. The illustrations cannot decide whether to be a full-fledged parody or not.

Dungeon Raiders managed to get the title of best board game in Australia in 2013. In general, it clearly lacks stars from the sky, but it will bring you some fun and memorable games.

Rules of the board game Dungeon Raiders

Preparation

As you can see from the cover, the game is quite stereotypical and a bit of a parody. Each player chooses or receives his own game character: warrior, thief, wizard, knight and explorer. By the way, this is already the second edition of this board game and compared to the first, the design in it is not so stubborn.

Preparing for the game takes up three of the thirteen pages of rules, which include detailed examples and illustrations.

A dungeon deck is formed, some of which will be open, some of which will be closed. One random boss is placed under the deck. This deck is divided into five piles, closed with doors. All other items are sorted by type.

Each character has a certain amount of health. There may be starting items, and he also has a starting amount of gold, which is displayed here in an interesting way using two cards. Each player is also given five power cards from one to five.

Dungeon entrance

Once everyone is ready, it's time to enter the dungeon. The first door opens and all the cards from under it are placed in a row, as they were. Some things are immediately visible, and some are not. In game terminology, this is called a Level Row, which consists of five rooms.

Players will progress through the dungeon through levels, each level sequentially opening room by room. If there is a hole card in front of you, opening it you can find out how useful items, and terrible goblins!

Depending on what is there, players choose one of the cards from their hand and place it face down in front of them. Then, as you might guess, they open and then everything depends on the type of room. In the treasure room, the player with the highest value receives treasure from the most valuable chest and shares it if there is a tie.

• If there is a second chest in the room, its contents will be pocketed by those in second place, etc.
• If there is a monster in the room, players add up their strength and add it to the monster's strength based on the number of players.
• If there are few heroes in the dungeon, then the monsters begin to succumb. If the heroes have enough strength to defeat the monster, it becomes defeated and you can move on.

If not, the monster attacks the hero who dealt him the least damage, and then happily runs away, apparently he is not afraid of getting hit back from such a weakling.

Traps

Rooms with traps have separate rules, which can pose a danger to the richest, most tenacious, or even all the heroes. But they still work based on the cards everyone has played, so be prepared for the fact that someone will definitely activate a trap that can harm you.

In caches, participants receive what is indicated under the number of the card they played.

Difficulty of choice

Everything in the game is very simple, although there are also difficulties. Five rooms on each floor, five cards in hand each round. It's up to you to decide whether to play a five for a guaranteed victory over the monster, or to get punched in the face by it, but save a powerful card in case of dividing up the treasure.

Special cards will come to the rescue, which not only are added to the basic five, but also have special useful properties. But like all good things, they come to an end quickly.

Bosses

Once players have completed an entire level, they return all five cards to their hand and then reveal the next one. As in any self-respecting role-playing dungeon, a boss awaits the participants in the very last room of the last level. There are as many as 11 of them here and each of them, in addition great strength also has special property, most often unpleasant.

If you defeat the boss, check your health, because the weakest player loses consciousness and is eliminated from the game. However, characters run the risk of not even surviving to fight the boss, having received enough damage earlier.

Determination of the winner

Then, as expected, everyone counts the gold. Whoever dug the most out of the dungeon wins.

At the end of the book there are not very interesting rules for two players; after all, the game offers a noisy sociable mood, and not meditative gatherings in pairs.

The tactical option seems more interesting. In this case, players will not play cards face down, but openly and in turns, which will really add to the tactics. But the game feels completely different.

Photo of a board game

Still, how strongly people are drawn to get into a dark dungeon. Although it is scary there because of the hordes of toothy monsters roaming the labyrinthine corridors, smelling of dampness, fear is nothing, and the thirst for adventure is everything (the motto of all adventurers). And if you get some gold in the depths of the dungeon, it was a great time, as any hero who can’t sit at home will say. How many games have already been invented about descending into a dungeon! Hundreds, probably, if not thousands.

I'll tell you a secret - I love dungeon games. I like the feeling of anxiety when you don’t know what awaits you around the corner and whether the precious chest you find will turn out to be a trap. And what a cool dungeon monster buster! Here you will find goblins, skeletons, zombies, bats, vampires, and dragons of all stripes.

Today I want to tell you about one of these games. It's called Dungeon Raiders. Earlier this year, a chain of board game stores GaGaGames released this interesting dungeon game in Russian. It is this localization that will be discussed in this review.

Cards are the head of everything

I've long had a weakness for card games. I'm interested in how seemingly simple cards turn into ships, planes, weapons, tunnels, monsters, heroes, etc. Dungeon Raiders(DR) consists entirely of cards - power cards, dungeon cards, items, characters, treasures, bosses, etc.

I’ll tell you a little more about each type of card:

1) Dungeon Maps.

Players will have to go down into the dungeon to find a bunch of treasures there. The dungeon is divided into 5 levels, each of which is closed by a door. Before playing, all these levels must be prepared in advance. To do this, all the dungeon cards are shuffled, 6 cards are put into the box, half of the remaining cards are turned face up, the deck is shuffled again, and then all the cards are laid out on the table in 5 piles. To begin your journey through the dark tunnels, just take the first pile and place all the cards from this pile in a row. Some cards will be open because... When we prepared the deck, we turned over half the cards, and we can see part of what awaits us at this level.

On dungeon maps you may find: monsters(you have to fight them) traps(you need to dodge them). hidden treasures(they need to be collected) hiding places(they buy useful things there).

2) Power Cards.

Behind such a loud name there are only cards with numbers from 1 to 5. Each player takes one card of each denomination. When players enter a room (i.e. look at the leftmost map of the level), they are required to play one power card face down. When all players have completed this simple action, the power cards are turned over and the property of the room is played out.

If there was a treasure in the room, then the player who played the most gets it. large map strength.

If there was a monster hiding in the room, then players must kill it by adding all the numerical values ​​of the power cards together to score a certain number of points needed to win. If the monster is not killed, it deals damage to the player who played the weakest power card. If the monster is defeated, then the happy heroes advance further in the level.

If players get into a room with a trap, then one or more players suffer losses based on the conditions of the trap. For example, if power cards with a three are played in a room with a spike trap, all players will lose 1 health unit. If a deuce is played - 2 health. And if there is only one, then everyone will lose half of their lives.

Sometimes there are hiding places in the rooms. On the cache cards it is written for which power card played the player receives specific map subject. For example, I played 4 and received a wonderful new sword.

3) Item cards.

These are the very items that you can get hold of in a cache. All items have unique properties that can be used while wandering around the dungeon. Items are disposable and are discarded after use.

Torch allows the player to peek at all the level cards that are laid out face down..

crystal ball allows the player to first see the opponents' power cards that they have laid out on the table, and then decide which power card to play himself.

Key is a replacement for the power 5 card, but it is only played in the treasure room.

Sword is also a replacement for the five, but it is played purely in the room with the monster.

4) Character Cards.

As you probably already know, heroes who wander through dungeons must belong to some profession or occupation. In Game Dungeon Raiders Before starting the game, players each take one character card, which includes researcher, knight, warrior, thief And wizard. But the characters differ not only in name and picture on the card - they have different amounts of both starting health (from 8 to 10), as well as coins and item cards.

5) Treasure counting cards + sack cards.

These cards replace the coins/tokens/tokens/scoring fields familiar to tabletop players. It's great that only 2 regular-sized cards allow you to count the coins earned by players.

6) Boss cards.

Can a dungeon exist without a huge, powerful, roaring, fire-blazing boss? So I’m sure it can’t. Monsters are monsters, but there must be a boss! And there is one, just one, at the very end of the fifth level. One randomly selected boss card is placed at the bottom of the deck of level five cards. Essentially, bosses are the same monsters, only they have more health and can influence players with curses.

So the DR gameplay is something like this:

We take the level cards and lay them out in a row. We begin to deal with the leftmost card of the row. To deal with the dungeon map, you need power cards, which players secretly select from their hand. The selected cards are revealed and players resolve the properties of the dungeon card. We've dealt with one dungeon map, let's move on to the next one. If you run out of cards of the first level, lay out the cards of the second. If the player character's health drops to zero, he is considered dead and is eliminated from the game. When the fifth level is completed with the boss being taken out feet first, players count the number of lives remaining. Whoever has the fewest of them loses consciousness from lost blood and is eliminated from the game. The one remaining who has the most treasures wins the game.

Is the player a friend or an enemy?

I’m really tempted to write as soon as possible about what a wonderful filler this is. And I will write! Dungeon Raiders- the game is cool.

In this game, for me, the most interesting idea is that the game is actually semi-cooperative, because despite the fact that you need to beat the monster together and you need to give it your all, someone can play tricks, leaving best cards strength for later. I haven't seen this in other games yet.

I will try to explain the above with an example. You and your friends end up on new level and you see that there are 2 dangerous monsters and 2 treasures lying open, and the chests with gold are very profitable and everyone wants to get the biggest one. Naturally, you also want to collect more treasures, because they will bring you closer to victory. So you decide to keep the 4 and 5 power cards for treasure. But the monsters in the level are quite strong, and to defeat them players must play their best high cards. If someone plays one, it’s a lost cause. Therefore, when four players give all their strength to fight the dragon and because of one greedy one of the players is forced to take damage from the monster, then the greedy will be branded and showered with curses. Therefore, on the one hand, you want to selfishly grab more treasures in order to win, but on the other hand, you need to play as a team, because if someone leaves the game, it will be difficult to continue playing. It is quite possible that in this case no one will get to the boss at all.

Aaaand... the slug has won!

It’s this kind of brain gap between treasures and monsters with traps that gives me tremendous pleasure, because if you help the team out in a battle with a monster, you can be left without coins, and if you don’t help, then a trip to the dungeon can end sadly for all players.

Dungeon Raiders(DR) It reminded me of games with an auction, but it’s not a fact that if you win the auction, you will be able to reach the end of the game.

DR can be played with 3 to 5 players. The more players at the table, the more interesting and fun the gameplay is. At least, these are my personal impressions. It’s best to go into a dungeon with five people, because the monsters will be the healthiest and it will be quite difficult to defeat them, especially if the players play the role of a swan, crayfish and pike from Krylov’s fable.

The design of the game is comic and humorous. Looking at the cards, you immediately get into a positive mood, relax and play for fun. I think that such a game can be easily played with children - the art will be just right for them.

Probably, some of you have already noticed that the theme, doors, and monsters of DR can be compared to the great and terrible munchkin. Indeed, there is some similarity, but at the same time in terms of gameplay this is perfect different games. DR is still more of a board game than the board game Full House under the leadership of Steve Jackson. If Munchkin- this is mostly ridicule role playing games(in some way Rabelaisianism), then DR is a board game with a clear game mechanism and exciting gameplay. Personally, I find playing DR much more interesting.

The game's card nature adds additional spice to the game. Those. the game itself consists entirely of cards that perform a variety of functions. To me, as an amateur card games I really like this format. In addition, the game looks compact on the table and does not take up too much space.

I would like to say a little about the quality of localization, especially since I have something to compare it with (I mean the original edition). In general, GagI turned out to be a game of good quality - the box, the separator, the tokens in the bag - all this does not raise any complaints. But it’s still better to put the cards in protectors, because after several games they will begin to wear out, after which the mystery of “closed” doors may disappear. Plastic red cubes have been replaced with cardboard round tokens. It's an acquired taste, depending on who you like. And it also caught my eye that on two sides of the box it is written that the game is from 2 to 5 players, and on the other two, that from 3 to 5. It’s not significant, but still the proofreader missed this matter.

Original cubes, localized round tokens

Inside the original box is another organizer

GaGa Well done for choosing a board game to start your publishing career Dungeon Raiders. This game is an excellent fun filler that was unfairly deprived of the board game market in the post-Soviet space, which is why some board game fans were forced to make PnP versions. Now the game can be easily bought in Russia (and in Belarus too). The game is language-independent, easy to understand, and humorous. Emotions during the game are off the charts, passions are in full swing, treasures are piling up, bosses are intimidating in size, but this only inspires real heroes to heroic deeds.

3 finalists of the Mister Dungeon competition

I understand that I need to say about some shortcomings of the game, but somehow I haven’t discovered any obvious disadvantages yet. Except that the replay value of the board game is not very high, since almost all the cards can be sorted out in one game, and after a dozen or two games the game can begin to bore you with the same traps and monsters. But it seems to me that you shouldn’t expect high replayability from a filler. And in this form the game is good. I advise all fans of fillers and “munchkin” games to pay attention to it.

And I want to congratulate GaGa on an excellent start to her publishing career!

A game Dungeon Raiders provided for review chain of board game stores"GaGa.ru"

Description

"Dungeon Raiders" invites you to go on an exciting and action-packed adventure through dungeons in search of treasure! Five brave heroes: Explorer, Knight, Warrior, Thief and Wizard challenge fate and go on the path of adventurers! They pursue one goal - to profit from treasures. Where can I get them? Of course, in old and abandoned dungeons, full of dangers, scary monsters, deadly traps and cunning hiding places!

All the heroes go to the dungeon together, and fight monsters together - after all, it’s not enough just to find chests of gold, you also have to get back alive... But leaning on your neighbor’s shoulder should be done with caution, because everyone is pursuing only their own interests! Who will slack in the battle with monsters? How will the treasures found be distributed? Who will set you up in a room with traps? You can't trust anyone! Test your cunning, courage and bravery with Dungeon Raiders!

Game process

At the beginning of the game, each player receives a character, each of which is unique and starts with a different set of cards and characteristics: the number of health points, treasures and a set of special cards. If the character's health drops to zero, the player is eliminated from the competition.

The goal of the game is to go through all five floors of the dungeon, each of which consists of five rooms, and take out as much treasure as possible. At the very end, an epic battle with the dungeon boss awaits you! Most of the rooms are initially hidden, and you cannot know what awaits you.

The gameplay is quite simple and is divided into four phases:

• Entering the room - players move through a series of card rooms and get acquainted with the environment
• Playing power cards is the heart of the game! In each room, players will make closed bets using power cards with a value from 1 to 5. It turns out that for one floor of the dungeon you will just spend your set, and then restore it on the next floor. If you live... The higher the denomination, the higher its power and effect. You have to think in advance where and what bets will bring the greatest benefit! Here you need to show composure and a sharp mind
• The room effect is triggered - players look at the result of their bets, which will depend on which room it happened in
• Room reset - the played dungeon card is discarded, and the party moves further into the dungeon until it reaches the boss!

Among the rooms there may be four types of premises:

Treasure - Here the player with the highest value on the power card receives treasure! Chests come in different values, there can be several of them, then the fight is for different chests. In a dispute, players will have to divide the treasure among themselves;

• Room with a monster - all players try to defeat the monster by adding up the strength of their cards. If the amount from the cards is greater than or equal to the health of the monster, then it will be defeated. If there is less, then the monster attacks the player who played the card with the lowest value. That player takes the damage shown on the monster card. During an argument, multiple players will receive this damage
• Room with a trap - there are four types of traps: magnetic, with cobblestones, lava and with spikes. Some traps only harm players with maximum number treasures or health points, while others harm everyone at once! Whether the trap will work or not depends on which cards were played in this room. For example, if in a lava trap smallest map is a three, then everyone loses one treasure. If it’s a two, then there are two treasures, and if it’s a one, then there are three!
• Stash – These rooms are very useful and make the game easier. Allows you to get treasures, improve your health, or purchase Torch, Crystal Ball, Key or Sword cards. The torch allows you to view closed room cards, and other items are valued as a card with a value of 5, but only in certain rooms, for example, a sword is only in a room with a monster.

Players always know which cards have been spent and who, evaluate their chances of winning the auction, plan actions depending on the types of rooms, try to make the most effective moves and, of course, hope for luck a little!

Who has won?

The game continues until you reach the boss and defeat him, or all but one player dies. In the first case, the player with the most treasures wins, and the player with the fewest life points does not take part in the calculation at all, that is, he is eliminated from the game! Try to be not only rich, but also healthy.

Game Features

Here is an easy to learn and crazy interesting game about conquering dungeons with exciting betting mechanics! Among other things, the game offers you a difficulty level setting, the ability to play with two players (with a small change to the basic rules), as well as special tactical rules that will completely change the gameplay and add even more calculation to it!

A little about my introduction to the game .

I have been familiar with this game, but under the foreign name "Dungeon raiders", for a long time. I bought the first edition on German Amazon with a different design, which you can judge from the photo from boardgamegeek.com:

The design was quite simple, cartoonish. Some liked it, some didn't, but on average it was rated as normal.

Regarding the gameplay, again, the reviews were moderate; no one offered a second game immediately after the first. Personally, I’m guilty of cards with English text, the properties of which only I knew for sure (even though I translated them out loud all the time).

It was because of the moderation in the assessments of my gaming partners that I had to sell the game (and I advise everyone to do so - keep only the best in your collection).

But let's return to the second edition...

What is inside?

The box has doubled in size compared to the first edition. The first change that catches your eye is the appearance of life tokens. Very tight and comfortable, by the way.

The general style has changed, as they say, categorically. Beauty flows from every card. Undoubtedly, this made the game look richer and tastier (again, according to a survey of players).

The method of calculating gold has not changed since the first version. There are two cards: “Ladder” and “bag”. Using the second card, we cover the first one so that the last one can see the number of coins that the hero currently owns. If there are more than 10 coins, then we turn over the card with the bag, and “+10” is already drawn there. It's simple.

The heroes will not differ from each other in terms of their properties in the game, but everyone has a different starting set: some have more money, some have more lives, and some are given additional one-time action cards.

A standard set of action cards for each player. The number on the card displays the hero's action power.

One-time action cards. The torch allows you to view dark cards, the sword can be played in battle with a monster, the key is played when dividing treasures, and the crystal ball allows you to predict the actions of other heroes.

This is the set the player gets before the start of the game: a character and lives on it, a bag of money and action cards in his hand.

The photo above shows maps of the rooms that our heroes will encounter. There are traps, chests, monsters, and useful warehouses. It is unknown what will happen and when. Sometimes, you can find out about the contents of a room when you already enter it.

But these cards were not in the first edition. There are boss cards in front of you. One such boss is selected for each game, which adds variety to the game. The strength of the bosses varies from exorbitant to quite standard, but the unique properties will not let you relax.

How to play?

Adventure players will have an unforgettable experience visiting the dungeon. =) The main task of each of them is to collect as much treasure as possible without dying. In one game you will have to go through 5 levels, each of which will have 5 rooms.

Some rooms will be open, some will be turned upside down. Hidden rooms will open when the heroes reach it, not earlier. For the curious, there is a way to spy on the room in advance (play a torch card at any time during the game). We will enter the rooms sequentially, from left to right. As we can see in the example, the first thing we are greeted with is a chest with 4 treasures.

To take the treasure for yourself, you need to play an action card from your hand with the highest possible value. Players play action cards at the same time - they put them face down on the table, and then turn them over one-two-three (this is how cards are played for all(!) rooms). In this photo example, the player who played five counts 4 treasures for himself.
Important!Played cards do not return to your hand until the next level.



When dividing treasures, you can use a special key card (if you have one). It's disposable, but it's a five and saves the card in your hand. In the example, two adventurers need to divide the contents of a large chest in half between them, and the one who plays one takes one treasure from the small chest without hindrance.

If there is a creature or monster in the room, the adventurers will have to fight it. To win, you need to put in a certain amount of effort, expressed in action cards. In this example, it is necessary for 3 players to gain 8 strength in total, but they did not succeed, so the snake stings for 3 lives the one who gave the least of all (who put in one).

During the battle, you can play a sword card from your hand; it replaces the five. There is also such a tricky card as a crystal ball. It allows you to see what other players have played and then play whatever you want. For example, in the example above, we can save a five by playing a four and defeating the monster.

There are also hiding places in dungeons where you can replenish lives, get some treasures, or get hold of special items (item cards). It doesn’t matter who takes what, if there are cards in stock, there will be enough for everyone.

The most brutal rooms this game has are the trap cards. Here the richest lose money, the most resilient lose their lives, and sometimes everyone loses something together. The condition for successful activation is action cards. Basically, the condition looks like this: “For a trap to work and take something away from someone, you need at least one played... (one, two, three, etc.).” Moreover, the degree of damage depends on the smallest or largest card played. Here is an example - a trap with spikes. If at least someone plays a three, then all players will lose one life, a two - 2 lives, a one - they will lose half their lives.

At the end of the path the boss is waiting for us. You can play two cards on it at once. Each boss has its own properties (for example, crystal balls can be successfully played against the Sphinx). Otherwise they are no different from monsters.

After players have completed all 5 levels, they begin counting points. But first, the weakest adventurer (who has the fewest lives) will have to be excluded from the calculation. So even if you are at least three times rich, but weak, this is obviously a loss. The richest survivor wins.

Impression.
“It’s like we’re going together, but we’ll count the gold separately.” This is the slogan of the Dungeon Raiders game. =) You are wandering around in the company of enemies who are trying to do dirty tricks on you and won’t even cry if you don’t get to the finish line. The battle with monsters goes on like this, as long as you don’t get hurt yourself. The author of the game came up with an excellent rule that the monster beats the laziest. =) For me, it is more logical to interpret the meeting with the monster this way: whoever ran away faster was not touched. And the slow one was caught and beaten.

Grab some gold or save a strong card for battle? There is no definite answer, you need to maintain a balance. There are only 5 cards per level, but every turn is a serious dilemma for the player. Be as healthy and as rich as possible. The healthiest and richest will happen, believe me, in exceptional cases. And even if it works out, there are so many cards to change this status that you won’t have to relax.

Passion, approximate calculation of the situation, constant making of vital decisions - this is the key to the success of Dungeon Raiders. In my group of work colleagues, the game went off with a bang. Some of them like to play dirty tricks, some really consider the risks... I just don’t know if the players feel the atmosphere of the game? For example, I perceive the situation on the field very vividly and my imagination works very vividly when someone misses the trap or doesn’t hit the snake. It's a little difficult to imagine how force is used when dividing the contents of chests (although if you rewrite the rules and remake the key into a speed potion...), but this is not a problem with the game. =)

For a board gamer (I’m silent about roleplayers), the theme of the game can be said to be pop, although for non-gamers the theme is normal. All the raisins in game mechanics, which you won’t find in classic representatives of the “let’s take a walk in the dungeons and see what’s there” genre. I'm frankly in awe of this mechanics, the author can be proud.

In one evening it may seem to you that one party is not enough (for example, this is the case with us) and this is quite normal, if you take into account that with knowledgeable about the rules the game takes place in 30 minutes.

In summary, I can say that the new edition is more beautiful, more interesting due to the bosses, and at least this time received support from my gaming partners.

You can buy the game on Gaga.ru, hurry up before New Year's table, which is essentially best time for desktops.