Designer: Desnet
Amane
No. of Players:
3-6
Playing Time: 20-30mins
Mechanics: Push
Your Luck / Negotiation
Dungeon Guilds first popped onto my radar when Tom Vasel
gave a very glowing review of the game. I love the art style and the push your
luck element plus the player interaction also seemed to fit the game right in
the alley of games I would enjoy. So I reached out to Moaideas Game Design to
see if I could get a review copy, and they agreed to send one to me as long as
I covered the shipping costs. Therefore…
Disclaimer: This
review is based on a review copy kindly provided by the publisher
That is for those who really like to know such information
as they feel it might influence my decision. But I want to assure all our
readers that I don’t let such things influence any of my reviews. If I like it
I will tell you, if I hate it I will make sure you know it !
So on with the review !!
How to Play
Dungeon Guilds is played over a fixed number of rounds (1
round per player).
During each round, a number of dungeon room cards are drawn (also
1 room per player) and placed face down in a column from easiest (1 star) to
the hardest (3 stars).
The back of the dungeon room cards will indicate two crucial
information. The first being the range of the monster’s hit points when the
card is revealed, and also the range of how much treasure will be up for grabs
by successful adventurers.
Subsequently, a dungeon master is also drawn and its effects
are made known to all the players. The dungeon masters’ effects range from
increasing the defense and treasure in a room, to certain restrictions such as
the inability to play a type of adventurer that round.
 |
| Card backs with range of values versus actual revealed values |
Each player has a hand of 5 adventurer cards with strength
from 1-5. Starting with a predetermined start player, players will take turns
placing 1 of their adventurers next to a dungeon room. This is done Settlers of
Catan style where the last player gets to place 2 adventurers and play will
then continue anti-clockwise. Each room must eventually be occupied by only 2
adventurers. Once this is done, the placement phase of the round is over and
play will proceed to the resolution phase.
On a player’s turn (during the placement phase), he/she may
execute 1 of the following actions
1) Place an adventurer in an empty slot of a room
2) Bump an adventurer of a weaker strength out of an
unlocked room by paying the relevant costs
3) Replace your own adventurer in a room with an adventurer
of a higher strength by paying 1 coin
4) Pass if you already have 2 adventurers in a room or rooms
Once all the players have 2 adventurers represented in the
various rooms, the placement phase ends and each room is checked in sequential
order – weakest to strongest – to see if the monster is defeated and thus
whether its treasure will be split between the 2 adventurers.
If the total value of the 2 adventurers in the room meet or
exceed the monster’s hit points, then the monster is vanquished and the
treasure divided evenly among the 2 adventurers (with leftovers going to the
adventurer with the higher strength).
If the monster overpowers the adventurers, then the room is
considered to have failed and all other rooms beneath the failed room will also
automatically fail. Failed rooms do not give up its treasures, but instead, any
adventurers placed there must pay a penalty in coins.
This is repeated each round but with new rooms and a new
dungeon master. Once the stipulated number of rounds are over, the player with
the most coins is the winner !
 |
| Ready to Roll !! |
Things I Like
1) Player Interaction / Negotiation
The player interaction in Dungeon Guilds is subtle but very
nasty. Players may choose to co-operate and lock a room (a room is locked when
the total strength of the 2 adventurers meets or exceed the maximum possible
strength of a room) so that to ensure they will have treasure to split. But at
the same time, other players may negotiate to mess around with the co-operating
players by purposely failing a room before their locked room so that they will
not get treasure but will have to pay up treasure instead. This cunning and
nasty part of the game is possibly the most exciting aspect of Dungeon Guilds.
2) Presence of Dungeon Masters
Without the dungeon masters, Dungeon Guilds would possibly
be quite a bland game with the same thing happening over and over again. The
dungeon masters add flavor and mixes things up just enough to ensure that each
round plays differently and that certain rooms seem more enticing than they
normally are. I will say that the game would have benefitted more by having
more dungeon masters (6 in base game plus a few more promo dungeon masters) to
choose from and with more variable effects.
 |
| Base Game Dungeon Masters. Beautiful Art ! |
3) Plays Up to 6 in a very Quick Amount of Time
Dungeon Guilds being able to play 6 is great. Being able to
play 6 in a very manageable amount of time? Even better. Turns go quick and you
never really get bogged down too long as once a player has 2 adventurers on the
board, he/she doesn’t have anything else to do but wait till everyone is done
(which would be very soon).
4) Back & Forth and
Area Manipulation
One of the things that I enjoy in Dungeon Guilds is how you
would purposely place a weak adventurer to not just perhaps fail a room, but
also to make another player pay you so that they can bump you off that space.
Adventurer positioning is important to success in the game and being able to
manipulate not just the rooms but also the players is highly entertaining.
Sometimes you can win by simply not losing and that has made quite a difference
for me when it has come down to the last round. Winning isn’t everything in
Dungeon Guilds, it’s sometimes a matter of how much less you lose compared to
your opponents.
Things I Dislike
1) Luck plays a somewhat bigger portion than I would have
liked
As each room has a varied amount of treasure, it could so
happen that the room you chose carried way less treasure than the room of the
same type that your opponent chose. That will happen quite a bit and it can
make you feel kinda sour as it was purely a matter of luck. It’s a small matter
but still something that you have to be prepared to accept going in. This has
happened in ALL my games.
2) Needs one player to be an absolute jerk
Of all my plays of Dungeon Guilds, I enjoyed every single
one, except for one. And that was my first play of the game. In my first play,
everyone just wanted treasure so we proceeded to overpower and lock every room.
That is definitely possible depending on the room types drawn. So in our first
game, there wasn’t much casualties and everything came down to luck. Terrible.
You really need that someone who will look out for an opportunity to screw
someone else over. So since then, I took it upon myself to be the jerk and
everything changed. Yeah, so in a way, you really need to know that winning
every room will make the winner just someone who is lucky. Trying to deny other
players will ensure that the winner is one of skill and some luck.
 |
| The nun and the warrior girl cant take our the Salamander Monster. Room Failed ! |
3) Replayability
As mentioned above, there aren’t really a lot of dungeon
masters. This means that possibly after awhile the game may need to lie resting
on the shelf for a bit before you might want to take it out again. This really
depends on you and the group but I can foresee replayability being a problem
for Dungeon Guilds. There aren’t a ton of cards, so the mixture can get samey
soon enough. I’ve played the game 4 times so far, and I still would play it
somemore. I think after 8 plays I might need to take a rest. Haha.
What I would have liked would be for some rooms to have 4
stars or ???. Rooms that have no way to be known what value it could be and
thus the excitement will be cranked up a bit.
My Thoughts
I went into Dungeon Guilds not expecting anything although
Tom really said so many nice things about it. I decided to go in impartial and
after my first game, I came out slightly disappointed. It had potential but
felt too lucky and easy.
But I am glad that I stuck with it and tried a different way
to approach the game. That really changed my outlook of it. When you seek
avenues to mess with others, when you set yourself up (because you only have 3
cards per round, the other 2 unused are reserved for next round) on a round by
round basis to have a good mix to attack or to fail a room, then you will find
that the game has more depth than you initially realize. When you know that
everybody winning is not as good as you losing less than everyone else, the
game will start to shines in its own special way.
I never go into games intentionally trying to mess with
others (unless it’s a bluffing game), but for Dungeon Guilds, that’s the way it
was meant to be played. If you can do that, I think you will find that the game
is high on entertainment value for the time invested.
True enough, it isn’t going to be nominated for the best
filler game out there, nor will it blow you over with any innovative mechanics,
but, its fun. All my friends have enjoyed it, we laugh a lot in our plays, and
I am keeping it in my collection. No, you can’t have it.
Jonathan
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