![]() With the free companion mobile app, you can also play solo! While most dungeon crawlers are cooperative, Clank! Catacombs is indirectly competitive, with players never attacking each other and simply seeing who can successfully escape with the most valuable treasures.Ĭlank! Catacombs is a great dungeon crawler for groups who prefer one-shot sessions rather than long-running campaigns. But the longer you stay in the lair, the more noise you make-and the more noise you make, the more enraged the Dragon becomes.Īlong the way, you'll acquire new cards to add to your personal deck, which influences how each player approaches their time spent in the lair.Ĭlank! Catacombs improves upon the original Clank! in many ways, primarily by ditching the preset map boards and using tiles that unfold to reveal a unique dungeon layout every time. ![]() Players are in a race against each other to steal Artifacts from the Dragon's lair, and they must escape intact without dying to the Dragon's attacks. One Deck DungeonĬlank! Catacombs is a tactical board game that plays like a hybrid between a traditional dungeon crawler and a competitive deckbuilder. If you want more of a hack-and-slash experience, it will disappoint. If you're looking for a dungeon crawler board game that plays like an optimization puzzle, then you'll love this one. This is a simplified, streamlined version of the game that's much easier to get into. But the hand management mechanic is so important that it doesn't feel like a dungeon crawl.Īll that said, if you're interested in jumping into Gloomhaven, I highly recommend starting with Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. Gloomhaven is a complex, cooperative game that involves a heroic campaign across multiple sessions. It's more of a puzzle game with dungeon crawling features. To be clear, I'm not saying Gloomhaven is a bad game-it's actually quite good-but it's not exactly representative of the dungeon crawling experience. In fact, most Gloomhaven fans would crucify me for this ranking! If you know anything about Gloomhaven, you might be surprised to see it ranked so low on this list given how popular it is. With that said, here are my recommendations for the best dungeon crawler board games and why each one is worth playing! 13. Over the course of the game, heroes grow in power to tackle even more difficult encounters.Ī great dungeon crawler brings all of these elements together in a way that emphasizes a kill-loot-explore game loop while forcing the party to delve deeper into the environment.Īny board game that meets these criteria is a dungeon crawler in my eyes, even if it doesn't explicitly have a dungeon-based theme, even if it has a strong emphasis on other gameplay mechanics. While exploring, heroes acquire items that serve as equipment, treasure, or some other gameplay purpose. While exploring, heroes encounter monsters, traps, events, and surprises that involve smart decisions to overcome them or else face consequences. A singular labyrinthine location with many rooms, requiring the heroes to explore for information. Whether played solo or cooperatively, the crux of the game centers on individual heroic characters with special abilities who work together. Here are the elements I personally consider to be core to the dungeon crawler board game experience: There isn't an official definition for "dungeon crawler board games," which has caused lots of confusion across board gaming communities-everyone has their own idea of what the term entails. You just need to know what they are! What Are Dungeon Crawler Board Games? ![]() The good news is, there are plenty of great in-print dungeon crawlers still worth playing. Sadly, a lot of dungeon crawler games came out decades ago and are no longer in print, while modern dungeon crawlers can be hard to acquire if you missed their initial Kickstarter runs. Dungeon crawlers are a special breed of board games, as they distill the experiences found in tabletop RPGs (like Dungeons & Dragons) and video game RPGs, but adapted into board game format.
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