Dungeon Crusade — Avalon Beckons
A six-volume dossier landed at the catalogue desk this morning bound in dark cloth, the spine stamped Genesis of Evil. The cover sheet bore a hand-written caveat in Daniel (@dungeondive)'s own ink: that he and the game’s designer, one Roger Pearce, are friends — that they speak often, that they have plans — and that any reader should weigh his words accordingly. The Keeper, who has long held the view that an honest disclosure does more to clear the air than a hundred pages of impartial bluster, files the notice approvingly and reads on.
The series chronicles Daniel’s first encounter with Dungeon Crusade Book One: Genesis of Evil, a five-years-in-development passion project of the sort the catalogue clerks have come to call Kickstarter-shaped — a singular vision, untrimmed by producers, brought to print by patience rather than ergonomics. The arc is uncommonly clean: a welcome to the land of Avalon, a storage walkthrough, two parts of spoiler-rich component archaeology, a small-table setup of the death-trap Tomb of Kaladar, and a verdict.
The frame Daniel lands on is that Dungeon Crusade is, in the lineage of Legends of Andor, a layers-of-simple-systems game — a patrol-route AI that gives the dungeon a life of its own, an upkeep-phase initiative that splinters six heroes into improvised sub-parties, a difficulty dial the player turns rather than the designer. And under all of it, the genuinely uphill battle of a 70-page conversational rulebook that buries simple rules in paragraphs of voice. The game beneath the book is, on Daniel’s reading, very much worth the climb.
The Exhibit Catalogue:
- Dungeon Crusade — Part One — Welcome to Avalon! — the appetizer-before-the-main-course, with the best standees Daniel has ever seen
- Dungeon Crusade — Part Two — Organize It! — runes-not-stones, plus the third-party box that finally absorbs the contents
- Dungeon Crusade — Part Three — Component Deep Dive Part One — the verbose Crusader’s Handbook and a scenario system that is the difficulty dial
- Dungeon Crusade — Part Four — Component Deep Dive Part Two — Dean Spencer’s trap art, a mining-and-recipe gem loop, and one flat criticism of the special abilities
- Dungeon Crusade — Part Five — The Tomb of Kaladar — unavoidable traps, oscillating pendulums, and an extra potion smuggled to each hero
- Dungeon Crusade — An Up Hill Battle to Greatness — the review: read it, play it wrong, then read it again
Filed under D for Dungeon, on the shelf above the Universalis dossier and a respectful step away from HeroQuest.
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– The Keeper
Notes that a game whose own creator’s voice is also the game’s largest obstacle has produced, in compensation, the only rulebook in the wing whose criticisms read like reviews of a novel.
