Dungeonquest

Complexity Medium Cost Out of print Duration Medium Players 1-4 Producer Games Workshop Size Large

Premise

Explore the dungeon, nick the Dragon's gold and scarper!

Review

One of Games Workshop's best games; less flawed than Talisman, but just as rich. There's not a huge amount of strategy in this game, it being mostly luck driven, but the wide variety of play means that you never get bored. You win by escaping with the most treasure at the end of the game, and each game is only 26 rounds.

You play a typical dungeon adventurer starting from one corner of the map. In the centre of the map is a sleeping dragon. Between you and him is a random area made up of drawn tiles. There are a variety of special tiles, most result in you drawing a card and encountering something. You might find treasure, or more likely a monster or other chances to draw other cards which might kill you :) You can encounter traps, rotating rooms, portcullis etc. Combat with monsters uses a thinly disguised Paper, Scissors, Stone system to resolve it.

When you get to the centre, you can draw treasure tokens. You also have to draw from a special dragon deck. If you draw the sleeping dragon, you're OK, otherwise you get barbequeued. Of course, the deck reduces by one each time, so the chances of waking the dragon increase.

The tiles themselves are about 1.3" square and are very nicely printed on thick card and laminated. The detail on all the components is very high, although most of the cards are printed on thin card. The rules are pretty clear, and although intended for kids the sheer number of components may put off some.

The best aspect of the game is that you are playing against the clock - 26 rounds. It's very easy to get in and find treasure but getting out can be tricky. You'll need to allow dead characters to reenter however, as otherwise everyone else can sit around waiting for you to finish. On the plus side, this game has rules for solatire play.

Expansions

There were two expansions, but I do not have Heroes for Dungeonquest.

Dungeonquest Catacombs

This expansion adds a new playing plane underneath the board, the catacombs. This is a card driven area. The main advantage is that once you're in, you tend to go in straight lines, unlike the normal game. Getting out can be tricky however. The expansion also adds more bits to the standard game, including new enemies, more treasure, more traps, search results and amulets.

Overall, this is a good expansion to get; it adds more variety to the game, and also makes it slightly easier to get to the centre.

Rating

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