‘Grim Dark Dungeon Master’ is a Dungeon Crawl Unlike Any Other
Sitting down with the designer of Grim Dark Dungeon Master to learn what makes the game unique, quick to learn, and fun to master.
We recently took our first look at Grim Dark Dungeon Master, which is currently on Kickstarter. But since then we’ve had a chance to sit down with Russ, the designer of the game itself! We asked him a few questions about the game, and got into a bit of the design philosophy, which we decided was best described as “snappy.”
Grim Dark Dungeon Master is a game that strives to take the heavy ‘one-vs-many’ style of game like Fury of Dracula and make it fast to set up and fast to play, without losing any of the depth and strategy that comes with it.
The base game comes with 3 heroes and the Necromancer. One player controls the villain and the minions, with the remaining players controlling a single hero. It’s the sort of game that can be played within an hour, including setup. This is especially useful since you’re going to want to play over and over to try each different hero or villain.
Unique Competitive Dungeon Building
Unlike similar dungeon crawling games, in Grim Dark Dungeon Master, there are no pre-designed dungeons. So, unless you’re on your 20 millionth game, you’re probably playing with a brand-new layout. Plus, GDDM is what Russ calls a “competitive dungeon builder”. This is because the hero players also have some control over how the dungeon is built.
During their turns, the hero players can attempt to purge the dungeon tile of evil. This causes the tile to flip over, which can often switch a deadly trap into a useful blessing. One such boon is the arrow tiles. When flipped, the heroes get to decide which way the arrow points. This forces the villain player to place the objective tiles within the boundary of the arrow tiles.
Grim Dark Dungeon Master is currently live on Kickstarter. They’re offering multiple pledge levels with tons of goodies to pick up. Multiple expansions offer additional heroes and bosses, and upgrades like highly detailed miniatures.
