Quick Look: Dungeon Academy

July 10, 2019 by ludicryan

In today's Quick Look Ryan delves into Dungeon Academy: a roll & write game from USAopoly.

With cute artwork and a somewhat frustrating 3D component to build, I wasn't exactly brimming with confidence that I would enjoy Dungeon Academy but it has delivered a few surprises. Roll & write as a genre has completely passed me by but delving into the rulebook for this one has got me rather excited to play it.

It's a very simple premise where players take on the role of graduands of a fantasy dungeon delver academy but their final exam is to put it all to the test in a final exam. Each player embodies an archetype familiar within all fantasy tabletop RPGs and tasks them with theorising a way to get out of four dungeon levels. It's a really cool exercise in framing to have players of a roll & write 'take an exam'.

A dungeon is assembled with 16 dice arranged into a 4x4 grid with monsters and potions making up the paths. Players must draw a route from one entrance of the dungeon to an exit on another side of the dungeon wall. But in between is where the magic happens where players must optimise their route to kill the most monsters and thus earn the most gold.

There's loot to earn which will apply all sorts of modifiers making the game fresh each time. What I quite like is the solo mode which just acts as an enjoyable puzzle if you're looking to while away the time. As a system of randomly generating dungeons, I adore it. It's as close to procedural generation in a tabletop game as I've seen and for that alone, I'd recommend it but there are so many other reasons why this would be a great addition to any board game night.