Shuffle Dungeons Review

Slide to the Left, Slide to the Right

Shuffle Dungeons can feel a bit claustrophobic at first. Slinking through the halls of the trap-filled and shrine-heavy dungeon that I have assembled, I am reminded of the labyrinthine layouts and intense horrors of the video games I have played in the dungeon-crawling genre. I can't help but relive the corridors of King’s Field, or even reflect upon my time with Lunacid, fretting about how best to proceed, knowing each new room may bring my demise.

While many tabletop entries in the genre have leaned on the display in excess by including elaborate pieces and layouts, Shuffle Dungeons opts for a simpler design and presentation. The game “board”, if you will, is entirely comprised of small cardboard tiles, each with varied pieces of equipment, rooms, and enemies wonderfully rendered upon them, but they are still sparse in terms of three-dimensional detail. Still, I find the absence of concrete minutiae gives way to a player's imagination. I can look at the detailed character and monster art and envision a tense combat scenario taking place in the damp halls unfolding before me.

Product: Shuffle Dungeons

Designer: Isaac Serafini, Jeremy Stark, Kyle Talbert

Publisher: Luma Imports

Price: $39.99

Age: 12+

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At its core, Shuffle Dungeons is a collaborative effort in survival for one to four players. The thematic bones are traditional in every sense of the word — a party of distinct adventurers plunges into the dark depths of the dungeon, facing monsters and collecting gear all the while, eventually attempting to eliminate the Boss Monster guarding the exit. The physical manifestation of this journey is lean, relying on a modular architecture of 86 square, two-sided cards that serve a dual purpose. On one side, they are the rooms of the dungeon — shrines, traps, and empty corridors. The other side holds weapons, armor, spells, and snacks.

This svelt gameplay is translated into the rules and experience, as well. There are only a handful of things to keep track of at any given time, with a limited hand size, a small selection of eight characters to play (each with only one ability), restricted equipment slots, and a compact ruleset for actions available on a player’s turn. While monsters can pose some small threat within those base rules, you can easily coordinate with your team through trading and drawing to ensure some level of safety.

It is unfortunate, then, that the base rules leave so little in the way of threats for the player. While there is still some essence of delight in the collaboration and brick-laying done by players, the rules don’t punish simply wandering until you’ve collected your preferred gear and items, making the player unstoppable from early on. The modified rules (included in the rulebook) offer much more of a challenge, but the limited number of tiles and variation in equipment means the gameplay experience quickly feels homogenous between games. The characters themselves have very little identity as well, so they all feel quite similar when played, though there is certainly room for optimization.

Still, the simplicity was charming, in a way. The cardboard tiles feel like pieces of a jigsaw, and finding the right spot for each one on your journey with friends for each moment is equivalent to finding the right puzzle piece in a sea of similar-looking fragments. Playing alone can’t really replicate this feeling. There are no “single-player” boss monsters, but the instructions dictate that you must choose a boss monster with the same number of spatial "gates" equal to the player count, so you’ll need to use the monster for a two-player game, and you’ll be forced to control two separate characters alone.

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Furthermore, while the visual identity of the game is striking, the packaging houses its own minor traps. The components feel substantial enough for its slight design, but certain hanging parts of the cardboard can snag during unboxing, threatening to tear the very tiles you are meant to explore with if removed with anything less than deliberate patience. And despite the lean nature of the game, the amount of table space required for a full game can also feel daunting. The lack of heft can never fully eliminate the space required to lay down this tapestry for display.

The bulk of interactive gameplay comes from the combat. When a monster card is drawn, it is immediately placed by the player who drew it, along with “loot”, indicated by a number on the monster tile. These serve as rewards for defeating an enemy, and are a great way to collect new tiles to power up your character or optimize your layout. Combat is done through a dice roll-off between the players in combat and the enemy monster, with bonuses being awarded via equipment, snacks, spells, and even room effects. It’s simple, but there’s a nice tension to these do-or-die moments in the early game that can guide your decision-making. Do you try to avoid the enemy and collect better gear, or take it on now for immediate rewards?

As the 13 boss monsters are the ultimate threat in the dungeon, you would expect a little more mechanical variety to their combat, but that’s not really true. Although they do have unique effects when initially revealed by playing a tile that connects to their gate, the actual combat progresses the same, just tougher. Thus, the player is still free to wander through shrines and traps hunting for buffs and gear to their hearts' content (or until time is nearly out under the alternate rules).

What elevates Shuffle Dungeons beyond a simple exercise in card-counting is the aforementioned mutability. Everything from the equipment you carry, the rules you use, and the layout of the dungeon itself is left to players’ designs. On the flip side, the light rules and lack of variety in the ways turns play out left me longing for something a bit more substantial.

Verdict

Ultimately, Shuffle Dungeons succeeds because it understands that the true joy of a dungeon crawler isn't in detailed miniatures and elaborate sets, but in the weight of its choices. Make no mistake, the game is designed for a lighter play experience than most dungeon crawlers, even with the modified rules, but there is still room for player choice and expression. It is a design that respects both your time and your intelligence, wrapping a cooperative, highly modular experience into a quick hour of tense decision-making. With a little imagination, you can craft a nice scenario in your mind to run through as you play, with the onus for meaningful experience left up to the player by design.

Disclosure: We received a free review copy of this product from the publisher.