Daniel (@dungeondive) returns to Vanaheim, the print-on-demand dungeon crawler from The Game Crafter, because the storefront has quietly grown several new doors and picking one has become genuinely confusing. He’s frank about where it sits: a tier below Quest for the Lost Pixel, Rogue Dungeon, Doom Pilgrim and Iron Helm — a very good B-tier game, and he means that as praise.
What he loves is the town-building phase. Between dungeons you spend coin on buildings, and the first one you should buy is the one-coin notice board, which unlocks side quests; every later building carries an icon that adds its own quests to that deck. The item deck expands as your character climbs levels one to five, mixing traps and ambushes in with the loot so treasure becomes a press-your-luck decision, and the decision cards deliver small choose-your-own-adventure beats mid-dungeon.
The buyer’s guide is the practical core. The $65 base game is still the full package, but there are now cheaper entry points: a ~$32 level one pack, then a ~$30 level two-three upgrade, then a ~$16 level four-five. Base-game owners should add Decisions and Domains ($12) to catch up, and his standout pick is Through the Shimmering Portal (~$20), which bolts an Arthurian virtue quest and a whole overland biome onto the game. The deluxe character pack is the one he’d skip.
Daniel’s favourite thing here is a town you build between dives. Which dungeon crawlers get the between-runs part right for you?