Image credit: Boardgamegeek user d6Frog
by Jeff Dougan
May last few game reviews have taken us to the OK Corral and the high-flying pulps of the 1920s. This month, we round out the trio of exclamation points with a trip to the ruins beneath a fantastic castle ? it?s time to crawl into Dungeon!
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You might have played Dungeon! as a kid, because the game was originally published in 1974 and has been reprinted several times. The game is a race to explore the ruins beneath a castle and recover treasured being guarded by assorted monsters. The farther down you go, the more valuable the treasures are, but the more dangerous their guardians become. There are four different types of heroes, each of which has a different level of prowess at defeating the monsters. However, the stronger heroes need to accumulate more treasure at greater risk, in order to win.
The basics of a turn aren?t much more complex than familiar games like Monopoly ? move, fight a monster, take its treasure if you win and see what happens if you don?t. When a player fights a monster, they roll a pair of dice and compare the total to a number printed on the monster?s card. If the total rolled on the dice ties or beats the number printed (which differs depending on the type of hero), the player wins. Defeating the monster means the player can draw a treasure card. Otherwise, the monster gets to strike back at the player, using another roll of the dice. Possible effects of the monster?s strike range from nothing to dropping a random treasure to that player?s current hero being eliminated. In the last case, the player isn?t removed from the game (unlike Monopoly or Risk), but can re-enter with a new hero at the start of their next turn.
Two things about this game are worth noting, but don?t exactly relate to gameplay: 1) The game comes with a LOT of parts. It has roughly 175 cards across 13 different decks, 8 player standees (cardboard pieces with art ? each type of heroes has both a male and a female version), and about 150 different tokens. For the $20 asking price, there?s a lot of value here. 2) As this has always been published by the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, there?s overlap in the art. All of the art used here is such that I have no problem with the Grasshopper playing it ? in fact, it was his 7th birthday present last October ? but if for some reason you?re wary about a connection to role-playing games, be warned.
About the actual gameplay ? the time is highly variable, since there?s a lot of dice rolling. The games we?ve played have taken us around an hour, plus time to sort out and put away all of the pieces. I know people who have had a game finish in about 10 minutes. If the dice are with you, it?ll go quickly. If they aren?t, it can drag out.
Because it involves a lot of dice rolling, you can use Dungeon! to teach a couple different academic skills. The biggest of them is probability, and assessing your chances of defeating a monster. The other academic skill that can factor in is adding large numbers, since the smallest possible winning total is 10,000 coins.
I like Dungeon!, and would enjoy getting to play it more if it weren?t so hard to keep the Munchkin out of all the many little pieces. Since last October, the Grasshopper has asked to play it or take it to any game-related event we?ve gone to, whether it?s appropriate or not. However, the highly luck-dependent nature of the final win may not be for everybody.
Jeff Dougan is a science educator, husband, lifelong gamer, and father to the Grasshopper (age 6) and the Munchkin (age 2). He?ll happily teach or learn a new game just about anytime.
Source: http://www.chambanamoms.com/2013/06/11/family-game-night-dungeon/
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