The fruitful campaign ended on May 2019, XNUMX Kickstarter di Dungeonology - The Expedition: 5117 backers have decided to finance the Ludus Magnus Studio, created by Diego Fonseca e Danilo Guidi. For those who missed the kickstarter there is good news, since Pendragon Game Studio has decided to locate and distribute this dungeon crawler with an unusual and particular setting for its genre. We got to test Dungeonology - The Expedition: here's what we think.
Welcome to Rocca Civetta, students!
Dungeonology is set in the Renaissance universe of Nova Aetas (another game published by Ludus Magnus Studio), more precisely to theUniversity of Rocca Civetta: Each player will play the role of a student competing for the chair of dungeonology. The aim of the game is to explore a dungeon divided into 3 levels, trying to find out as much information as possible about the inhabitants of the place, so that you can finally discuss your thesis (possibly - but not necessarily - before your opponents) and accumulate as many points as possible. possible to clinch the victory. Dungeonology is a game for 2 - 4 players, with an estimated duration of 90 minutes.
Components, materials and graphics
Components and materials are excellent. The 5 main miniatures (4 characters and 1 boss) are aesthetically very beautiful, as well as the small miniatures of the freshmen; the player boards and the tiles that make up the dungeon are made of thick cardboard dual layer, which allows you to fit the information cubes collected without running the risk of them being lost; the box is complete with a plastic insert to store the components neatly and there is a high quality fabric bag in which to put the serial numbers to be extracted. Also there graphics are understandable and clear as regards the symbology; the illustrations are very beautiful and certainly contribute to making the gaming experience more immersive.
The game mechanics
Let's see, briefly, the game mechanics.
Each player will play the role of one of the 4 characters available, each with very different abilities that can be exploited during the game (it is therefore a fairly asymmetrical title). The focus of the game is the exploration of the dungeon, which will be composed as the players move through it. The dungeon tiles always have a variable number of slots at the bottom to accommodate colored cubes: these cubes represent the information present on site about the population object of your study. There are 5 different colors, corresponding to as many spaces on your board to be able to collect them, and each color indicates the type of information (for example: culture, militia, mysticism ..). The information cubes constitute the final victory points, so collecting them will be essential to win. Their base value is written on the board, but at the end of the game it will be modified by a card randomly chosen from three different ones at the start of the game, therefore some types of cubes may be worth less than what is indicated on the dashboard, others more. The card is covered, but it will be possible for the players to view it later in the game; on the same card is also written the minimum number of victory points to be able to discuss the thesis and thus conclude your game.
The game turn is very simple and is structured as follows for each player:
- Discuss the thesis (optional, only if certain conditions are met and you have some victory points)
- Rest phase (you skip the turn practically to recover fatigue and take off any penalties taken in the game)
- Movement Phase: you move in the Dungeon a maximum of as many spaces as the speed value indicated on your character card, possibly even exploring new areas
- Action Phase: optionally, an action is performed between collecting cubes, stealing cubes from an opponent, playing a card with the wording "action", activating an "action" zone effect
- End of Turn Phase: you replenish your hand of cards and reveal any bad luck cards (essentially malus) obtained during the turn.
Although the shift is linear, in reality there are several game concepts to learn. Essential is the bunch of so-called "Trucchetto" cards, they can be used to successfully collect information cubes as well as to steal cubes, but also as real actions or to hinder opponents. Again, the "freshmen" of the small miniatures that will be placed in the bag supplied at the beginning of the game are important. Freshmen are of two types: gray and red. Precisely the latter, so-called "omega" and present to varying degrees in the bag depending on the difficulty of the game, where drawn by a player will mark the duration of the game (in addition to forcing the poor player to draw a bad luck card - the name says it all) .
There are no dice, but there is a randomizer deck of cards which allows you to make random choices where required in the game.
Interesting mechanics whereby when a player is ahead of the others in terms of points, the others will turn their character card on the stronger side, thus temporarily giving him the opportunity to take advantage of more powerful abilities (the effect only lasts as long as the disadvantage lasts) .
There will also be a boss that runs around the map and acts on the basis of what is indicated on his card (there are two modes available).
The game will continue with the players' turns (consisting of the steps illustrated above) until:
- one of the players successfully defended the thesis (for him the game ends, for the others the so-called "maximum alert" is triggered, which significantly speeds up the rest of the opponents' turns by modifying the rules of the game based on what is written on the "panic" card chosen randomly at the beginning);
- a number of Omega freshmen have been drawn;
- there are no more information cubes in the dungeon.
Considerations
Dungeonology certainly has an unusual setting and mechanics for a dungeon crawler, which is why it is undoubtedly an interesting title for lovers of the genre. Although once you have learned the rules the turns run smoothly, learning or explaining it will not be so simple: the regulation, very well done and very understandable, is very long precisely because of the many concepts to learn (the type of trick cards and their multiple uses, the various effects of the dungeon rooms ..). Because of this, perhaps a neophyte might have some difficulty holding up the explanation, even though the game once learned is simple. Randomness is certainly present (but rightly so in an exploration game) and the direct and nasty interaction. You can hinder opponents almost always and some of the characters' powers are geared solely to harm others (and this can be a strength or a flaw depending on your personal taste in board games).
As for scalability, Dungeonology also works in two or 3 players, but 4 is probably the best configuration ever.
Longevity is not very high: there is only one boss, usable in 2 versions, only 4 characters and a single dungeon (with 3 types of population that determine the modifiers to the score). In the course of a few games with the same group it could be a bit repetitive; but this can easily be solved with expansions (which are mentioned in the rulebook).
Beautiful materials that are of high quality, as are the illustrations.
Definitely, Dungeonology is a title that lovers of dungeon crawlers and direct interaction games in general should try, especially for the setting and the different mechanics than usual.
