Paper App Dungeon

• Designer: Tom Brinton
• Publisher: Lucky Duck Games
• Players: 1
• Age: 8+
• Time: 15-20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

A solo dungeon delve game where you adventure through a series of printed dungeons with you hero with the aid of a pencil and a die.  Encounter monsters, obstacles, and collect coins. Venture far and deep in this solo dungeon delve, roll and write, adventure.

The basics:

Each book is unique, because:
Each page is randomly generated
Play wherever, whenever

Gameplay is simple but entertaining: you roll a 6-sided die to determine how far you’ll move each turn. Then pick a direction, draw a line, and interact with anything on that line, be it a monster (ouch!) some treasure (nice!) or a teleporter (cool!).   

Customize your character, roll your way through each floor, and get items at the shops sprinkled throughout the game. There’s even a page in the back to track stats like how many times you died — so if you die, don’t worry! It’s all part of the adventure.

To start your campaign, flip the book open to the first map page and find the smiley face; that’s where you start.  The current dungeon room is at the top of the page.  There are areas at the bottom to mark your starting HP and money.  Grey boxes show where you gain and lose these in the round.  Now, roll the die – well, in this case, it’s a pencil.  The sides of the pencil each have a number embossed on it.  If you roll an odd number (1, 3, 5) you will move diagonally and if you roll an even number (2, 4, 6) you will move orthogonally.

When you move, you choose a direction and then move in a straight line it that direction.  If you hit a wall, then you turn and move in a different direction until you’re able to move in your originally chosen direction.  If you have a choice, avoid spaces that you’ve already moved through.

As you move, you might pass through objects in the dungeon – and each time you do, interacct with it accordingly.  Each object can only be interacted with once.

• Coin: gain a coin – add to your +coin area
• Chest – roll your die to see how many coins are inside; Add to your + coin area
• Enemy – the number within tells you its strength (mark down negative HP)
• Heart – heal # hit points (mark down positive HP)
• Portal – transport to the other portal on the nap
• Spiderweb – stop you in that place
• Staircase – this is the exit and ends your adventure on this page (also any space adjacent to the staircase)

When you hit the staircase or any adjacent space, the current floor ends.  Now you tally up your HP and money change for the page and then update your values from the start of the page.  If your HP is 0 or less, you have died.  Go to the back page of the book and record a hashmark on the Death tombstone.  If you die, start the next page with no money and 10 HP.  If you survive the previous floor, carry your current HP and money to the next page.

As you traverse deeper into the book, you will occasionally come across shops. Here you can spend your hard earned money to gain HP or other special abilities. Your adventure ends at the end of the book (Floor 45 in my book).  Your success is measured by the number of deaths incurred and then your final money and HP.

My thoughts on the game

Well, this was a fun little thing to put in my carry on for a recent trip, and it got a number of plays in the airport lounge and on my tray table on the plane itself.  I didn’t roll the die but instead used a d6 app on my phone as it was easier to do and didn’t risk losing things…

The idea is so simple.  Roll the die then figure out the best move, trying to gain as many coins as possible while avoiding the enemies which will cause you damage.  If you do come into contact with the bad guys, it is important to realize that you don’t check your life status until the end of the round.  So even if you hit a huge monster as you explore a page,you can look around to see if there are any healing elements on the page that you can run into and save yourself from death.

Getting a bunch of coins is important as you will get a chance to spend them at the shops that you encounter along the way.  And, this seems to be a good time to ask the old-as-time question – who the heck would ever open up a shop in the midst of dungeon rife with enemies?!  

Anyways, you can play a page in anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes; it all depends on how much you’re thinking about your move, whether you’ve got something on the screen in the background etc.  Each page is self contained (heck, each roll and move is self contained) – so you can pretty much play for as little or as long as you like, then pick it back up whenever you have more time.

As the book is procedurally generated, every book should be unique. This also means that if you play through your book and love it, you can buy another one and feel confident that the dungeon in the next book will be different from your first.  Looking around on the internet – each notebook is about 8 to 10 bucks, so it’s not a big investment.  Internet investigation also shows that the designer has another similar procedurally generated game called Paper Apps: Golf in case you’d rather roll and write your way through a golf course as opposed to a dungeon.

Definitely recommend this for some nice solo gaming whether on a plane ride or maybe in your electric car for your short charging breaks!

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…