The Motion and Commotion of Dungeon Mayhem
Posted 12/1/20
Easy Little Anytime Game
Dungeon Mayhem was a true "Don't knock it till you try it" game for me. When I first picked up this game, I honestly didn't know how much I was going to like it . First impression judged its art as cutesy and cartoonish, the age 8+ made me peg it as a kids only game in my mind but I couldn't have been more wrong. I found that I absolutely love this game as a simple and quick card game with a D&D flare. In the two rounds DM Bork played against me, he enjoyed annihilating me completely but with smiles on both of our faces. Rounds are very quick and depending on which cards are in play the game time is equally quick in pace. A game between two adults lasted no more than five minutes. I can definitely see the benefit of playing in a group of four so all the heroes can be utilized for a longer and more backstabbing game.
One of the rules that makes the game feel so fast paced is you have to play at least one card every round, and if you play a card with extra lighting symbols (play again symbols) you don't get to skip those extra actions even if you don't want to play. There are pros and cons to that rule. It makes sure that the game stays in motion but sometimes that comes at the cost of your own health (see Fireball below). In both games DM Bork and I experienced "wasted" turns where both of our purple and yellow cards that returned health to the hero had to be played at times when both of our people had full hit points.
Favorite Moments So Far
Fireball- just as dangerous in a card as in D&D
Fireball is a feisty high damage card that can be a fantastic boom, but the major downside is it inflicts self damage as well. When dealt two of these bad boys in a hand made of three cards my poor Mystic had not a prayer in hellfire of surviving the game. It made my night dying to my own fire ball while DM Bork took no damage at all (he had numerous cards with shields on them).
Charming little Puppy
The charm spell that Azzan has made a beautiful show of nabbing a 3 defense card to better defend me than the shield card.
Basic How to Play:
You and up to three of your friends (or close enemies) each pick one of the four playable heroes that represent a class from D&D. Pick from Barbarian, Wizard, Paladin or Rogue to be your champion with 10 hit points. No matter who you choose you will get a card to track your health, and a card depicting you special moves. These "Mighty Powers" are what makes each hero different as each will come with basic shields and attacks.
After picking your initial first three cards you start your epic card battle to the death! The rules say "youngest player goes first" but a good ol' fashioned Rock-Paper-Scissors would do the trick as well.
Each person takes turns drawing a card from their hero's deck and playing at least one card each round. Shield cards protect you from the oncoming attacks from opponents and sword symbols show how many damage points you do to a player of your choice. Some cards let you take extra cards on your turn and others let you draw a certain amount of bonus cards from your deck.
Team up against one player or make it a free for all massacre between two - four heroes for a quick and easy to understand game.
Dungeon Mayhem Expansion: Monster Madness
Monstrous Fun
Our New Year's Eve celebration included lots of play time with Monster Madness. This game can be used by itself with just the 6 monster packs that come in the box or it can be used in conjunction with the original 4 Dungeon Mayhem heroes. We played a few hours of Monster Madness/Dungeon Mayhem; each game we played took about 20-30 minutes with 4/5 players.
The Monster Madness has six new characters of classic D&D creatures such as Lord Cinderpuff the dragon, Hoots McGoots the Owlbear, Dr. Tentaculous the Mindflayer, Blorp the Gelatinous Cube, Deliah Deathray the Beholder and Mimi LeChaise the Mimic. Each round we took turns playing different characters, favoring the monster decks over the heroes from Dungeon Mayhem.
Hoots McGoots, Deliah Deathray and Lord Cinderpuff were the overall favorites of the evening. At least two of those characters were always in play during the two hours that we played. There were tons of laughter, some mild backstabbing and lots of fun to be had. Monster
Monster Madness has the same basic rules of how to play as Dungeon Mayhem featured above, the only difference is when you get five to six players you then have Zone of Influence meaning that you can only attack someone to your left or right unless the card you play targets everyone. You can also add in the rule of "Vengeful Ghosts" who can attack anyone at the table for one damage each round (but cannot give the killing blow).
The artwork for the monsters were completely adorable and I loved each and every card. They really did a good job at making some classic monsters look huggable and loveable.
One of the things that I appreciated and love about the Monster Madness box is that it comes with cardboard tabs for each of the heroes that is in the Dungeon Mayhem card game series. This box is now being used to hold all of the cards that I own (with two empty place holders for the future Battle for Baldur's Gate expansion). There is also a little box that you can keep all of the heart tokens and character portrait tokens.
The Big Players
I loved that they presented the dragon as a business man, the owlbear as a circus creature that has an agent and our Illithid friend is a certified Doctor. Each of them has something super special for damage.
Lord Cinderpuff has a card that does damage to everyone and additional damage to two other players. The dragon also can discard their hand and do up to 5 damage.
Hoots McGoots has a card that lets all attacks on the turn do damage to all other players. There is also a card that lets you damage a shield card and do that much damage equal to blocking capability of that card.
The good Doctor can attack someone for damage up to 5 damage depending on how many cards that person is holding.
Squishy and Loveable
Something that is super nice about Blorp the Gelatinous Cube is the card that grants the ability to ignore shield cards on their turn. That ended up killing me one round because I had 3 shield cards out and 2 hit points left yet two card slater from Blorp I was dead and my shields still standing over my dead corpse.
Deliah Deathray has a great card that allows you to do two damage to all players without shields (which I have seen destroy players as well) and then destroy all shield cards a the table. Shield cards are sometimes the last resort to players trying not to die so this card can be absolutely devastating.
Mimi LeChaise the Mimic has quite a bit of fun with her cards, each featuring different mimics or non mimic items. The powerful card that I have seen is the one that lets you make one player's hit points equal to another player's hit points. Enemies are made quite quickly when you take someone from ten hit points to two with the use of Mimi's card.
Setting up a Good Hand
I really love how easy it was to line up a good selection of cards with Monster Madness. This was one of my favorite plays using Hoots. The first card, "For My Next Trick...", made the entire round hurt everyone playing so I was able to do 5 damage to everyone instead of just one player. Even the dragon and the gelatinous cube were able to pack a hefty punch with a good card set up.
I love Mimics
I really appreciate the mimic art that are featured on the cards. I love mimics and the art work on the card made me smile and laugh. The cards that swear they are normal items and not mimics made my heart so happy.
Player Interaction = Player Entertainment
Something that was well loved with the Monster Madness Set was there were specialty cards that required the input and interaction of the other players at the table. Hoots was able to get some really cute dances out of the players at the table because other players wanted that extra free card in their hand.
Deliah Deathray also had a card that required player interaction, through the use of praise in order to avoid two attacks from the beholder.
Lord Cinderpuff has a card that allows each player at the table to get a free turn of a heal, one damage to a person of their choice or a free drawn card and the dragon player gets to mirror each of the other players at the table's choices.