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Dungeon Draw - Available PnP

A 15 minute dungeon delver's micro push-your-luck card game for 2 or more players, ages 7 and up!

Rules | Cards | Cardbacks

Comments

Scoring is slightly unclear

Scoring is slightly unclear in these rules. Are coins worth one point?

Yes

Yes, under End Your Turn it states, "Each coin is worth 1 point unless stated otherwise."

I will be adding a section that describes each individual card. Under the coin descriptions, it will reiterate that they are worth 1 point each as well.

Last player advantage

Maybe I misunderstand something, but to me it looks like the last player has an advantage by knowing exactly how many points are needed in the last round to win the game.

Advantage?

I don't think of it so much as an advantage.

If all previous players have less of a score, then the last player wins by default. If the last player has a lower score than someone else, then they know the number of points they must score to win the game. On the other hand, if the final player is behind in points they have no choice but to keep adventuring until they take the lead. In play, this translates to a dramatic, "last-ditch effort" scenario.

It seems similar to a baseball game (apologies for drawing such a comparison!), where if the second team at-bat is winning at the start of the 9th inning, they don't need to go at bat unless the currently-losing team can catch up to and at least tie their current score.

So much fun!

I love it! And my little cousins LOOOVED it and they got the hang of it pretty quickly which is points for you Gregg. They particularly loved the thrill of having to continue forward not knowing what will happen. They never got bored! One of them got a godly combination of draws that landed him like 10 points and all hell broke loose! I really liked the difficulty options for younger players or kids who particularly don't enjoy losing, which happens in my household very often... but for this game they really enjoyed the hardest difficulty as it creates more tension between players.

Awesome work and thanks for letting my drawings be part of this cool game :)

Thanks!

Thank you Jazy for the encouragement and the art!

Last player has advantage

If you want to strongly experience the last player advantage, try playing your game several times with 2 players, only 1 round instead of 5.

If you want to do something about the clear unfairness you could at least have the starting player being determined at random instead of writing "Pick a starting player".

It would make your game fairer and maybe at the same time even more interesting if the turn order or at least the starting player was randomized in each round.

Although I am not a big baseball fan I have to protect baseball here. Baseball does NOT have this flaw! In baseball the optimal strategy for both teams is to increase their score as much as possible. In your game the last player has a better strategy by NOT trying to increase their score as much as possible, but by stopping once they have enough points.

Order of Play

Ok, would this add too much complexity?

  • 1) The start player step would be completely removed from Setup.
  • 2) This would be added to Rounds of Play: "For the first round only, pick the starting player randomly and play proceeds clockwise. For all other rounds, the order of play starts with the player with the highest score and ends with the player with the lowest score."

Single Turn in a Single Round

I'd just clarify that in a single round, each player has a single turn. You don't want someone misunderstanding that they're supposed to keep taking turns until their score exceeds that of someone else's.

I think having players turns organized by score in descending order is otherwise a great idea.

And I apologize for the baseball comparison - I've not kept up with it or any professional sports. But I still don't see the point in the team playing the second half of the last inning if they already have more points than the other team. And in any sport, the object is to score as many points as possible. I used the baseball comparison instead of something like basketball or footy/soccer, since in baseball - and Dungeon Draw - the teams take turns.

JewellGames wrote:"For the

JewellGames wrote:
"For the first round only, pick the starting player randomly and play proceeds clockwise. For all other rounds, the order of play starts with the player with the highest score and ends with the player with the lowest score."

let-off studios wrote:
I think having players turns organized by score in descending order is otherwise a great idea.

I like this idea a lot!

let-off studios wrote:I'd

let-off studios wrote:
I'd just clarify that in a single round, each player has a single turn. You don't want someone misunderstanding that they're supposed to keep taking turns until their score exceeds that of someone else's.

The very first sentence of the Rounds of Play section states, "The game consists of 5 rounds, and each round consists of each player taking their turn", so I hope that that is clear enough before going into the next part about order of play.

Some heavy duty playtesting

Some heavy duty playtesting this weekend revealed a few things. The main issues involved the Zombie's power and the Trap for newer players.

The Zombie power is interesting but it causes some confusion when the 4th card drawn is a monster that causes defeat (until the Zombie is shuffled back into the deck). Players had to refer to the FAQ to try and understand the interaction which slowed play and it isn't intuitive even with the explanation.

The Trap is an fun power but players unfamiliar with the monsters had to constantly refer to the monster list in the FAQ. Also, with the new Sword power, these two items kind of fill a similar role. Additionally, there is some confusion with the Trap/Map combo.

One consideration is removing the Zombie power and the Trap becoming a Bomb. The Bomb's power would be "Enter: Once 4 more cards are in the dungeon, remove 1 point from another player's score." or "Enter: Once 5 more cards are in the dungeon, remove 1 point from all other player's scores."

There has been talks of a either no new zombie power at all or "Enter: You may shuffle this back into the deck. But if you draw it again, instantly end your turn!."

You guys have any input? Thank you!

I'd say that keeping the Trap

I'd say that keeping the Trap the same is probably fine. Yes, new players don't know all of the monsters, but I think that's A) a fun dynamic, at least initially, to prepare for the completely unexpected, and B) it's okay for players to learn new cards as they play.

Upcoming changes

Previously, powers were Enter|Use|Passive. I have further broken them down and made them more clear. Also, these will be represented by symbols instead of text.

  • Draw powers activate when that card drawn: Trap, Sword, Goblin, Zombie
  • Flip powers activate when you flip that card face down: Map
  • Ongoing powers are always active: Wolf
  • Conditional powers activate when a certain condition is met: Dragon Coin, Lucky Coin, Bad Juju, Chest

    The Trap is back to its original power and reads, "Draw Symbol: Draw another card. If it's a monster, double it Attack."

    The Zombie's new power now reads, "Draw Symbol: You may shuffle this back into the deck. But if you draw it again, end your turn!".

    The Bad Juju now reads, "Conditional Symbol: Once 3 monsters are in the dungeon, remove 1 point from another player's score." This triggers even if you're defeated by that 3rd monster.

    The Chest now reads, "Conditional Symbol: All coins are worth double points while this and the Key are in the dungeon." The Key no longer needs to have a power.

    Thoughts on these changes? Thanks!

  • Newest Revisions

    Iconography always seems to be a good thing. It eases localization should it be picked up in countries that speak/read languages other than English.

    Remarks on your other card changes...

    I think the text on both the Key and Chest can be identical. You're creating a two-card set with these cards, and that's when the effect is triggered. Makes a lot of sense to me.

    A question regarding the Zombie: how often do you want the player to consider re-shuffling the Zombie card back into the deck? It seems to me if you don't want them to do that very often, then make it a low-damage card. If you want it to happen more frequently, increase the damage to more than just 1.

    Regarding Bad Juju: what happens after the effect is triggered? I'd suggest discarding the Bad Juju. Otherwise a combination like

    Creature 1 + Creature 2 + Bad Juju + Zombie + Trigger Bad Juju + Zombie reshuffled + Another Monster = The effect happening twice.

    If you don't want that to happen, then make sure Bad Juju is removed once it is triggered.

    Regarding the Trap: if the Wolf is adjacent, does this double the Wolf's power, or only the Attack of a creature? Unless you explicitly state a word such as Power or Ability or Attack, then players may be confuse - or may attempt to take advantage of other players - when these rare combinations occur.

    Reply

    Thank you for the quick reply!

    I wanted it to be irregularly shuffled back into the deck, but something more than just a vanilla (powerless) 1 Attack monster. It's a temptation for the greediest players. Do you have a better 1 Attack monster power idea?

    Technically, the Zombie has a draw phase power so it activates when drawn. If you chose to shuffle it back into the deck, it'd never be in the dungeon and wouldn't trigger the Bad Juju. But, you bring up a good point and the Sword presents the same issue, so I'm going to reword the Juju to, "If 3+ monsters are in the dungeon when your turn ends, remove 1 point from a player's score."

    Yeah, the Trap doubles its Attack (not its power) as stated in its text. I'll mention it in the FAQ too.

    Zombie infects another monster?

    What if the zombie infected another monster & gave it a plus 1 (since it is dead so fears nothing, not even dying)?

    I was going to suggest that the infected monster is reshuffled into the deck while the zombie remains on the table so that the player has to decide whether to sacrifice a string creature now to get it back stronger, or a weak creature to get it back a bit stronger, but I can't work out a way to keep track of the monsters increased stats. Unless you write on it with a white board marker & wipe it off after the game is over?

    Updates

    The rules and cards have been overhauled, let me know what you think. Thanks!

    Sword & Chest/Key

    Currently, the Sword reads as "Enter: Shuffle the lowest attacking monster in the dungeon back into the deck."

    This is fairly simple to understand except when multiple monsters have the same lowest attack. You just pick one in that case.

    Would it be better to have it read similar to the Goblin as "Enter: Shuffle the last monster in the dungeon back into the deck"? This does make the Sword's ability a little more powerful since it can shuffle a very high attack monster back into the deck where it couldn't do that before.

    Thoughts?

    Edit: Also, do you guys feels that he chest/key combo is too "swingy" in terms of points? Would it be too restricted if only coins between the chest and key were doubled?

    It depends on how swingy you

    It depends on how swingy you want the game. The feel your game evokes, atleast how I perceive it, is that it's light, simple, and splashy. I think doubling all coin values with chest/key is fine. The other implementation you propose could lead to a player drawing a key then the chest, would be useless.

    And I think the sword should kill either the most recent monster OR the next monster you draw. Having it kill the weakest monster is weak and feels too balanced for your game's audience. It's a sword - swinging it should feel awesome!

    The appeal here is simple and splashy. I think keeping these two aspects in mind when designing cards should be what's most important. It makes drawing each new card exciting.

    RE: Sword & Chest/Key

    Regarding the Sword: if you want to keep it similar to the Goblin, then change the wording to how you suggest. It would certainly streamline play if the cards are that similar. For the record, I prefer the old version of the Sword, where the player had to guess which creature they would encounter next, but I completely understand that this would likely mess with your current descriptors for card effects.

    Regarding the Chest & Key: I wouldn't recommend allowing only Coins between these two cards to be doubled. That weakens it too much, in my opinion. It discourages push-your-luck-play styles by limiting the set's effectiveness. As stated beforehand, having the two cards next to one another would be a bummer, which is completely opposite the feeling a player has in the current setup. I say keep it to doubling the value of each coin in the dungeon, not just between the two cards.

    ~

    Just to clarify that the Key <--> Chest or Chest <--> key order doesnt matter if it were only coins between (both would have the ability listed on their card). And yeah it does weaken it quite a bit which I need to test a lot more. That is why if we did change it it would be changed alongside a new item, Teleport Scroll (have a better item name?).

    Its ability allows you to switch it with another card in the dungeon when it enters the dungeon.

    So you could switch places of a chest or key (putting more coins between them) or a high attack monster (hoping to draw a sword to remove it!), or a coin to weaken the dragon's attack, or the skull coin in case you draw a goblin. Quite a few combos and decisions packed into the card.

    The Trap would be joining the monsters as a red card (bye bye zombie), collectively referred to as "perils". This opens up the design space of future traps/monsters.

    Online version

    Additionally, I am slowly working on a very basic online playtest version of the game so I can easily change card effects and test them w/o having to reprint or create new physical cards.

    Different Layout

    I am playing around with the layout and functionality of the cards. What do you like and not like? Thank you!

    New Layout

    I think the new layout looks clean and neat, very much like other kid-friendly card games I've seen. It looks straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon, much more so with this layout than with the previous one(s) I'd seen.

    I remember reading that you wanted to have different card backing for different expansion sets and whatnot. Have you abandoned this idea?

    Additionally, I would recommend you keep the different colours but include a thin black border around the category listing: Monster, Item, Treasure, etc. This will offset the text from whatever background you lay it against. As of now, the word "Treasure" seems a bit difficult to read - being gold on white - and depending on the print copy it may become illegible.

    Nope, that is still on the

    Nope, that is still on the table. The next one would be a "temple" expansion, so the background would have sandstone. Such as:

    Ok, I will play around with the stroke and coloring until it works.

    Similar game

    I recently played a game called Dead Man's Draw. It's very similar to earlier versions of Dungeon Draw...keep pulling cards and bust if you pull two of the same card. If you haven't yet seen it, it might be worth checking out, just as an fyi as you seek to refine and publish Dungeon Draw.

    https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/149155/dead-mans-draw

    So I am creating a website to

    So I am creating a website to playtest the game online. My only hang up is how to display the cards on the screen. As you begin to draw 8+ cards now it creates a horizontal scroll bar but is always focused on the most recent card.

    Mini-Icons for Cards

    I imagine a miniaturized version of the cards - with simplified icons - can be displayed along the bottom or top edge of the screen. With a mouse-over or hover, the icons can "blow up" to a larger size, enabling the player to see what the card is in more detail.

    Meanwhile, some HUD counters can indicate player health/wounds, whether they have the key or chest, current coin count, sword, shield, and so on.

    This way the more recent cards can be seen in plenty of detail, but at a glance the player can tell what cards have been drawn already and what might come up on their next draw.

    I made a new blog post about

    I made a new blog post about my online demo (finally!) since the game has undergone a lot of changes. The game is more swingy now with some of the growing treasures, items and creatures forcing you to draw another card, so that may change some past perspectives.

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    blog | by Dr. Radut