Two Rex Plays #7 - One Card Dungeon
In this edition of Two Rex plays we’re discussing One Card Dungeon, a dice placement dungeon crawler designed by Barny Skinner and published by Little Rocket Games. Playing on a single card, roll your adventure’s stats and see how far you can delve into a series of monster infested dungeons.
Here are the design features we liked:
Incredibly efficient micro design - Originally created for a one card print and play competition*, it’s amazing what’s been achieved with such a small form factor. A dungeon consists of a single card and up to 12 dice representing the adventurer, their stats, and the monsters. There are other neat features that make maximum use of the materials that are available, for example the cards themselves can be turned upside down to give new dungeons and the pip values of the dice represent the health of each monster.
Monster Artificial Intelligence – The monsters in one card dungeon aren’t static, simply waiting for you to pick them off at a time of your choosing. Instead, they move according to a set of predetermined & easy to understand rules, attempting to hunt you down and force you to engage in group combat. AI controlled characters remind me of Sandra the factory manager in Bot Factory, another game we played recently.
Range & line of sight - A cleverly designed range and line of sight mechanic is incorporated into the game, with walls built into each dungeon to provide the option of cover. I particularly like the line-of-sight rules (can you draw an unbroken line from one corner of your character’s space to that of the monster?).
Deterministic combat - At the start of each phase you know how much combat energy you have, and if you engage in combat, you will reduce a monster’s health by deducting multiples of their defence rating. It must have been tempting to incorporate further dice rolls at this stage, mimicking more traditional D&D experiences. But the choice not to is a smart one, there is already randomness in the player’s stats and energy and introducing more would feel out of line with the game’s design philosophy.
* If I’ve followed the evolution of this game correctly, it was subsequently kickstarted as part of a series of micro games all of which have interesting design concepts which I look forward to checking out in the future. You can buy One Card Dungeon as a stand alone product from their website.
One half of the Two Rex brothers enjoyed a well-deserved holiday this week, which provided an opportunity to enjoy solo only games such as this. Whisper it, but I feel like there is a significant minority of the board game community that prefer solo experiences, or at least welcome the opportunity for a genuine solo adventure from time to time. As a keen video gamer, virtually all the games I like are strictly solo only – whilst I like people in real life, I draw the line at letting them mess around in ‘my’ version of Elden Ring. The use of AI is a neat third way by creating an additional presence, conjuring up an imaginary foe beyond the dice monsters, a dungeon master living within the rules of the game itself.
Interested in One Card Dungeon? Find out more here:
Little Rocket Games Official Website
https://www.littlerocketgames.com/
TTS workshop
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2502763638