Dungeon Date is live (Don't kill 'em, date them)
Update: Dungeon Date has launched on Kickstarter and the campaign will run for 21 days. There is a single pledge tier that gets you a copy of the game. The solo mode is currently a stretch goal, as it requires extra components.
Our preview post below was published on March 11.
Dungeon Date is a set collection game with a dungeon delve theme in which you can befriend and engage in romantic affairs with monsters instead of slaying them. It will launch on Kickstarter on March 16.
The game features a central board with five locations: the backstab, the stylomancer, and three dungeons. Each dungeon holds six monsters of increasing difficulty. The topmost part of the dungeon is always revealed, as well as the outfit card you will earn if you succeed in encountering this monster. At the beginning of the game, the stylomancer reveals two styles: two symbols that will score points at the end of the game. You also choose an outfit card, featuring several symbols, that you can equip in the matching slot of your character board (armor, hand item, shoes).
On each round, all players simultaneously choose an action card corresponding to one of the five locations. Backstab allows you to steal a monster from a fellow player. The stylomancer allows you to either pick a new outfit card to equip, or claim one of the styles on display for yourself (only you will score from the corresponding symbols at the end of the game), replacing it with another style on the stylomancer display. Then, you can slide an additional outfit card under an already equipped one to “enchant” it by adding the top symbol of the enchanting card.
When you enter a dungeon, you will encounter the revealed monster. You can either slay it, befriend it, or romance it. In all cases, you need to match the corresponding symbols with the symbols on your equipped outfit cards. If you succeed, you’ll add the monster to your collection in the corresponding category (romanced, befriended, or slain). Befriended monsters can help you once by contributing with one of their card symbols to a future encounter. You can also set up “dates” to a romanced friend by succeeding at either a befriend or slay encounter, depending on the symbol indicated on that romanced monster card. A date monster will give you one additional point in the end. If several players engage in the same dungeon, a fight occurs. The fight is resolved by the strength value of the action card that has been played that turn. The winner may then attempt to encounter the monster.
At the end of the round, your action card is put on hold. You’ll retrieve it at the end of the next round, replacing it with the action card played at that time. When one dungeon has been cleared, the game ends. You’ll earn points from the sets of monsters you collected, and for the symbols of your outfit matching your personal style and those on the stylomancer’s display.
In the solo mode, you are no longer concerned with points. Instead, you need to clear a series of levels, each characterized by a series of set-collecting goals that you must fulfill to move onto the next level. Each new level comes with more goals to be fulfilled, thus progressively increasing the difficulty of your dungeon delve. (Solo mode will be a stretch goal in the Kickstarter campaign).