Not a board game, but I figured there was a good chance that the people who check up on this thread would appreciate or be interested in what is being done in the soon to be released PC game Dungeonland. It is a video game hybrid of games like Descent and Super Dungeon Explore mixed with the control scheme of an arcade brawler like Gauntlet or Dungeon Keeper.
Two main modes (ways to play):
Hero mode:
[ul]
[li]Three players (or combination of AI bots and heroes) move through a randomly generated map of dungeon tiles adorned with cardboard puzzle connectors seams, dice, and pencils setting the board game theme[/li][li]Select a hero: warrior, mage, or rogue (and then gear/ role)[/li][li]Each has class specific skills such as heal, backstab, and charge[/li][li]Highly co-op focused where heroes need to synergism skills to progress in the dungeon-- claims not to be close to easy (Descent?)[/li][li]Heroes collect gold to spend on post-game upgrades to aid subsequent runs (in video game terms think of a “lose to win”/ rogue-like model)[/li][li]Heroes can play with M&Kb or controllers. If playing with controllers, three players can play off one system.[/li][/ul]
Dungeon Maestro Mode (think Consul or Overlord)
[ul]
[li]This mode can be played by CPU AI, a player can play as DM agains AI heroes, or all four spots can be player controlled[/li][li]DM player plays in an isometric view and draws up to a hand of 7 cards[/li][li]Cards are redrawn per unit of time[/li][li]Hand is discarded and a new hand drawn when the heroes enter a new room/ section[/li][li]Cards can be played using mana cost displayed on each card (very much like the skull cost as Overlord or Consul)[/li][li]Cards consist of monster spawns, traps, debuffs, monster buffs, etc[/li][li]Before the dungeon is generated, the DM can select his “deck” of 3 minor monsters, 2 mini-boss monsters, 1 end game boss, and a selection of about 10 trap/buff/debuff cards. These are not a true deck in a 1:1 sense, but affect what can or can’t be drawn.[/li][li]monsters in the deck effect which monsters are generated when the dungeon is built[/li][li]Dungeon Maestro can take direct control of a monster (losing card hand temporarily) to help mana generation[/li][li]If the heroes make it to the final boss, the player controls the boss monster each of which have many skill including at least one way to generate minions in the boss battle[/li][li]DM collects gold which can be used post game to buy new “cards” for future dungeon invasions by those pesky heroes[/li][/ul]
Again, not a board game, but for those of you that may be like me and love dungeon crawler board games, but due to careers, marriage, kids, and the general social side effects of aging, this looks pretty darn good.
I have no vested interest in the game, other than it looks uniquely cool, I can’t believe nobody seems interested in it (my main thread hit a brick wall of ‘who cares’-- although I was being pretty goofy in that thread), and most importantly the more successful it is the more likely they are to release DLC such as new heroes (already hinted at), DM cards, or Dungeon environments. It is 10 bucks on Steam (or other digital vendors) and releases Tuesday (1/29/13). Pre-ordering nets some extra cards for Dungeon Maestro Mode, but I would bet they will be sold later for a few bucks.
Here is a pretty darn recent video showing the DM mode in action if anyone is curious.
The only downside I can see as a non-beta player is (reading between the lines) it looks like they may have had connection issues in the last build and delayed the release a week. They seem to think the hot-fix build tested this weekend fixed it.
