One to four players choose a hero (bard, thief, barbarian, or cleric) and build their starting deck of 6 zeroes, 6 ones, and 1 class-specific card. In a solo game, you choose two heroes, take both of their special cards, and add 12 ones and zeroes to your deck.
There are ten dungeons that you and/or your companions can venture into it. There are two of each level, 1-5. The 1 level dungeons are the easiest and the 5 level are the most difficult. Obviously, the payout for each dungeon matches the difficulty. You can enter these dungeons in whatever order you want, but be warned, the harder ones are impossible to beat early in the game. When a dungeon (containing 4 random cards) is completed, the players receive a reward as well. These rewards including scrapping bad cards from your deck, adding new cards to your deck, attack bonuses, giving cards to other players, putting cards on top of your deck, and more
When you enter a dungeon, you enter into battle with the first enemy in that dungeon's deck. Each enemy has an attack score that you need to meet. There is a different score for 2, 3, or 4 players (solo players will use the 2 player score as they will use one deck but play twice during each battle).
Once a battle has begun, the first player will draw 3 cards. He can either decide to keep that score or discard and draw 3 more. You can do this as many time as you'd like, but when your deck is depleted, you are exhausted and have to leave the dungeon. The next player will then do the same thing - draw 3 then keep or try again. If your team of adventures succeeds in the battle, the player who defeated the enemy takes the card, turns is 180 degrees, and adds it to their discard pile as a new attack card.
If the battle is lost, you exit the dungeon and move the time marker 2 spaces. This is where the push your luck element comes in. There is a timer that lets you know how close you are to battling the big villain at the end of the game. You want to try Losing in a dungeon gets you moved 2 spaces. Defeating a dungeon moves you 1 space and choosing to leave a dungeon before you defeat it also moves you 1 space. You need good cards to take on the boss, so you need to defeat most of the dungeons to pad your deck. However, if you push yourself too hard in the tough dungeons, you'll move too quickly to the boss.Eventually you will take on the boss. You will fight through their 4 (or more...) cards like you would a dungeon except that you can't choose to learn early. It's do or die. If you manage to defeat the boss, you win! If not, you lose.
TOTAL PLAYS: 15 solo, 3 co-operative
COMPONENTS
I don't have the actual game (I don't believe it's shipped to backers yet - I think that's coming this spring), so I can only make a few comments about the artwork. I like the art, it's simply and cartoony. Nothing stands out as amazing here, but I like it and there are a lot of games do a lot worse of a job. 4/5
RULES
This is not a complex game and so the rules are short and sweet. I don't really recall needing to reference the rules aftering reading it through carefully once. Everything is pretty seamless. I would say the rules aren't the most attractive to look at (except the cover, it's beautiful) or attention grabbing, but it gets the job done. 4/5
GAMEPLAY
Deckbuilders already start off on the right foot because they're my favourite genre (at least for right now). This game doens't bring much originality to the deckbuilding mechanism, but there are a few things I like that they do differently. I like the 3 cards in a hand. Many deckbuilders use 5, I think I know of two that use 6, and then there are a few that are random. Not a big difference, but I still like that it's there. Even though it's been done before (most well known from Friday), I like how you defeat a card and get it in your deck.
What's crazy about this game, is that you really feel like you have some big choices within those three cards. Say you need a 10 to defeat a certain monster. With your first three cards, you draw a four attack but then ability to draw a new card from the extra dungeon four cards. If you take that, you NEED a six on your next hand (or from your teammates) to defeat the card. Do you have the cards in your deck to make it there? And if you delve too far into your deck, will you be able to make it past the next monster? Can you make it through this dungeon in one short or should you split it into two? There is some good tension built here. 4/5
REPLAYABILITY
There is some decent replayability here. You build your dungeons with 40 enemy cards and there are about 20 that you don't use. There are two different bosses to battle and four different heroes to choose from, each with unique special powers. Being a shorter, simpler game, the replayability usually tends to drop off. It would be very easy to increase the replayability with expansions - new enemies, new heroes, new bosses. Maybe some minor mechanics tweaks as well! That being said, this base game can feel a little same, but I'm impressed with it for a small game. 4/5
FUN
I would love to have a finished copy of this game, but I still have a lot of fun with it. It's easy to pick up and teach, provides some real tension, and has a lot of cool monsters and powers. 8/10
TOTAL SCORE - 24/30
I really, really like this game and I would've Kickstarted it EXCEPT...it was way too expensive. It was going to be $19 USD (about $25 CDN) plus $15 USD (about $20 CDN) for shipping. That's $45 for about 150 cards. I can pick up the 130-ish cards of Star Realms for $14 right now at my FLGS. If this game comes to retail in Canada for a price point around $20-25, I will probably pick it up, because it is a lot of fun. I just couldn't justify that wallet hit.
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