Summary: A great game with fun components.  Not exactly the game you would expect…and that’s an AWESOME thing. 9/10

How I Found This Game:  I was walking through the Origins Game Convention and saw one of the smaller booths.  It was late in the day on Sunday and I saw a smaller booth manned by a single person.  I struck up a conversation and was instantly enamored by the quality of the smaller miniatures.  After looking over the small box game of Dungeon Heroes, I decided to buy based on the pitch of the salesperson.  Later, while looking over the game, I saw the sales person was none other than the game designer Michael Coe.  Its always great to buy a game from the person who made it.  It shows the highest devotion to their product.

Mechanics:  DO NOT THINK THIS GAME IS A SIMPLE DUNGEON CRAWL!  The best game to compare this to is almost chess.  If either player of this game players this game as just a tile laying/simple fighting game, you will lose badly.  This is not a bad thing; it makes the game amazingly fun.  The game has asymmetric game play, and for a game that plays in less than 15 minutes, it is amazing!  The heroes have four actions per turn and they can spend those actions to move heroes or activate powers like the wizard which reveals tiles or the cleric that heals people.  The rogue and warrior do immediate actions by disabling traps or killing monsters, respectively.  The dungeon overlord first places four tiles each turn in the passive phase.  How he places these tiles really makes the game and leads to a game of cat and mouse.  What really makes this interesting is the game features a standard set of tiles and a random mix in of tiles so each game is different even if two games are played by the same people.  When the dungeon overlord is out of tiles the game switches to the active phase.  In the active phase, the dungeon overlord then replaces the monster tiles with little figures of the monsters.  This is when it really becomes chess.  All monsters only move one space a turn and only four can move.  The game continues until the heroes find three treasures or until they are all dead.  This is a fun mechanic and despite the complexity involved, it plays quick and doesn’t get stale despite how simple the game is or at least appears to be.  Great mechanics supporting excellent game play.

Art and Theme: The theme of the game is a dungeon exploration of a group of heroes.  It carries through pretty well.  The art is pretty good.  I like it, but some of the text is pretty small on the dungeon tiles.  On the heroes, the icons do get the point across well.  The true winner here is the figures.  The game comes with a number of wooden cut painted figures.  They are well done and look great.  Recently, Gamelyn Games had a kickstarter for mass producing these figurines.  It was funded, and based on this game alone, I gave them money because even if you bought the game and used the figures only, this is a value!

Packaging:  This game was made by gamers who love you.  You can tell this by what’s in the box.  The life dials are dice.  You do not use the dice as dice, but to keep track of hit points.  There is no reason for the dice except to enhance the theme of a dungeon crawl with your friends.  Besides this, the people who designed this game truly love you because of one reason; the game includes smaller bags for the tiles.  As a gamer, when I see this in a game, it makes me think the people who made it care for me.  The designers know I will need them to keep things in order and when they include it for me, it shows they are gamers who want their players to have the most fun with the smallest fuss.

Summary:  This game is great, fun, and fast.  I can’t underscore how much fun is packed in the smallest package.  Give it a look if you see it for sale. 9/10.

Dwarven Miner

I was recently at the Origins Game Convention, and I picked up my copy of Dwarven Miner from Rather Dashing Games while there. Let’s have a look:

Art and Theme-The theme is pretty simple. You’re a dwarf, so you do Dwarf-y stuff like mine and make stuff. It’s pretty classic, but that doesn’t make it bad. In fact the theme and art are very well done. I like the box, card, and placemat art. Everything does feel sufficiently Dwarf-y. As I played and keep looking over the art and cards, I thought this was a fun universe and would love to play more games or RPGs here. Some of the art is somewhat simplistic, but this is mostly on the art for the resource cards and on the dice. It gets the point across, but its not as in-depth as the art for the item. All and all a solid theme with great art: 8/10.

Mechanics-The goal of this game is to get the most number of points that you earn by satisfying victory point cards. Simple enough, but not bad. Points are scored by crafting all the items for a patron. Patrons will want between 2 and 4 items. Each turn, you get six dice. You roll the dice and can reroll the dice as many times are you want. However, if you roll an ork face, you cannot reroll that die. The die faces generate resource cards that you can store or trade in for items. In addition, you can also roll a stealing symbol. When that occurs, you steal a card from a player of your choice. More symbols means you can steal rarer items. This and some additional card effects are really the only way to interact with other players. When you craft the items for a patron, you get the points for the patron. In addition, some patrons give you extra powers or affect the table in some way. The rogue will kill another patron, thus depriving someone else of a power. The engineer will give you extra storage space for items for free. There is a good variety of patrons and they really drive the game with their effects. Also, you can see some time went it to this design as the higher point characters help the other players so the game has an auto-balance built in. It tends to fight the runaway victor problem and all players end up with a close game when someone finally ends the game. You can learn the game in five minutes and play a full game in ~45. That’s the mark of a good game: 9/10

The Good: Solid Gameplay with good art. Well thought out with nice cards and cardstock. Well worth my kickstarter money! I was also able to meet the guys who made the game and their pretty cool. So, good all around.

The Bad: The game feels kind of short. I like the length, but the goal is 30 points. This isn’t a problem, but some of the cards give you 15 points at a crack. Good to see some high point cards, but since patrons are secret you might just have a person win in less the 4 turns. I would almost like the game to be 60 points.

The Ugly: STICKERS! The game comes with 6 blank dice and a page of stickers. You have to make the dice. There are nice directions for that, but still…stickers? You guys get a pass on this one as you are a smaller company, but one day when you have your yacht and you’re summering in the Mediterranean due to the board game fortunes you’ve amassed, I want a deluxe edition with nice carved or painted dice.

So in the end , Dwarven Miner is a great game that plays quick and is fun. Give it a try! For me it’s a solid 8.5/10.

The Origins Rundown

How I spent my time

At the Origins Gaming Convention, I worked for Baldman Games.  If you get a chance and love DnD (4e or DnD Next), check them out.  Wednesday I was almost late for my first slot.  After a frantic drive across Ohio, I made it to the show just in time.  I ran Show Special 5-3 Wednesday night.  Spec 5-3 and Spec 5-4 are adventures set in the Living Forgotten Realms (LFR).  LFR is an awesome living campaign that features a large catalogue of free adventures set in the faerun.   Afterwards, I went and met my roommates and passed out.  Thursday, I ran Special 5-3 at 8am.  In between slots, I ran as fast as I could to the con floor to get the most exclusive item of the con:  the Shadowrun 5e rules!  I was able to get there in time and get my books signed!  At 1pm and 7pm, I ran a new adventure, Show Special 5-4.  The next day, I ran Spec 5-4 at 8am and 1pm.  That night I ran Living Divine Intro 1-7.  Living Divine is another 4th edition living game.  In this game, players take the role of goddlings who are discovering their power.  Check out the games here.  Saturday, at 8AM I was back to playing LFR with SPEC 5-4.  That afternoon and evening, I ran my first battle interactive.  For those who have never played in a living campaign, a battle interactive (BI) is when several tables are all playing concurrently on a joint adventure where they can interact with one another.  Holy Cow, that was the most fun and stressful time I have ever had while DMing.  We stated at 1PM and went till 12AM with an hour break.  If you get a chance, try a BI.  Its a great feeling of community when everybody is working together at a hobby they all love.  Sunday, I was off!  Great working for Baldman Games, but I wanted to spend a bit of time seeing the sites.  First things first, win a con exclusive for my brother at Kings of Tokyo.  With that done, I headed off to the sales floor.  Here I spent way to much money and talked to a bunch of different companies.  Great to see so many high ups at the con.  I learned a bunch of information about the con and had a ton of fun seeing how the business works.  I had a blast, but eventually had to head home.  I can’t wait till next year.

My thoughts on all the companies I met along the way

Wizards of the Coast and Paizo

The big two!  Its kind of sad, but neither had a sizable presence in the dealer hall.  Both had their wares on display as local dealers sold both stuff, but I like to see high ups in the company.  Next year be here!  You being here is 10 times better than having your grunts like me run your living games.  It makes me think you care if you talk to me at the smaller of the big cons.

Catalyst Games

These guys won Origins.  Hands down.  Why?  Well they got the most of my money.  They released a small print run, only for Origins, of the new 5e rules.  Heck, the guy who sold me my copy was the guy who wrote the damn book!  Seeing a big company have that much interaction with the fans; you win.  That’s it.  I plan to run more of your living game (Shadowrun Missions), especially because the guy who sold me the adventure book for Shadowrun Missions 5th edition wrote the book and worked the register.  I also met Talon the Catalyst booth guy and gave him some crap as I bought at T-Shirt.  He took it in stride and that kind of fun always makes me like a company.

Rather Dashing

I was about to write these guys off, but they made me love them so much harder.  I joined their kickstarter and was waiting for my game copy in the mail.  I saw them selling copies in the dealer hall and had not received my copy yet.  I was about to start some serious crap in the dealer hall, but when I mentioned I kickstarted the game they asked to see proof.  I showed them my phone and they gave me a copy.  NO QUESTIONS ASKED.  That made me love them.  No run around, no emailing, done!  I talked about the steampunk motif of things and they told me about an upcoming novel.  So here’s the deal Rather Dashing, you kickstart that, you get my money.  You make an RPG in that world you’re making, you get more.  Great guys, heads of the company shilling their stuff.  Win all around!

Albino Dragon

Here is the first small company I want to highlight.  These guys were great.  Cash Only, but great.  They were marking down items on the last day of the show and that drew me in.  I bought a T-shirt and Cthulhu playing cards from them.  Then they told me about some of the games they have previously made.  They offered a deal on Ace of Spies and Genegrafter.  I bought them right away.  I can’t wait to check them out.

Z-Man Games

Here I got to meet Zev Shlasinger head of the company.  Remember what I said about meeting company heads and me buying things?  I recently heard about Dungeon Petz and I wanted to buy a Vlaada Chvatil game.  They had it and they were marking things off.  Done and done.  Can’t wait to play it.

 

Stronghold Games

Here I got to meet Stephen Buonocore.  More company heads!  I wanted to buy CO2, but they were out.  I will have to wait till later!

Iello Games

Great games from these guys.  My brother LOVES Kings of Tokyo.  Took me 5 times, but I won the con exclusive standie for the game.  Great game.  Looking for more and will buy the expansion for his birthday.

Ubisoft

Well this is new.  They guys had a online card game.  I’m somewhat conflicted on what I think about this.  Its called Duel of Champions.  They gave away cards with in game gold.  I’ll give it a shot.

Gamelyn Games

I met Michael Coe.  He’s the founder of the company of the company and he sold me a copy of Dungeon Heroes.  Its a simple dungeon crawler.  I can’t wait to play it.  Good times.

 

And that was my con.  Looking forward to seeing the games I bought and can’t wait to play the RPGs.