Lord of the Dungeon

Last night I played Dungeon Lords, a board game based around the concept of each player digging a dungeon, filling it with horrible monsters and traps, and killing off do-gooders who try to clear out the dungeon.  We all get to play the villain on the other side of the dungeon delving, treasure hunting story.

I like the theme of the game a lot.  The traps are amusing, the quotes set the scene, and the iconography combines effective information with on point references.  I really like that EVIL is a resource that players compete on, not just food, money, and minions.  Having to figure out how much EVIL you can get away with is a great and thematic mechanic.

The gameplay didn't fare as well.  I am biased, certainly, as there were struggles with the rules and I got last place.  A lot of the rules didn't get explained, and the rules explanation provided certain rules that didn't actually exist the way the explanation suggested.  The rules shifting during a game can be frustrating, but that isn't usually a huge deal in most games because you just adapt as you go.  Unfortunately Dungeon Lords is a game that hugely rewards precise planning and so it was tough to get to turn 4 of an 8 turn game and realize that my plans were suddenly falling apart.

This is actually my main concern with the game - you have a few points of massive decision making that are really complex to parse, and then a lot of stuff happens over which you have no control.  It is especially difficult for new players because you have a lot of things you have to contend with and trying to figure out a full round's worker placement all at once is overwhelming.  You can't just place one dude and then see how the board shifts, and you must choose everything ahead of time.  Unfortunately how the other people place their units hugely changes what your placements do, so you need to plan out every eventuality to make sure you don't just lose, which means planning out all of your opponent's turns as well.

Because every player normally knows everything that their opponents know you can actually parse out most turns completely for all players if you think long enough.  You don't actually get to that normal point in a game where you think "Well, they have cards I haven't seen, so I can't really narrow it down any more, so let's just guess."  You can narrow it down to every single resource they have and can spend, and if you want your actions to work you have to do that for everyone at once.

As an example:  If I need 3 gold this round, I can't just take 3 gold.  I can select "Take gold" but I don't know how much I will get.  However, if I can parse the entire board state, figure out that one opponent needs 2 gold but not 3 gold, I can select 'Take gold" later than them and guarantee I get my 3 gold.  However, if the two other opponents get in on "Take gold" before me, I miss all the gold and lose the game.  Therefore I must figure out their entire game plan in order to figure out what my action will do.  It is a lot of calculation, and in a game that severely punishes you if you have 1 too few gold / money / monsters it leaves people in a state of (totally justified) analysis paralysis.  When I figure out my turn quickly I have to sit and wait for 15 minutes while other people parse my entire board state and that can be frustrating.

If Dungeon Lords was played on a timer I would like it a lot more.  It would remove that paralysis and force you to just run with your intuitions, and that would feel just fine to me.  If you played it drunk as hell and just laughed your way through it leaning on the theme rather than the crunch that would work too.  Unfortunately as it is I found the basic systems frustrating.  Perhaps if it had more unknowns, or more frequent but smaller decisions it would work too. 

In any case this isn't me saying the game is bad.  The theme is solid and the play has many strategic decisions that look really deep.  Unfortunately the way that the rules force players to play if they want to do well doesn't really do it for me.