Rumble in the Dungeon

Overview

In Rumble in the Dungeon 12 adventurers enter a Dungeon seeking treasure. You are secretly two of those adventurers and must move through the dungeon to eliminate the competing adventurers and take the treasure for yourself. Will your adventurer be the last one standing?

Gameplay

Begin with the 12 room tiles set up to create a contiguous dungeon with the entrance tile at one end and the treasure room at the other.

Place one stand-up character in each room and the small brown Treasure chest token in the treasure room. Players are given one color marker and are dealt two secret character tokens face down. The matching color marker is placed near the scoring track. Ready set rumble!

On your turn you may do one of two things:

1. Move any character that is alone in a room to an adjacent room. (Characters that are not alone may not move).
2. Fight any character in the same room. Well, it’s not much of a fight. You simply choose a character and remove them from the dungeon. Boom! Gone. Hack, slash, you’re outta there.

Any characters removed from the dungeon are lined up in order along the side of the dungeon. When one character remains in the dungeon (the last one standing), players reveal their character identities and score points. 10 points if you were the last character standing, 9 points of you were the last character to exit the dungeon, 8 points if you were second to last, and so on. Players only score points for their character that remained the longest in the dungeon. Points are moved along the scoring track and the game resets. Best score after 3 “delves” wins.

”Hold it!” You say, “you mentioned something about treasure?” The treasure chest adds that special little oomph to the game. You see, if a character is in a room with the treasure chest, they may move from that room – even if there are other characters there (Can you say “target?”). If a character is alone on the entrance tile with the treasure, they can leave the dungeon with the chest and automatically win that round. In this case the last character in the dungeon scores 9 points and so on down the ranks.

Who would enjoy this game?

Final Thoughts

Rumble in the Dungeon and its predecessor Rumble in the House could be called “Dungeon Sprinters” (as opposed to Dungeon Crawlers). You really don’t get much time to take in the sites. I mean you’ve just arrived, drawn your weapon of choice, started to get the feel of the place and your character is – HACK! – eliminated. There’s no pesky dice rolling – no character abilities, the Legolas-looking elf can – SLASH – drop the Troll without blinking an elvish eye lash.

As quick and random as it seems, the game has a surprising level of social interactivity. It’s all about hidden identities and targeting who you think the other players’ characters are – without revealing your own. You’re forced to make decisions to eliminate other characters based on the other players’ actions but also in an attempt to throw your opponents off your scent. Going for the treasure chest with another player’s character is almost always a good option – painting a target on that character’s back. (But only if you are far from the entrance. Just staying alive is the true goal… and it’s tough. It’s like hyperactive checkers with a dungeon theme! The two random aspects of the game (character placement and how the character tokens are assigned) may leave you in a tough position. But who cares… It’s light as a dungeon soufflé! Plus you can almost always fool your way into survival with some good bluffing.

The art by Kwanchai Moriya is goofy and fun ( heh… Gelatinous Cube), and with six players you are looking at a game time of 20 minutes. (unless you’re playing with Mr. or Mrs. thinky pants). Rumble in the Dungeon is simple, goofy and addictive.

There’s a Dungeon in my cellar!
Rumble in the Dungeon can be combined with its predecessor: Rumble in the House. Just set up the house, go down the cellar stairs to the Dungeon, grab the treasure and see if you can make it out!