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Solo dungeon crawl

Are you a fan of Dungeons & Dragons? Find it difficult to get a group together for regular role play dungeon crawls? Well that is not unusual, especially in small communities, or as you grow older and gaming buds move away, or take on added family re

Are you a fan of Dungeons & Dragons?

Find it difficult to get a group together for regular role play dungeon crawls?

Well that is not unusual, especially in small communities, or as you grow older and gaming buds move away, or take on added family responsibilities.

An option in such situations can be some solo gaming.

One option was Mini Rogue a solo entrant in the 2016 9-Card Nanogame Print and Play Design Contest at www.boardgamegeek.com

“Mini Rogue is a nanogame (or microgame) profoundly inspired by roguelikes and roleplaying games. Monsters, hazards, treasures, bosses, dungeons, random rooms and encounters, these things are all featured in Mini Rogue,” notes the ruleset of the game designed by Paolo Di Stefano and Gabriel Gendron.

This is one of those games that is just plain handy.

It’s nine cards (PnP and sleeved), four D6 dice and eight tokens (small wooden cubes), so you can take it to work for lunch time diversion, that solo afternoon coffee, or late night when the family is asleep and you can’t.

The game plays rather simply in terms of mechanics, although sevens 8X11 pages of rules tells you there are a fair amount of player options, and game detail through choices being made as you progress ‘through the dungeon.’

The general objective of the game is rather straight forward, manage resources, make some wise decisions, get a bit lucky rolling dice, meet the big bad guy and survive.

“In this solitaire microgame, you play as an adventurer that delves into a Dungeon, room after room, level after level, area after area, to reach the last room and acquire the Og’s Blood : a fabled and mysterious ruby gemstone,” details the rules.

“You win the game if you can reach the last room of the dungeon and find the Og’s Blood.”

Like a good role playing game, the character (the delver), collects food, treasure, becomes tougher as he goes through the dungeon, which changes each level by the deal of the dungeon cards.

Choices are always present, and while limited, are not easily made. Do you need to see the merchant and buy something to succeed? Or rest to heal a bit?

Make the right choice and the path to victory gets easier, unless of course your dice go cold as a January day, and then the advantage can be lost like so much dandelion fuzz on the wind.

Mini Rogue is light enough gaming fare to be fun to replay more often than you might imagine. Clearing the dungeon is not easy, so the gamer in you gets into ‘well I can do this’ mode and you will be dealing the cards out again and starting over, hoping the dice are friendly, or the cards fall in your favour better.

Definitely a solo game for the dungeon loving RPG’er.