Remote Learning

First off I would like to thank my local game store Fair Game! They ran a great promotion during Small Business Saturday, if you bought over 50 dollars worth of merchandise then you got yourself a certificate to come back in during December to get a prize. I came in and supported them during SBS and purchase a D&D puzzle a new game and a choose your own adventure book. Well this is the story of what happened when I went to redeem my certificate.

So I went into the game store during the week close to the time that it opened so that I wouldn't run into other humans (pandemic you still suck). They had a big box of slips to draw out of and I believe the prizes were %off coupons, gift cards and free games. I reached in and drew a green slip that read "Free Game"! I was very excited at this point thinking of what Free Game means. I had some hope that it was any game in the store but that is a very high aspiration. I was led over to the prize table, It appeared there were two levels of free games I assume that I had the lower tier as there was the other side of the table that had some larger games like Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion.

It looked like a game that was easy to learn and would be a fun one to play at Christmas with the rest of the family.

After a few moments of looking around I choose Dungeon Academy It looked like a game that was easy to learn and would be a fun one to play at Christmas with the rest of the family. After reading the rules and playing through with my Wife, It was confirmed that it was perfect for the family.

The game is played in four rounds (levels). Each level is basically the same, there is a 4x4 grid of dice that each have one of four symbols (large and small monster and potions all three are in blue and red colors). The object of each level is to draw on your charterer sheet a path through the dungeon with out losing all of your magic(blue) or health(red). to defeat a large monster it takes two of the corresponding color and a small monster takes one, These are taken off your charterer card. The potions let you place another token back on your card. if at anytime you have to spend a token and you don't have it you have failed the level and don't earn points. if you manage to draw a path that does not fail you then you earn points for monsters that you have killed and you can use a bonus (there are four at the bottom of the sheet) to gain some extra points, you only get to use one per level and only get to use them once per game.

You can set the difficulty of the game harder by reducing the amount of time to think and

draw your path. I like that its a game that is simple but has a lot of strategy to it. The random nature of the dice can make the game harder or easier per level. The dice did not let us fight the boss at the end so it kind of was anti climatic. On the 2nd and 4th turn you swap in a special die. On turn 2 you add in one that has walls that block your path and on the 4th you add in the boss die that also has treasure and other items that can score you points.

All in all this is a fun game to play with the family. I would recommend trying it out. I dont know that its a game I would have sought out to buy but I am happy that I have it in the collection now and a big thanks to Fair Game for helping me expand my coletion in an unexpected way!

Designed by: Julian Allain

Players: 1-6

Published by: Matagot, USAopoly

Year Published: 2019

Recommended Ages: 10+

Time to Play: 20 minutes