Dungeon Heroes dueling dungeon crawler review
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Basically, Dungeon Heroes is a simple and fast dueling dungeon crawler with asymmetric objectives. The hero player tries to find 3 of 4 treasures hidden in the dungeon with the help of his thief, warrior, healer and wizard. Player - The Dungeon Master first lays out the dungeon during the first nine turns (passive phase), and then actively tries to prevent the heroes from getting the treasures (aggressive phase). It sounds pretty corny, but the mechanics make Dungeon Heroes a unique game.
Each player can perform 4 actions. During the first nine turns, the dungeon master takes four tiles per turn and places them face down on the field. The tiles have 4 types of monsters, 4 types of traps, 3 treasures, 4 special items, 2 clouds of poison gas, 3 portals and 4 moving floor tiles. The owner of the dungeon decides where to place what, but cannot see where it lies after laying out the tile, so Dungeon Heroes has a place for memory training. Of course, the treasures should be hidden away from the players, and the passages to them blocked by monsters and traps, but isn't that too obvious? Yes, there is room for bluffing here too.
After laying out all the tiles, the Dungeon Master uses his actions in a different way: he reveals tiles and moves monsters, hunting heroes.
Heroes spend on moving around the dungeon from the very start, but with some restrictions. Yes, the thief and wizards move like a chess king, and a warrior and a healer - like a rook, but only one square. Also, each character has their own special ability. A thief can step on traps and neutralize them without taking damage. A warrior can move to the same cell as a monster and kill it. The healer heals himself and others by spending an action point. Well, the wizard can open a tile anywhere on the field by spending action points. In my opinion, the wizard ability is the most useful because it allows you to explore dungeons without too much risk and guesswork, which reduces the role of luck. Moreover, a maximum of 2 actions out of 4 can be spent on one character. That is, the wizard can reveal a maximum of two tiles, and the remaining two actions are spent on activating a thief, a warrior or a healer in any combination.
Dungeon Heroes has interesting, seemingly non-obvious elements. I was surprised at how much bluffing there was and how well it was thought out. The magician reduces the role of the bluff, but does not reset it. Traps and monsters block the path of the adventurers, but each of them is neutralized by a certain character, so the Dungeon Master needs to place tiles wisely, and not just build a wall of monsters or traps.
My batches took about 20 minutes. Laying out and assembling the game is very fast. Three games with a friend took just over an hour, and we really enjoyed seeing how different strategies worked against each other in practice. Dungeon Heroes also has its own metagame: where the dungeon master will place items. Vicini (if you've seen The Princess Bride) would be happy with what's going on: you can't just pick up and step on the tile in front of you—every action involves risk. The game is deep enough to keep you from getting bored, and the semi-random layout of the field ensures high replayability.
There are, however, disadvantages. Some players may not really like playing as a Dungeon Master due to the randomness of the tile draw. For example, if you pull out a lot of traps at the start, it will slow down most characters, but not the thief. A similar problem with a bunch of monsters: they usually start to pose a real threat to the heroes only from the aggressive phase, which does not look very thematic. In my opinion, if you're unlucky with the randomness, you can just start a new batch (thank goodness they're fast), and as for thematics... well, that's the game.
Overall I like Dungeon Heroes. If you're looking for a deep tactical dungeon crawler where it's important to plan ahead, this game is unlikely to fit the bill. But if you're looking for some fast-paced, light-hearted fun about dungeon exploration, bluffing, and luck that doesn't leave much room for planning, then Dungeon Heroes can take a worthy place in your collection.
