Dungeon Roll: Perfect for "me" time.

During the entire day, I have perhaps 2 times to myself: about a half hour in the morning, and 20 minutes in the evening. This is "me" time...time for me to do what I want to do.

But what to do when I want to play a board game?

Most board games demand a lot of table real estate, a good amount of playtime, and, most important of all, more than one player. I have a table half filled with junk, a half hour at max, and (if I don't count the voices in my head) only myself to play with. Finding something to fill that specific hole is very hard to find...unless your hole is treasure-chest-shaped. Enter Dungeon Roll.

Before you ask, no, I did not fund this through Kickstarter. I was aware of it, but at the time I decided "no," and instead funded other games that...well, okay, they sucked. Dungeon Roll is one I regret not funding, because the end product is so concise and simple.

Game in a Nutshell

You play one of 8 roles, and you're dungeon delving with your party, seeing how far you can last (a dungeon has at max 10 levels). Highest score after 3 dungeon delve attempts is the winner.

Game Setup

Ready? Open the chest, and empty contents out. Put back all treasure tokens back into the box, and choose your hero. Set the level die to "1", roll your 7 party dice, and begin!

That's it.

If you want to make it faster, you can choose to NOT put the treasure tokens back into the box, and draw them from a cup unseen. But you would take away the only ambiance the game's BOX contributes to the game - an actual treasure chest to grab your treasure from!!

Opening the Treasure Chest

Probably the best experience in the game is the physcial opening of the treasure chest box. Nothing is more satisfying than reaching into a treasure box and unearthing some unknown goodie to aide you in your quest! I can't stress this enough - if you play Dungeon Roll, USE THE TREASURE CHEST!! Sure, the game is more portable without it, but you lose the game's main ambiance.

Glorious Dice

The dice is what really shines about this game. They just feel GOOD. They seem nicely weighted, and almost effortlessly roll off the hand and into a dice box like so!

Just Dice Rolling??

Yes, it's just dice rolling, but with character. You start out by rolling your 7 white party dice to determine the heroes in your party. You can get clerics, fighters, mages, thieves, or the all-powerful champions. You may also find scrolls when you roll, which act as a "wild card," allowing you to roll any remaining party and monster dice again.

The monster dice, on the other hand, have the 3 main monsters (skeletons, goblins, oozes), as well as treasure chests, potions, and the dangerous Dragon.

What makes the game so easy and fun to grasp is that it uses color matching for its battles. Fighters(green) fight goblins(green) the best, clerics(grey) destroy skeletons(grey), and Mages(purple) slaughter oozes(purple). Thieves(violet) specilize in unlocking chests(violet), and any party dice can drink a potion(brown-yellow). The benefit from color-matching is that one party die will kill off ALL of their special monster. The only exception is the Champion(yellow) hero, which can slay any number of monsters, or open any number of chests.

You can use other heroes against monsters, but they would only get rid of one die per attack, so efficient use of party dice is a must it you want to delve deeper into the dungeon. And you'll want to delve deeper, because your experience points equal how far you can successfully proceed through the dungeon..

Dragon Lurking in the Shadows

During your journey, there's a chance you'll wake the dragon, represented by the dragon symbol on one side on each monster dice. Should you roll those, they get "locked" in the dragon's den. Whenever there are 3 or more dragon icons in the dragon's den after the monster-killing and item-looting, you must slay the dragon, or fail the dungeon with no experience gained. To slay the dragon, you'll need 3 different heroes available to deliver the final blow. It's not easy to kill, but if you slay the dragon, you get one experience point and one treasure token.

Gaming for One

For a solid 10-15 minutes, I can get one good game going, and have the rest of the day wondering if I made the right moves. Dungeon Roll gets my single-player thumb of approval!