Dungeon Roll

The Game

Dungeon Roll is fantasy dungeon crawling designed as a dice game. You play three rounds, in which everyone takes a turn to explore and plunder a dungeon. After three rounds, you compare points to see who wins. 

White dice are the player dice. They represent the party of adventurers you explore the dungeon with. Black dice are the dungeon dice. They represent the monsters and also the treasures you encounter. Most faces of a white die are different adventurer types, like fighter, cleric and thief. They have different abilities. They are used to defeat black dice. Treasures and potions on the black dice need to be "defeated" too. You need to spend white dice to open treasures and to quaff potions. However you do get something in return. 

Exploring a dungeon means fighting through it level by level until you are defeated or decide to retreat. There are 10 levels, and every level is harder than the previous one. You only roll one black die for the first level, two for the second level, three for the third, and so on. Every time you clear one level, you have to decide whether to retreat and keep the score you have so far, or to attempt the next level and hope to score more. In case you fail to fight through a level you are attempting, you won't score points for the whole adventure. The next level will have more black dice. You will gradually use up your white dice. Some abilities let you restore some of them. At the moment I can't imagine how you can get to Level 10. By around Level 5 it already feels like the max. Maybe I need to learn to play better. 

The different types of adventurer have different abilities. By default they can always defeat one monster. However they specialise in certain monster types. E.g. a single cleric can defeat any number of skeletons. So if you roll many skeletons, and you have one cleric, you're in luck! 

When you use white dice to open treasure chests, you get all sorts of treasures and equipment. A thief can open any number of chests. Some items behave like a specific adventurer type. You keep them for future use. Some items have point values. Potions you quaff let you restore white dice. One of the black die faces is the dragon. Rolling a dragon means you are starting to disturb it. Dragon die faces are set aside. Once you reach three dragons, you wake the dragon and must fight it in order to complete the current level. Defeating the dragon requires three different adventurer types, so it's not easy. If you manage it, you score points and gain a treasure. 

Scrolls, which appear on white dice, let you reroll. Sometimes this can be a life saver. Sometimes it makes things worse. 

Every player gets a character card. You have one ongoing ability, and one once-per-excursion ability. When you reach a certain experience level (which is also your victory points), your character upgrades and both your abilities change. 

The Play

This is mostly a solo game. Only one player is actually playing at any one time. The others spectate. The only player interaction is thinking about well your opponents are doing and deciding how much risk you want to take in order to catch up to them or stay ahead of them. Rolling dice is exciting. There's an element of surprise and uncertainty. The game is tactical in nature. You do your best with what you roll. Overall it's pretty straight-forward. Still, the dungeon crawling theme comes out pretty well. You do feel like you're fighting your way through monsters and traps. The fact that you need to roll dice makes the experience one of risk-taking. 

The character card being tilted 90 degrees means you've used your single-use power.

The Thoughts

Dungeon Roll is a light and brisk dice game, and it's flavourful as a fantasy adventure game despite the simplicity. 

Mini Rogue

The Game

Mini Rogue is a streamlined and compact dungeon crawler, which can be played solo or as a two-player game. You enter a dungeon and fight through traps and monsters, sometimes collecting equipment and gold along the way, sometimes leveling up as you gain experience. Eventually, you will get to the boss at the end of the journey, and if you beat it too, you win.  

The game comes in a small box. Your encounters in the dungeon are represented by cards. Every segment of the dungeon is represented by a 3×3 grid of cards. You start with the card at the top left and must get to the card at the bottom right. You may only move right or down. If you survive all the encounters, you complete the segment. You then move on to the next segment.

The 3x3 grid is the current segment of the dungeon you are in. 

You roll dice to determine the outcomes of your encounters. You need to roll above specific values for success. Die rolls also determine the penalty or reward, depending on whether you are successful. As you level up, you get to roll more dice, which means your chances of success will increase. However, as you move deeper into the dungeon, the monsters will get stronger too.

Possible results of your encounter are listed at the bottom of the card. 

This is your player board. You track several stats like level and hit points. 

This is a monster. At different levels, the stats differ. 

Several other aspects of dungeon crawlers are present. You can get poisoned. You can get cursed. You can obtain magic potions to use on yourself or on your enemies. You can equip yourself with weapons and other items.

Purple cubes track the potions you carry (max 2). 

There are four characters to choose from, with different special abilities. 

The Play

So far, I have only played this as a two player game. Although many elements of typical role playing games have been simplified, I find that there is still a lot to handle. The game is physically small and the number of game components is low, but the gameplay is still rich. I kept referring to the rulebook to check what the icons mean and how to resolve specific situations. This is by no means a light game. It is still very much a dungeon crawler. The early game seems to be more luck-heavy, since you only have one die and your fate is very much dependent on that one die. Or maybe I need to work harder to find ways to mitigate this early luck factor. 

Unfortunately we didn't last very long, and I never got to experience the late game. Every fight with a monster is a fight to the death, theirs or yours. There is no running away. The moment you get stuck with a monster you can't kill, it's game over. I like this. It keeps you on your toes. 

As you explore the dungeon, cards are revealed. 

This is the master map. You need to survive 10 segments to get to the final boss. 

When you encounter the merchant, you can buy or sell stuff. 

The pawns are lovely. 

The Thoughts

Mini Rogue is a miniaturised dungeon crawler, but it is still very much a dungeon crawler. It's a constant struggle to survive. You need to fully utilise everything at your disposal. You need to plan to level up and to equip yourself. I've never been a dungeon crawler fan nor am I into roleplaying games, so this game didn't quite click. I got it because I was curious about how they miniaturised the whole dungeon crawling experience. I'd say they were successful. 

The Story

I bought this game at the Ares Games booth at the Essen game fair 2024. Well, to be more precise, I got it for free. This is one experience that will make me always remember Ares Games fondly. I browsed their shop and found one of the games being sold, Port Arthur, interesting. Browsing further, I saw the other game in the series, by the same designer, 300: Earth and Water. I decided to get both. One of them was EUR25, and the other EUR29. As I prepared to pay, the lady made me an offer. She said if I picked a third game, I could get three games for the price of two, with the lowest priced game made free. I thought why not. So I browsed the shelves again. I really couldn't find anything else I was particularly keen to try. I only found Mini Rogue to be somewhat interesting, because it was trying to do something a little unusual, packing a dungeon crawler into a small box. So I picked it. Now Mini Rogue was only EUR25. That meant I would get it for free. I thought I was being quite clever. Had I picked a game with a higher price, I would be spending more money in total, despite getting one game for free. I thought the lady would now probably regret making me that offer, because instead of generating more revenue, I was just getting a free game from them. That was a bad deal for them, but a great one for me. The lady checked my three items. She said to me, "Since the third game is EUR25 too, then let's do this. The EUR29 game will be free, and I'll charge you for just the two EUR25 games. So the total will be EUR50." She gave me an additional discount! That was such a nice thing to do. This little act of kindness is what will make me always remember Ares Games fondly. 

It is something we should always remember. Choose to be kind to people.