Dungeon Heroes—A Double-Take Review

The light coming from your flickering torch is getting dimmer and dimmer, but you move forward anyway, stepping over the corpse of the Ogre. As you approach the next room, you see a chest. This is it. What you came for. The treasure! From your left, beyond the nearly extinguished light, you hear the distinct sound of bones rattling...

Dungeon Heroes calls itself a tile-placement dungeon crawl. Does it succeed at either of those claims? Let's find out!

The Components

1 Game board

4 dice to track the Heroes' health: a d10, d8, d6, and d4

4 Hero Boards, which tell you about each Hero's special ability, and are a place to keep the health die

47 Dungeon Tiles, which show the traps, treasure, and monsters of the game

14 wooden meeples. But calling these meeples is an injustice. These are seriously cool wooden figures, with different sculpts for each hero and each type of monster. They look terrific.

The Setup

One person is the Dungeon Lord and the other person plays the Heroes. The Dungeon player puts the tiles near him. These include traps, monsters, treasure, and artifacts. The Hero sets up his Heroes in any way he wants on the starting row.

The Gameplay

The game is split into two different phases, the passive phase and the aggressive phase. These phases refer to the actions available to the dungeon player.

Passive Phase—During the passive phase the Dungeon player must take 4 tiles (chosen randomly) from the available tiles, look at them and then devise a placement scheme. He can place them anywhere on the board and they are placed face down, so it helps to remember where you placed them!

The player turn for the Hero player is the same throughout the game. They receive four actions per turn. An action can be spent to move any of the four heroes, or use the Wizard's ability—turn up a face down tile—or the Cleric's ability—heal a hero in an adjacent square. Each of the heroes can only perform 2 actions per turn before they exhaust and must wait until next turn to be given an action. The Warrior and Rogue special abilities are free actions, if the Warrior steps on a tile that reveals a monster—or has already been revealed as a monster—he slays the monster. If the Rogue steps on a trap tile he disarms it. If the Hero player reveals/finds artifacts the hero character that moved onto that tile gains that item and can use it, or give it to another hero character in an adjacent square

Aggressive Phase—Once all the tiles have been pulled and placed by the Dungeon player, the passive phase is over and the AGGRESSIVE PHASE begins. Any monster tiles that have been revealed on the board are replaced with the corresponding monster. The Dungeon player now has 4 actions, which include moving a monster one tile, or revealing a tile. If you reveal a tile, you replace it with a monster. Then the monsters get to attack any adjacent Hero or any Hero the monster moved onto.

This back-and-fort continues until either the Hero has found three of the treasures, or all of the Heroes are dead.

The Verdict and Recommendations

Firestone—Well, first of all, this doesn't really feel like a dungeon crawl to me. It's really more of an abstract. And that's fine—there have been some great dungeon-themed abstracts, such as Dungeon Twister. Calling it a dungeon crawl just seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Jeremiah - I'm okay with calling this a dungeon crawl, if only because of the abilities the Hero player has to manage in the search for the treasure. Maybe it's a dungeon crawl that uses a few abstract mechanics. But at the end of the day you are searching a dungeon for treasure...

Firestone—I played games against an opponent and a few solo games. I actually preferred the solo games. It seemed that the strategy for the Dungeon player was to keep traps and so forth in the front, monsters in the back, and then once the monsters are out, go after the Warrior hard. Since he's the only once who can kill monsters (other than another Hero grabbing a one-time-use artifact), once you kill him, it's pretty much just cleaning up. This might change after a few plays, or by playing with a different opponent. The benefit of the solo game is that things come out randomly in the dungeon, so it actually felt more like a dungeon crawl where anything could pop up anywhere.

Jeremiah—I think both have merits. I think I prefer the two player version with the bluffing aspect. I found that after playing the same player a few times as the Dungeon player you had to change up your strategy because they would figure it out and send the Rogue in to disarm traps, and the the warrior would clean up the monster tiles before the monsters even made it on the board. If there was one tweak I would make is to put the Holy Grail into every setup, this gives the hero player a fighting chance if the Warrior does get taken out early on.

Firestone—The components are top-notch. The meeples are unique and intricate and really add some great flavor to the game. The tiles are thick and great quality. I like the artwork a lot. And the dice you use to track damage are a nice touch.

Jeremiah— I totally agree, the tactile-ish nature of this game is great! These are the most intricate and still very sturdy meeples EVER! The look of the game is great as well, the art, on the tiles and the board really create a great environment for the game!

Firestone—I feel like we should mention a couple of aspects that might put some readers off. (We are a blog written by two Christians, after all...) First is the artwork on the Damsel. She's another character included in the expansion (The Dragon & The Damsel), and if you rescue her, she joins the party and becomes a playable character. Apparently it's really warm in that dank dungeon, because she's wearing only a bikini-type wrap thing up top (the only part of her you can actually see), and the top and bottom of her breasts are visible. I'm not a fan of hypersexualizing women—my two boys are going to get enough of that as they grow up, and it will be a constant battle for me to teach them to ignore the world's view of women and show them that they're daughters of the King, and not just "a great rack..." So I don't need my games contributing to that battle on the side of the opposition. Yep, I can absolutely choose not to play with her in the game. I just want to make you aware it's there.

Jeremiah—Yeah, I've actually played the base game with my 7-year old. There isn't anything overly intimidating about it. It's a fun adventure type game. But both expansions stay well hidden and won't make their way onto the table much in my house. The other expansion that is included with the first (which is a great value, by the way!) is The Lords of the Undead. Functionally what this expansion brings to the game is great. Two more monster types, a necromancer that can bring back slain monsters. And the White Lady (a ghost)) who possesses a hero character giving the dungeon player control of that hero and thus allowing them to force the character into a trap, over to a monster etc. This is really cool for game play, but creeps me out. Possession isn't something to mess around with in my opinion. Most "dungeony" games walk a pretty fine line with me, and in this instance the line is crossed. Again, I don't have to play with that expansion, and I'm certainly not bashing Gamelyn and Michael Coe for putting it out there!! It's a simple case of my choice regarding this expansion, and I feel folks who are sensitive to this type of thing should know about it.

Firestone Final Verdict—This game was fine for me...but merely fine. I like my abstracts to be abstracts, and my monster-killing to be more...bashy? Total props on the components and the custom meeples and the artwork (other than Chesty La Rue) and making it play well as a solo. I just don't think I'll be reaching for this very often. Leave it on the shelf...

Jeremiah Final Verdict—Expansions aside, I really enjoy the base game; it seems like I'm in a season of life where the 90+ minute big board games are harder to get on the table. We still do, but it takes some effort to make it happen. This plays quick, offers many different strategic choices for both players, and has a lot of things I look for in a game: good synergy between components, bluffing, and sweet components! I say put this one on the table!

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Kickstarter Weekly—August 1, 2013

Well it's Thursday and you know what that means... It's not yet Friday. But never fear because we're here with another installment of Kickstarter Weekly, the place where we make our recommendations and let you know what's a poppin' over on Kickstarter. Let's jump in, shall we?

King's Forge - Clever Mojo Games

Go back this project! We have both played the prototype (and will be posting our written AND video Double-Take on it soon!). This dice-builder offers up lots of great decision making moments, a bit of a take that element, and lots of ways to tweak your dice rolls. It's super easy to learn, play and teach. A pledge of $39 gets you a copy of this game and it's money well spent! Check out the full campaign here!

A Duel Betwixt Us - Game Salute

This nifty little 2-player dueling card game takes card dueling into the realm of an old-timey gentlemen's duel. Loaded with lots of humor and jest, the one looks like a lot of fun! In just about 24 hours the campaign is over 60% funded, so you can bet there's going to be all kinds of stretch goaly goodness coming for this one! A $35 pledge gets you the game shipped to your door in the US and UK! We'll be interviewing the game's co-designer Laurence Honderick next week so stay tuned for that! You can check out the campaign here, and be sure to watch the entertaining and informative video on this one!

Giant Meeples - Gamelyn Game

Gamelyn Games founder Michael Coe has found a great niche with these awesome, sturdy, and just super-cool-to-look-at meeples. They were introduced to the gaming world through Dungeon Heroes, and since then Gamelyn has been releasing different sets of meeples for gamers to use, give to kids to play with, use in story telling, or display proudly. The latest installment in this line is a set of GIANT MEEPLES! These things look great, could be used as a set of book ends, or a centerpiece in your medieval dinner party, or... well you can decide. You can pledge $12 and get one, or $40 and get 5, and there are dozens of them to choose from! Check out the campaign right here!

Click-Clack Lumberjack - Mayday Games

Also known as Toc Toc Woodman 2.0. Click-Clack Lumberjack is a dexterity game that puts a dangerous weapon in your children's hands. Ok, it's a plastic axe, but to my children I'm sure it would be a ninja ax, or a bat-ax or something to wield in a quest to eradicate evil... Anyway, there's this plastic tree and you're trying to knock the bark off of it without knocking the wood off of it. Bark scores points, wood scores negative points. An interesting pledge level of $17 gets you the game shipped in a flat rate box and the game box is collapsed to make everything fit. If you want it uncollapsed you can pay an extra $5 and get it shipped that way. Check out the full campaign here!

Dungeon Attack! - Attack Dice Games

Attack Dice, creators of the dice roller When Zombies Attack! are back at it with a dungeon themed dice-apalooza! Dungeon Attack! Looks like a game that takes a straight-forward dice roller and adds some depth and tweaks the scoring mechanism a little. I (Jeremiah) loved When Zombies Attack—it's a filler that comes out quite frequently with my group and is way better than Steve Jackson's Zombie Dice (which is basically a zombie-themed Farkle). This campaign is already funded and there are some sweet stretch goals in the future for backers! $20 gets you in on a copy of the game for this one and it looks well worth it if you're into rolling dice! Check out the full campaign here!

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Kickstarter Weekly: Game Salute Special!

Well, like we said: Game Salute is busy powering a bunch of Kickstarter Campaigns, and bringing a bunch of games to market! So we thought we would dedicate an entire post to campaigns that wear the Game Salute brand, so here we go!

Magnum Opus - Clever Mojo Games

We'll be reviewing this title here on TOG very soon. Magnum Opus is a deck-builder with a cool matrix of cards to research and select from! You can jump on board with this one for $35, which is a great value! But! If you go in for $200 you can also receive one of the 8 prototype copies that are being sent out to the reviewers. (Including the one sitting on Scott's shelf and the one sitting next to me (Jeremiah) right now!) How cool is that!? You can find the full details and lots of videos and such right here!

Chaos & Alchemy - Clay Crucible Games

There seems to be a lot of games delving into the realm of alchemy lately and we see another example of that here! The game is listed as a quick-playing card and dice game for 2-5 players, and seems to feature a fair amount of decisions on each players turn. You use dice to give the players actions (play cards, etc.). You can get in on this one for $25, and with plenty of time left they've already funded, so there should be some sweet stretch goals in the future for backers! You can check out the full campaign, right here!

Zoo Fu - Closet Nerd Games

After a long day in the zoo, animals go full out in a samurai battle royal. This card battle game pits players against each other in an attempt to be zoo champion! When the deck runs out the player holding the most chi tokens is crowned Zoo Fu champion! A super inexpensive game to jump into at $15, and looks like a fun, light family game! They need a good boost to get to their funding goal on this one! You can check out the full campaign here!

KerFlip! 2nd Edition - Creative Foundry Games

KerFlip is a fun fast paced word game that we reviewed a few months ago. (Read that review here!) But wait...there's more, because with the help of Game Salute, Creative Foundry Games is upgrading KerFlip for a second edition! It's really quite simple: If you have the original version, for a $10 bill you can get a conversion pack, or if you back it for $25 you'll get the 2nd edition of the full game! The campaign is right here!

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Kickstarter Weekly—July 25, 2013

Hey everyone! Welcome to yet another installment of Kickstarter Weekly! There are a lot of projects on Kickstarter asking for your hard-earned dollar—some are good, some are great, and others... We write this piece every week to let you know which ones we're excited about and hopefully give you some useful information along the way!

Let's get started -

Pack of Heroes - Adventureland Games

Set in an alternate vintage comic book universe (that totally doesn't exist) Pack of Heroes is a 2-player head-to-head card game battle. Using your heroes and their abilities the goal is basic: Defeat your opponent! If nothing else this game looks super stylized and has awesome fake retro art! $20 gets you a copy of the game and all unlocked stretch goals. They've already funded so every backer will push them onward toward those stretch goals. Plus there are some sweet add-ons including T-shirts and action figures! You can find the campaign here.

Pigpen - Island Officials

We told you about this one last week, but wanted to remind you to check out our interview with designer Kevin Kulp, and developer Jason Tagmire RIGHT HERE! This is an inexpensive family game that we think you'll enjoy! Our Double-Take Review is on its way too! Check out the campaign here!

Byzantio - LudiCreations

This 4-player board game takes places in a realm that finds itself without an emperor, and no heir apparent. As one of the noble houses you will try to gain control of the throne. The 4-player game is said to take only an hour (and that includes teaching the game!). They've already funded within the first 2 days and are on their way to knocking over stretch goals! You can still get in on the early bird funding price of $38 to have it shipped to the US and EU. Check out the campaign here!

Privateer - Ensignia Games

Well you know I (Jeremiah) especially have a soft spot for pirate games, and this one looks like a winner! Claiming lots of player interaction and shifting circumstances that keep all players involved even while players are not taking their turn, the goal is to increase your captain's infamy by way of buying, selling, and stealing cargo and goods. You can get in on a few early bird levels—right now the lowest level is $43. Check out the campaign right here.

Shuriken - Awesome Enterprise

This modular tile board game boasts a battle between 2-5 ninja clans and 250 plastic ninja miniatures. Along with the modular boards comes the possibilities of special scenarios and unique setups to increase replayability! This one is a bit pricey, coming in at $75 for the game, but all those pieces parts will quickly run up the cost of a game like this! You can check out the campaign here.

Congrats!

VivaJava: The Coffee Game: The Dice Game - Dice Hate Me Game

A big congrats to the folks at Dice Hate Me for crushing the campaign for VJTCGTDG! They managed to unlock 5 stretch goals in the process, which means Angry Dice are on the way! Be on the look out for this fun dice roller, and we'll be sure to check in with designer TC Petty III and Chris Kirkman of Dice Hate Me to keep you up to date on all things VJTCGTDG!

Thanks so much for reading, and check back tomorrow for an special installment of Kickstarter Weekly as we feature nothing but games powered by Game Salute! Yes, they have that many games in the pipeline that we're giving them their very own post! So, don't miss it!

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Sooie!! An Interview with Pigpen Dev Team Kevin Kulp & Jason Tagmire

Today we're once again joined by our good friend Jason Tagmire. You may know him as the guy who designed Pixel Lincoln and Maximum Throwdown, but today he’s wearing a different hat: developer of a new game by Kevin Kulp, titled PigPen. And look! He’s brought along designer Kevin to talk about PigPen, and the roles that each have had in preparing the game to get it to market.

Jason, Kevin, thanks for joining us today!

So first of all, tell us about PigPen!

JASON: PigPen is a family friendly card game about pig-penning and pen-destruction. Each player is a farmer trying to contain his pigs, but his neighbors will do everything they can to prevent it from happening. He puts up a fence; they pull out a saw. Eventually the pigs come out and score points.

Kevin designed and self-published it a few years back and I always thought it deserved a larger audience. With Island Officials, I was able to help it make it to Kickstarter, and hopefully soon enough it will reach that audience.

Kevin, how did you land on a barnyard-competition theme for the game?

KEVIN: While in college and deciding to make a go of commercial game design, I realized I wanted to make board games.  I also realized I would need a diverse offering of game designs.  The family game eluded me it seemed, until walking around Philly one day waiting for an IGDA meeting.  As my mind sometimes doesn't stop thinking design, I really put my mind in to coming up with a family card game.  I had just played "There's a Moose in My House" and it got my mind thinking of its simplicity.  So I started with wanting an animal-based game, then thinking of what would be a simple goal for players; once I settled on pigs and pens the game came together rather quickly.  It also helped that I grew up around working and non-working farms, and had an aunt who loved pigs.

Jason, we know you have a thing for sausage link whips, and meat-based conflict resolution...beyond that, what drew you to this project?

JASON: Initially it was the way that it brought Kevin's family together. I saw them all at a convention selling the game and I was there alone showing off a game filled with puking turtles made of pixels. It was the complete opposite and something that I wanted to accomplish personally. My kids were very young at the time, but it stuck in my mind.

Once I played the game, it was closer to what I was doing than you would think. Silly sayings, meat references, etc... but behind that a really fun little game. With it consisting of just standard sized cards, it was a great candidate for the tabletop side of Island Officials.

Beyond your own titles, what recently released/upcoming games are you excited about this year?

KEVIN: Oddville, actually just picked it up. I got to play it at Metatopia and really loved how much game they packed into a small package.  There are games that really get my mind going toward design, and this was one of them. I love how the game mechanics work together. I can't wait to play this at my local gaming group.

JASON: There have been a few things on Kickstarter lately that I've been excited about. Council of Verona is a wonderful little gem of a game. The Agents looks like my kind of game and I'm really itching to try the print-and-play. Outside of Kickstarter I want AEG's Trains, more Smash Up factions, and Cube Quest from Gamewright.

Jason, you’ve been the designer on several titles recently; tell us about the difference between developing vs. designing?

Developing a game is really interesting. It's very different from designing in that it's less emotional. You are less tied to the things that you creatively fell in love with, and more willing to make changes that will better the game.

With Pigpen it has been a lot of clarifying rules and card types, testing out variations in the numbers on the cards, and seeing what breaks the game or makes it too long, too short, too easy, too hard...etc. These are things that I also do when designing, but it's nice to be limited to those roles for once. I'm able to focus on fine tuning the game without having to be the everyman that I am when designing.

So, how did you guys meet?

KEVIN: When I was college my game design professor pushed us all towards to IGDA meetings as part of our education.  It was in going to the meetings that I was introduced to Jason by Ryan Morrison (Island Officials). Jason was one of the only (that I knew of at the time) who was working on board games.  I remember having a discussion about what to do to start and Jason went down a list of sites and places to check out. From there we would see each other at IGDA meetings and really got to know each other through another friend and designer, Alex Strang.

JASON: I think the first time might have been at Too Many Games about 3-4 years ago. Kevin had his self-published copy of Pigpen for sale and his whole family behind the booth (which was really nice to see at a video game convention). We chatted for a little while and eventually ended up seeing each other around a lot more after that.

Is there a Mad Max-related card in the game—perhaps a Master Blaster...?

JASON: We probably don't want to give kids nightmares. Or adults. Or me.

Kevin, did you approach Jason about coming on board as developer? How has the game changed/improved due to having a developer?

KEVIN: I never asked him to publish my games, it was more of showing and telling him my vision for the games.

Alex Strang and Jason had started a monthly game night where I was going and we would pull out our game designs. Game designers, myself included, like challenges, and Jason or Alex challenged me to complete one full game in a month. My first month I made two games, one of which might be published by Island Officials next year. In particular, when it came to Pigpen, we played it one-on-one at a game night over at Alex Strang's house. We played, then I explained where I wanted the game to go, my vision and such.  From there the conversations started and Jason informed me Island Officials wanted to publish the game and possibly more.

When it comes to having him as a developer, the game has only gotten better.  He helped streamline the game and put a focus on continuity in gameplay. His experience of having some successful projects under his belt really came through in the final development phase of the game before kickstarting it this week.

Guys, tell us what is unique about PigPen when compared to other family style card games.

KEVIN: The humor and theme really set the game apart. I know playing it with my children they are always checking out the pigs, picking favorites, and always laughing at what they can do in the game. They love picking on me and doing their best to make sure I don't get the pigs. I saw this in playtests with adults also. Before Jason took up development I had it at Metatopia and this epic game occurred between two couples who had a great time playing the game. There was so much laughter and silliness in that game, that it convinced other players to sign up to play the game, the next day.

JASON: It brings out the life of the family. Many family style games are a little stiff, and Pigpen is the complete opposite. When your quiet little sister takes a hammer to your brick wall, sending your pig right into her fort of a pen...you can only laugh about it (and hopefully destroy that fort). Kevin also took the approach that this game should be enjoyable for all ages. The child/adult line is a very hard line to blur and Kevin did a great job with it.

Kevin, do you have any plans to expand the game, or will we find out more about that as stretch goals are met within the Kickstarter campaign?

KEVIN: There is one expansion already on the Kickstarter with the UFO. I can't say yet, but have another one we'll be adding to the Kickstarter soon. I have more ideas for the game, and depending on how well the game succeeds I'm sure we'll see the ideas coming out over the next couple of months.

Jason, how are your many other projects coming along? Anything new you can share with us at this time?

JASON: Pixel Lincoln is out! Haha, it's been a long time coming and finally in the hands of the Kickstarter backers and working its way to stores. It's been really awesome chatting with everyone about the game and the feedback I've gotten is very positive. So, I'm working on more Pixel Lincoln stuff. I've been communicating with Game Salute about how to get more cards out there on a regular basis and I should have some news about that soon at the all-new PixelLincoln.com.

Also working on a few other projects, but nothing that's far enough along that it would be interesting. I should have some prototypes at GenCon along with the release of Maximum Throwdown there. Can't wait.

Kevin, we get to see your lovely family at the end of the Kickstarter video for the game; are they all gamers too? Or is PigPen an attempt to bring them to the table?

KEVIN: I will have to admit they are more digital gamers right now; they love Minecraft, Terreria and Roblox.  I'm slowly breaking that down and exposing them to board games all the time. And having children is a great excuse to convince the wife those game purchases are for the family and not me. ;)  They of course get excited with any game I make and always ask me what my next game is.  Lately with Redakai being on sale everywhere I picked up a couple starters and we are playing that; also Jason introduced me to the Mega Man CCG from a decade ago and the kids have shown interest in that one.  Also Ticket to Ride and Bang is a big favorite for everyone, including my wife.

5 Questions - 5 Words (to answer them)

Who did actually let the dogs out?

KEVIN: John Moller's mind-altering pancakes.

JASON: My allergies.

Let’s say you are Old MacDonald, and you could have one science fiction based piece of machinery... So as the song goes: “And on his farm he had a....?”

KEVIN: Thermonuclear powered diamond blade chainsaw.

JASON: Flux Capacitor.

Your reaction to hearing there will be new Star Wars films?

KEVIN: Joss Whedon commits fanboy sin.

JASON: Childlike excitement.

The Green Goblin, or the Hobgoblin?

KEVIN: Green, he made the money.

JASON: Hobgoblin's got style.

Favorite iOS app?

KEVIN: What is this IOS thing?

JASON: Super Hexagon.

Thanks so much for joining us, guys!

We've received prototype review copies of the game and will be posting our extensive Double-Take Review of the game soon! But until then you can check out the Kickstarter campaign for more information. 

Don't forget to subscribe to TOG over on the right! And look for us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube!

Thanks for reading!

Epic Death—A Preview

By Jeremiah “You only live twice: Once when you're born And once when you look death in the face.”  ― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

And thrice when you get brought back to life by a resurrect card...

Today we're looking at a prototype of the card game Epic Death, from Waits in Graves; the game was successfully Kickstarted by Springboard—Game Salute's Kickstarter juggernaut.

Let's talk about how the game plays...

The Components

Cards... Lots of them.

20x Adventurer Cards—These are flavorful, but un-unique, otherwise—no one adventurer has any special abilities or stats.

57x Loot Cards—This is one of two ways you score points. Again there are no abilities or bonuses given through collecting these cards.

38x Fate Cards—These cards make up your player hand, and basically allow you to increase your chances of completing a quest, or decrease the chances of your opponents completing quests on their turns. Speaking of Quests...

40x Quest Cards—These are split into two types: Quests (ordinary run of the mill quests) and Epic Quests!

16 Six-Sided Dice—I had to use my own for the preview version but they say these are going to be epic in the final version!

The Setup

Each player selects five adventures—unless you're playing a 5-player game then you select four, because you know...math. Separate the Epic, and Regular Quest cards, placing the stack of Regular Quests on top of the Epic Quest cards; this makes the Quest deck. Then deal a line of 5 Quest cards out from the Quest deck.  Shuffle up the Loot cards and Fate cards separately to make the Loot and Fate decks, and then deal out 5 Fate cards to each player.

The Gameplay

On a player's turn he or she selects a Quest from the lineup, and then players can play Fate cards on the active player's company, starting with Death/Resurrection cards and proceeding to "before dice are rolled" cards—before the active player rolls the dice—and then "after dice are rolled" cards—after the dice are...well I think you get it. Let's break those down a little bit:

Death/Resurrection cards—These cards are assigned to a specific adventurer; a Death card results in that adventurer being killed if the quest is failed. A Resurrection card will result in bringing a deceased adventurer back into the game if the Quest is successfully defeated.

Other Fate cards—The majority of Fate cards that are played before or after the dice are rolled either add or subtract the amount of dice rolled for the quest. Or force a player to re-roll after they've been rolled.

After the Fate cards have been played, the active player rolls the dice (starting with 10, and then +/- by the modifiers of the Fate cards). If they are victorious, they collect the reward, which typically consists of Loot cards and Fate cards. If they fail, then the Quest card is placed under one of the adventurers, exposing the bottom of the Quest card and the "Fail" points attributed to the card. If there is a Death card on an adventurer, that adventurer gains the "Fail" points and is killed (turned face down).

How do you defeat a Quest? Each Quest has a type and number of victories required to defeat it. A trivial victory is any die showing 4 and up, a mighty victory is 5 and up, and an exalted victory is a die showing 6. So a Quest requiring 4 mighty victories requires 4 of the 10 dice you're rolling to show a 5 or 6. Rewards and Fail points are scaled appropriately for the type of Quest and victories needed to defeat it.

Loot cards gained by defeating Quests are assigned to your adventurers by playing them under the adventurer cards showing the "Epic" score on the top of the Loot cards.

The Epic Quest Phase—Once you've gone through the regular quests the Epic Quests will populate the line up and will shake things up! Defeating an Epic Quest will still reward you with some Loot and Fate cards. But if a player fails an epic quest, they kill off a hero and gain the Epic score on the Quest card (placing it the same way you do a Loot card). Once an adventurer is killed off you can no longer place loot (points!) or quest cards (fail or points) on them.

End Game

Once one player's adventurers are all dead, the game is over, and the score is tallied. Players only count the scores of those adventurers who have met glorious, "epic," or maybe not-so-epic death in battle. Whoever has the most points wins.

My Thoughts

Components—While the copy I reviewed is only in the prototype stages, the artwork is mostly complete. From what I saw it's very well done in the cartoony fantasy style, and looks great. The flavor text is humorous and packed full of  great genre-crossing references!

Gameplay—I enjoyed the change-up halfway through the game—just when the turns seemed a little redundant, the Epic Quests come out and you find yourself actually trying to take dice away from your roll so you can kill off an adventurer and score a bunch of Epic points for your Epic Death! The potential (and I suppose the expectancy) for gang-up situations is huge in this game. Those seem to move the game along well though, so be prepared and bring your thick skin!

Final Thoughts and Recommendations—Munchkin and Gloom had a baby and named it Epic Death. If you know those titles, and you enjoy those titles, then get on the Epic Death bandwagon. The theme is set in a Munchkin-ish comedic fantasy realm where everyone gangs up on everyone else, and the scoring mechanism (i.e. placing points on a character and killing them off to score them) is very reminiscent of Gloom. That being said there is some fun to be had with the randomness of the dice rolls and a good touch of strategy when it comes to deciding if you want to play a fate card on an opponent or keep it to help your chances.

Put It on the Table—If you enjoy a slap-sticky dice-roller with lots of ganging up and a big take-that factor. Just know that this is that kind of game, and if you're into that, you'll love Epic Death—it does that very well! Casual players will be able to grasp the game concepts pretty easily as well, and the flavor and geeky references in the game will hit folks on many levels.

Leave It on the Shelf —You might want to leave this one on the shelf for family game nights, or with a church or youth group. While all of the artwork is stylized and non-threatening, there are a lot of Necromancer, demon-ish type cards in there—what you would expect for a game called Epic Death—so you might want to have a good look at the cards to determine what settings are appropriate for the game. Younger players might have a tough time tracking the change of strategies midway through the game as well.

Overall: Put It on the Table!

We'd like to thank Game Salute for loaning Jeremiah a prototype of Epic Death, which in no way influenced the review of this game.

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Blogiversary Giveaway #3!

We've definitely had a lot of fun the first two weeks of this month, giving away some great games to our great readers. It's like Christmas in July here on TOG, and we're loving it! This week is no different, and we are beyond excited about the game we're giving away! Well, what is it?

This week we're partying, like a boss.

A Boss Monster that is!!

That's right: This week's giveaway is a free copy of the Kickstarter smash hit Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game!

In December we interviewed the guys of Brotherwise, creators of Boss Monster, and they have joined in the party this month and generously supplied us with this copy to give away as a part of our month-long blogiversary celebration! So, how do you enter to win this prestigious award? It's simple: Just subscribe to the blog, and you're in! Already subscribed to the blog? Well, you're in!

While it's not required, we would appreciate it if you shared this post with your friends, family and all those folks you have contact with via social media! We're super excited to be able to give away all of these great games this month, and the more you share our contests with your social circles, the more prizes we'll be able to give away!

There is a little bit of fine print: Once again we can not offer this to folks who live outside of the US or Canada. All of our funds are going towards producing the new podcast, and can't squeeze the extra funds to ship the boss too far.

You can order a copy of Boss Monster right now, right here. And it will be on store shelves the week of July 29. Or you can enter here to win it a few days early from us right here at TOG! You can find out all things Brotherwise at bwisegames.com

Thanks so much for reading our blog; it truly is awesome that you read, and we hope you understand that giving away a few games every now and then is just a very small way of showing how much we appreciate your readership!!

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TOG Visual - Michael Coe and Dungeon Heroes!

One of our first stops at Origins was the Gamelyn Games booth, where we had a little chat with Michael Coe, founder of Gamelyn Games and designer of Dungeon Heroes, a fun little 2-player dungeon crawl with outstanding components.

We'll be writing a full-out Double-Take Review of Dungeon Heroes very soon, but until we do you can get a good feel of the game from watching the video. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umrpX-fUfaA&w=560&h=315] We'd like to thank Michael for sharing some time with us, and look forward to reviewing Dungeon Heroes soon!

Thanks for reading and watching!

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CarmaRace—Kickstarter Preview

Even though we already had a Kickstarter Weekly post this week, we wanted to give you a quick preview look at a campaign being launched by Board to Death TV. That's right, some board game reviewers decided to try their hand at design, and CarmaRace was born.

CarmaRace, from first glance, looks to be a humorous card-driven board game. You're moving on the board as a hitchhiker, and the cards you play affect your movement, as well as your opponents.

Here's the catch: When you play a card that hinders your opponent, that opponent can then take that very same card into their hand. So, yes, what goes around, comes around! The luck you're pressing in this game is in the form of your opponents' good graces! Yeah, good luck with that...

The game looks very well done—we've included some preview art in this post—and they'll be launching the campaign July 18, and early birds can get a copy starting at $45. You can check out their launch event on Facebook here.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to look for us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube!

TOG Visual—Darren J. Gendron Talks Scurvy Dogs!

Well, you know I (Jeremiah) have a thing for pirate games, so when we saw the large Scallywags International banners unfurled in the exhibit hall, we made it a point to go and see what was going on. Darren J. Gendron of Scallywags International (which does much more than board games!) sat down and chatted about the high seas and pirates of days gone by! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8bCvvfvuZM&w=560&h=315] Thanks for reading the blog, thanks for watching the videos, and thanks for making our 1-year blogiversary celebration so awesome this month!

Subscribing to the blog get's you entered to win free stuff, and of course there's those Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube things that you can like, follow and subscribe to as well!