Dungeon Royale: A Dungeon Crawl Board Game in the Style of a Retro Video Game

Dungeon Royale is one-part dungeon crawl, one-part roguelike, that has 2-4 players racing to discover treasures, complete quests, find the Stone of Life and be the first to exit with the most earned victory points.

With roguelike elements, Dungeon Royale’s retro presentation is a treat. Harkening back to the days of ye olde portable gaming systems, the playful art style and packaging not only appeals to retro gamers excited to bring a bit of D&D-inspired gameplay to their table tops but gives a nice wink to current roguelike video games that embrace the retro presentation of consoles and computers of the past.

The story of Dungeon Royale is simple: The King is dying and to bring him back from the white light, players must enter the dungeons of Gorgath and find the Stone of Life guarded by a fierce and plotting dragon. Players will enter these depths, gathering treasures as they work against each other and time to level up over the course of two phases to earn the most points and to (hopefully) revive their ailing king.

Phase One is built around multiple courses of action with the intent of leveling up characters for better actions through a series of tasks. To complete these tasks, players will move, attack, and steal to gain treasures and the necessary components to level up through varying dice roles and special cards. These actions, as well as the gained loot, all contribute to a player’s running tally of victory points. Phase Two begins when a player reaches Level 3. At this point, two keys to the dragon’s lair as well as the Stone of Life are added to the game. Players must locate the keys, grab the Stone of Life, and escape the dungeon.

But what is a roguelike dungeon crawl without special actions and death? Dungeon Royale offers both through the course of gameplay, allowing players a chance to try different strategies, such as accumulating points by amassing treasures and kill tokens from slaying both opponents and monsters. Perhaps a player will use steal actions to reap the benefits others worked so hard to earn. The multiple paths to victory, which do not require having the Stone of Life, are plentiful. To accomplish these goals, there will be death – plenty of death. Depending on how a player meets their end, a death token will be earned that will be worth negative points at the end of the game. However, players will be able to keep the treasures as well as special actions and items they have amassed (other than the Stone of Life, which is dropped at the spot where the player who had it perished). These gained items and actions will be useful in once more forging deeper into the dungeon to gather more loot or to slay the menacing dragon and gaining the Stone of Life.

Though death may allow you to strategically place yourself at an opportune spot to escape the dungeon, too many death tokens (or leaving the Stone of Life for another player to scoop up) may be your ruin as someone else races to victory.

Once a player has escaped the dungeon with the Stone of Life or a player has decided to leave the dungeon after reaching Level 3, players get one more turn to gather up their loot and head for the dungeon’s exits. Differing treasures reward victory points accordingly (each gold is worth one point, diamonds are each worth three points, and artifacts are worth four), with the Stone of Life being worth 10 points and completed quests being worth anywhere from 4-10 points. Points are added, with the player with the most winning Dungeon Royale.

If this sounds like it could be up your alley, be sure to check it out on Kickstarter.

Disclosure: this is a sponsored preview. It contains our impressions of the game based on the rules and a description of the game provided to us prior to the Kickstarter campaign.