1 Player
Designer: Denis Kurdiukov
Publisher: Nuka Zombee
My first game I played from Nuka Zombee was this exploration and treasuring hunting game called Treasures Lost. It was quick to understand, but so many paths to victory.
Now, Denis brings this to the Dungeons bringing the same spirit, but with a crawling twist. But will you survive the depths?
Spoiler alert: Yes, you will!
How to play
Every turn you will roll two dice. Doubles will trigger dungeon specific events, some good some bad. Otherwise, you will use each die for their movements. Each number has both direction and quantity, and you need to resolve them fully before using the other one.
On the way, you will get treasures that will add to your point goals. Different gems yield different points depending on the character. You will also find keys, traps and warps that will shape your paths through the Dungeons.
There are no life threating perils, but there are perils nonetheless. Enemies will not hit you, but will hold you in place and waste your time until their are defeated.
Time is the name of the game. Paths with more rewards will be harder to navigate or have more dangers. But the easy way will not reward you enough.
Crawl (Decision) Space
High score games are not my favorite, but I think it works wonderfully here. It’s a game all about time and how you can use it, and it feels like old time Arcade games and having the rush of seeing all the possibilities and your time just ticking away.
And here’s the fun part: every dungeon has its theme and what you need to watch out for. Each character not only has their strengths and abilities, but reward differently the Treasures.
The decisions of each die are small, but if you just play roll by roll it’s going to be a failure. Dungeon Kings is all about having a plan, and twist and adapt as the rolls come.
Are The Treasures Found?
I’m going to do some comparisons with Treasures Lost, as they share a lot of the same DNA. But even if you didn’t play its predecessor, stick around.
I always wonder if going back to a previous design is an easy or hard task, and I tend to think the latter. Dungeon Kings doesn’t set out to FIX Treasures Lost. It doesn’t try to reinvent it either.
Instead, I feel like Denis created a game that is both deeper and more streamlined. Gone are the three days three maps, and it’s replaced by a single time track and multiple level dungeons. That is a design that removes little rules oddities and moves the pacing to the players hand. It feels more fluid, and rewards longer game plan.
Is This Dungeon Royalty?
As I come to expect from Nuka Zombee, Dungeon Kings gets a central and well rounded idea and goes off in all different directions where to take them.
This is an exploration where the only option is to go go go! No, enemies will not kill you, but see your precious time just wasting away is just as painful.
Dungeon Kings is non-stop. Frantic, often unpredictable, and fun. It’s a game about efficiently taming the chaos of the dice and both having a long term plan and quick wits to adapt it. Not your traditional dungeon crawler, but one that will be on my table trying all the different combinations.
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