Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Dungeon Brawler takes the dungeon crawl game genre and mashes it with side-scrolling beat 'em up brawler arcade games from the 80's and 90's. Players each control a hero, arrange them in a formation, and prepare for the oncoming waves of monsters, traps, treasure, etc.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Deck / Bag Building
Add new pieces during play to improve the cards, tokens, or dice drawn later.
Action Queue
Place actions into an ordered queue that resolves now or on later turns.
Cooperative Game
Players coordinate their actions toward a shared objective and win or lose together.
Hand Management
Time and sequence a limited hand of cards to preserve future options.
Move Through Deck
Progress through an ordered deck that represents position, time, or distance.
Read the full game description
Dungeon Brawler takes the dungeon crawl game genre and mashes it with side-scrolling beat 'em up brawler arcade games from the 80's and 90's. Players each control a hero, arrange them in a formation, and prepare for the oncoming waves of monsters, traps, treasure, etc. If they can survive this automatically-advancing onslaught, then they win as a team. This is not your father's "move-and-attack" dungeon crawler: by combining deck-building elements with a blazingly fast "conveyor belt" mechanic, this game has deep tactics, but plays incredibly quickly. Each player controls one hero. Each hero represents a different theme: chaos, order, harmony, or discipline. Their hero choice decides their starting deck of cards. Each different theme has a different playstyle, but also informs what future cards they can add to their deck. But, the players are not locked into these themes - they can combine others into their decks to create new twists and combinations on classic fantasy characters. These heroes line up in a row, with the “marching order” formation extremely tactically important. Don’t worry, they can (and will) rearrange throughout the game. Across from the party line-up is the deadly dungeon itself. Whenever a card is removed from the dungeon, be it by killing a monster, overcoming a challenge, or taking some treasure, the dungeon automatically shifts towards the players and refills the missing card. This way, the game is incredibly fast-paced: no moving, exploring, or down-time. This dungeon is coming at you full-speed! Fighting is resolved by playing unique combinations of cards, but be careful! Your hand of cards is also your lifebar! Overextend and you’ll leave yourself vulnerable. —description from the publisher