Paper Dungeons

Game 48 of the “Now & Then Summer Marathon 2024” is “Paper Dungeons” played with Toby(6) and Jack(9)

“Paper Dungeons” is a roll-and-write adventure game affectionately described as a “dungeon scroller” by its publisher, Alley Cat Games.

Today’s review is a bit unconventional because I’m going to share my thoughts and opinions first, and then explain how the game works. There’s a good reason for this approach.

All three of us really enjoyed “Paper Dungeons,” and by the end of our first game, we were all convinced of its cleverness in squeezing a dungeon-crawling experience into a roll-and-write game that you can easily take with you when travelling. It’s not the smallest box, but it’s definitely portable and would fit into a rucksack.

I actually received “Paper Dungeons” all the way back at UK Games Expo, and part of the reason I delayed reviewing it was that, compared to most roll-and-writes, the game sheet looks extremely intimidating. When I first showed it to Toby, he gave me a look as if to say, “I don’t understand.”

Yes, the sheet you play on does look daunting, and even as you read through the rules—despite them being well-written—it seems like there’s a lot going on. However, once you get the hang of it, it’s actually relatively simple. By the end of the first game, Toby not only understood what he was doing but also started to grasp strategies and how to prioritise his points.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that I highly recommend “Paper Dungeons.” I think it could be a great middle-ground game for children who want to try something a bit more complex. However, adults should definitely read through the rules first and explain them to children in a more concise manner than the rulebook, as the pages can look intimidating even though, once you grasp the game, it’s not complicated at all—it’s excellent.

To set up the game, each player receives a dungeon sheet, and a dungeon card is chosen, which outlines where the bosses will be. You have six main dice for the game, three mission cards (although in our first game, we didn’t use these, as suggested in the rulebook), and two power and objective cards per player, of which each player chooses one.

The objective card is crucial as it indicates which of your four heroes will be dark heroes and which will be light heroes. This distinction is important when it comes to levelling up later in the game.

One interesting aspect of “Paper Dungeons” is that all players control a group of four heroes, rather than choosing just one. These heroes are a warrior, a wizard, a cleric, and a rogue.

A game of “Paper Dungeons” lasts eight rounds, during which you’ll try to level up your heroes, craft magic artefacts, explore the dungeon, fight monsters, and search for gems—all of which earn you victory points.

Each round has four phases. You start by rolling all six dice and immediately take damage based on how many skulls you roll. There’s a nice mechanic where, if you roll three skulls, you get to reroll the whole set without too much of a penalty. You then take damage from these skulls, which either goes into your life pool—made up of the overall levels of all your heroes—or, if you have potions, you can absorb the damage with those. This is useful because, at the end of the game, you lose points for the amount of damage your main life pool has taken, so using potions to mitigate this is key.

Once you’ve dealt with the damage, you can take three actions based on the dice in front of you. These actions include levelling up your hero, crafting an artefact, brewing a potion, or moving through the dungeon.

Levelling up your hero requires a die with the correct symbol and colour, which raises your hero by one level and increases your health. Once any hero reaches level four, they gain an extra ability, such as dealing extra damage to bosses, changing the colour of a die, avoiding damage from skulls, or collecting an extra gem.

You can craft an artefact, which will award you points and potentially give you additional powers later, such as extra damage to bosses, the ability to jump over walls, cross water, or gain extra potions.

Brewing potions is also crucial; they are worth half a point each and help ensure you take as little damage as possible to your party’s overall health. Additionally, for every four potions you collect, you earn a bonus.

To explore the dungeon, any die can be used, but those with boots on them allow you to move three spaces instead of the usual two. Exploring the dungeon is key, as you can defeat monsters by moving over their spaces with a high-level hero, find things like potions or artefact crafting materials for free, or discover gems, which provide substantial victory points and bonuses. In the game we played, we quickly realised that gems are powerful and one of the main ways to win.

You move around the map by drawing a line on your own personal dungeon sheet. Although you’re playing against other players, nothing you do directly affects them, meaning the game scales perfectly, and your success is determined by your own decisions.

At the end of the third, sixth, and eighth rounds, you fight a boss. This involves adding up the total levels of all your heroes and applying multipliers for specific hero types for each boss, which then awards victory points and possibly some damage depending on how much you dealt to the boss. These encounters are another key way to earn victory points.

The game ends after you fight the third boss, at which point you tally up all the victory points, and the player with the most points wins.

The game lasts about 30 minutes and doesn’t outstay its welcome, largely because the number of rounds determines the length. Although there’s a lot going on, once you get the hang of it, you can track everything quickly. The icons are clear, and everything seems well-balanced, with gems being a particularly effective way to win, which makes sense given they’re harder to obtain than most other items.

There are a few variants, such as disappearing gems when monsters are defeated, and a campaign mode that lets you play with certain monsters in a specific order, along with some additional artefacts to collect.

There’s also an expansion that fits perfectly in the base game’s box, introducing side quests and a brand-new dungeon layer to explore. We own this but haven’t played it yet; we definitely will at a future date.

We really like “Paper Dungeons,” and I’m glad I finally convinced Toby to play after showing it to him several times, despite his initial reluctance due to how complex the board looks. Normally, I’d suggest how a game could be made more approachable, but I don’t think it’s necessary here. It’s perfectly fine as it is—once you know what you’re doing, it’s well laid out, clear, and concise. However, an adult may need to grasp the rules first to explain them to younger players, who should then be able to play just fine.

“Paper Dungeons” is an excellent dungeon-crawling roll-and-write game, and I thoroughly recommend it.

Disclaimer: “Paper Dungeons” was kindly provided by “Alley Cat Games” for the purpose of review. Crystal Tsui who works for “Alley Cat Games” is in our community and I consider her a friend. Our thoughts and opinions are, however, our own.