Posted by Like hack n’ slashing your way through dungeons.
But…Only have 5 minutes?
Well 5 Minute Dungeon is for you!
5 Minute Dungeon
Designer: Connor Reid
Publisher: KOSMOS, Wiggles 3D
Number of Players: 2-5
Playing Time: 5 Minutes (but you’ll play a second game I bet)
Age Limit: 8+
make the game logo on the back….Neat!
In 5 minute dungeon players take on the persona of traditional Role playing character tropes such as thief, ranger, and wizard just to name a few. All with their own deck of cards and playmat. You will all be trying cooperatively to make it through the dungeon, portrayed by a deck of cards until you reach the final boss at the end. You only have 5 minutes though, or else you all die in the dungeon and it’s game over.
Well how do play 5 minute dungeon?
Easy!
Firstly we must set up the game, which in most games can take a while depending on the size of the game (Looking at you {insert crazy long board game setup here}). Set up is a breeze in 5 minute dungeon, although it can take sometimes longer than the game itself. Before the fun begins everyone chooses a character with their hero mat and deck of cards represented by the 5 differently colored backs. Got one? Check! Next, you must pick which final boss you will be facing? Then everyone draws a starting hand, which in a 4-5 player game is 3 cards. Set aside however many door cards are needed found below the final bosses picture, 20 for boss #1. Then you will be taking 2 challenge cards per player and shuffling them and the door cards together making what is the dungeon deck! Finally will be to set a timer. This is where one of my favorite part arises of this game! You could use any timer you want that can count to 5 minutes, but the great minds of Connor Reid and Wiggles 3D Games have made a wonderful little FREE app called the 5 minute dungeon timer. The dungeon timer is literally just …..a timer, but with the nice little touch of a choice in narrator voices to help you with the countdown, it makes for pure fun. (fearful is my favorite!!!) So after all this is done we are ready to play!!!
Now we kick down some doors and get to killing!
3…
2…
1…
GO!
Player start by flipping the top door card on the Dungeon deck and cooperatively trying to match one or more of the 5 different possible symbols found near the bottom of the door card. The Symbols will be either a blue magic receipt, a green pointy stick, a purple running man, a yellow shield of nope, or a red sword to stab your enemies with and watch the blood flow from their lifeless……..OK sorry that really derailed. You can play as many cards from your hands as you can match a symbol. Drawing back up to your hand size after each card discarded. Although any card that is played can not go back into your hand and instead goes to the middle of the table even if you didn’t mean to play it with all the hectic chaos going on around you. What do I mean by “Hectic Chaos”? Well just that. Remember you only have 5 minutes to make it to the end of the dungeon (door deck) and kill the final boss. So everyone will be throwing cards down like crazy people in order to meet the required symbols needed to move on to the next card and the next etc. Until you make it to the boss and hopefully have enough cards with the correct symbols left to destroy them.
The varies dungeon doors and mini-boss doors!
FYI, Sir Fuzzylumps looks friendly but he is not.
Well Wait!
There is more…sorta.
Each hero Deck has specific actions cards or abilities that help out in the overall craziness already going on. What sort of abilities? Each of the 10 different Heroes have an ability that is activated by discarding 3 cards from your hand and then getting to perform that ability. Some are mediocre with just being able to destroy a certain type of enemy, skip over possible obstacles, or draw cards. While others are lets say awesome, like the ability to STOP TIME…or I mean the timer. Then we also have the action cards, which depending on what deck you chose have cards such as fireball from the wizard/ sorceress deck which kills a monster, or the Wild card from the Ranger/ Huntress deck, that counts as any resource symbol. Then there is my favorite the Holy hand grenade from the Paladin/ Valkyrie deck which there is only one of in the game and it lets you kill anything…..yes even the boss if you wanna hold onto this card the whole game.
“First thou pullest the holy pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three.”
Boss defeated!
As if you couldn’t tell already from my enthusiastic writing I am a fan of this game. It has its faults just like every game, but for a quick easy to teach game that doesn’t take itself seriously and definitely doesn’t expect you to, it wins on many levels. It’s also a co-op game and very easy to learn which I believe most people would count that as a win.
Until next time Gamers!
Pros
- Fast Paced
- Humor / Art
- Free App
- Easy to Learn
- Co-op
- Affordable
Cons
- Clean-up (table can get messy with cards everywhere)
- Can be difficult at higher level bosses
- Set-up can take as long as game
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