Another quickie today - the past week has been very busy, and as a consequence I've not had much time to devote to gaming (hence this week's fairly poor attempt at themed onanist inneuendo - although I did take the role of a cleric in this game). As such, I've opted for a recent purchase which is also an unplayed game, but one I am aware plays very quickly: Dungeon Roll, published by Tasty Minstrel Games. In keeping with the game's brevity, I'm going to knock this one off fairly switftly )ooh-err).
I picked up Dungeon Roll for no other reason than it was a) solitaire and b) came in an attractive box shaped like the typical treasure chest your average dungeon delver is likely to find after dispatching a bunch of orcs. The game is (like last week's offering) a dice game, and a dungeoncrawl-themed one to boot. It is unsurprising, then, that in the game you take the role of a dungeon delver seeking to fight monsters, take their stuff, and defeat the big bad (a dragon). To do so, you roll a group of dice whose symbols represent various kinds of archetypical D&D characters (thief, fighter, cleric, magic user, etc.), and the dungeon master (or yourself if playing solitaire) rolls a number of dungeon dice equal to the current game term. These display symbols representing the typical kinds of things you'd expect to find in your average dungeon: oozes, skeletons, goblins, treasure chests and magic potions. If you have the appropriate dice, you clear the dungeon room (i.e. fighters remove goblins en masse, thieves can open treasure chests, clerics can banish skeletons, etc.) and possibly gain treasure as well as experience. Thus the game grinds (thankfully quickly) onwards. The game is lost if you do not posses on a given turn the appropriate dice to defeat the monsters rolled; alternatively, you win once three dragon dice have appeared and you have the appropriate dice symbols in your pool to defeat said dragon.
Nice box, shame about the gameplay.
Overall, this is quick and easy, with some nice production values as far as the box is concerned; however, the rules, whilst simple, are badly organised, and the game doesn't feel as if it has much by way of strategy. Whilst it seems sound enough as a quick solitaire dice roller (the game doesn't take more than about 10 minutes to play) it does lack stretgic depth and a sense of narrative, so is not for me.
On the Gaming Self-Abuse Scale (tm), this scores a lowly 4/10, and will be added to the ebay pile.
Anticipating being very busy over the coming weeks, this may be the last 'new' game played for a while. However, the next run of games will be themed around solitaire fantasy dungeoncrawler/adventure games, starting either with Runebound or the Lord of the Rings boardgame next week.
Over and out.
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