Designers: Nick Niotis, Argyris Pouggouras

Artist: Christopher Bourassa

Publisher:  Mythic Games (Mythic Battles: Pantheon, Super Fantasy Brawl, Time of Legends: Joan of Arc)

Genre/Mechanisms: exploration, cooperative game, role playing, video game theme

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Darkest Dungeon is already fully-funded. Pledges currently total more than 12x the initial funding goal with less than 3 days to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: medium-high

What It’s About: “Gather heroes, brave the darkness and face the lurking abominations in this cooperative, rogue-like, RPG dungeon crawler” and video game adaptation. “The game is played in campaigns of 11 missions.”

How It Works: “In Darkest Dungeon, players assume the role of adventurers, each with his/her own unique abilities and characteristics. They will take part in an eleven-episode, four-act campaign, clearing the various locations of monsters and fighting their bosses. In-between adventures they will spend their accumulated riches to upgrade the Hamlet and become stronger themselves until they are ready to face the Darkest Dungeon itself. Some of them might perish in this tough mission but there will be more to follow behind. When this happens, the player can choose one of the available adventurers waiting patiently back in the Hamlet for their time to shine. Beware though… if there are not enough adventurers to form a party of four, the campaign is over and you have failed in your mission. But worry not – you can always start over. The game expects you to start again and learn from your failed campaigns. Step up to the challenge and begin a new campaign which will not be the same as the last!”

“Before the heroes storm the Darkest Dungeon, they must first deal with the imminent threats of the Hamlet and gain strength. The campaign consists of 4 acts. Each of the first 3 acts consists of 2 general quests and a Boss quest. By defeating a Boss, the heroes end its imminent threat and advance the Campaign to the next act (and difficulty level). When the first 3 acts are done, the gate to Darkest Dungeon will open and the fourth and final act will take place. After each quest, players will be able to spend some time in the Hamlet and upgrade its buildings and improve their fighting capabilities as well.”

A typical mission begins with players drawing a Boss, choosing their Heroes, picking Quests, determining their starting Stances, drawing a random board map, and rolling for starting Provisions. Once the party heads into the dungeon, they’ll choose from among three actions each turn.

“By Scouting, the players can reveal the rooms adjacent to the one they’re already in. To scout, heroes must suffer 1 Stress each. Reveal, then, all adjacent rooms. This will also benefit your exploration, as you’ll see in the next paragraph. Keep in mind that this is a group decision, so the heroes will scout only if every player agrees to it.”

“During Exploration, heroes can take their time to discuss tactics and strategies, plan their path, change Stances and consume any provisions they like. When moving from one room to another, heroes must explore the corridor. The heroes move together as a party, and cannot split. Each player rolls 2 exploration dice and applies the results. Players take it in turns turn to resolve their dice. Turn order is decided by Stance priority: the most aggressive player goes first, then the second most aggressive, and so on. Players can resolve their dice in any order they like.

“After the exploration is over, the party Enters the desired Room. Depending on the type of room, different effects will occur.”

“The order in which characters play during Battle is determined by the initiative cards. To decide who plays next, draw an initiative card. The “Hero” or “Monster” drawn next in line by Stance priority order that hasn’t been activated yet, plays. So, if you draw a “Hero” card on the 1st round of battle, the hero in the Aggressive Stance plays their turn. Nobody knows whether a Hero or a Monster plays next, but players always know which Hero or Monster it will be.”

“When all monsters are dead, battle ends immediately. Heroes that didn’t get to play that round skip their turn. Shuffle all monster cards back into to their deck. Reshuffle the initiative deck. Take your minis back and place the room tile back to its place. Any chests or other special loot or area effects that were not looted or interacted with during battle are lost – shuffle them back to their pile (looted boxes stay discarded). The room card also remains discarded – it is not encountered again unless dictated by a quest (unless a quest dictates differently).”

“Whether successful of not, after the questing is over, Heroes return to the Hamlet to lick their wounds before they face the deep horrors again. When returning to the Hamlet, heroes take the following steps: 1) Shuffle back all discarded Trinkets, Curios, Quirks, Diseases, Room cards and Loot Boxes; 2) All conditions are removed and Light goes up to 5; 3) All Trinkets are turned to their good side; 4) Afflictions and Virtues are removed and are replaced by negative and positive quirks respectively. No Life or Stress is recovered. No Quirks or Diseases are removed. Heroes need to heal themselves by visiting the locations of the Hamlet.”

Comparisons: Darkest Dungeon is unique because while it is a campaign-based dungeon crawler, it’s also a rogue-like, and the campaign could end at any time as a result of the game’s punishing difficulty level. The video game, like the Dark Souls franchise, has the reputation for constantly killing off characters. The players who learns from their mistakes while cannibalizing one group of adventurers to benefit another group, reaps the benefits. Some other cooperative, video game-themed board games include Cloudspire, Gears of War: The Board Game, Mechs vs. Minions, One Deck Dungeon, This War of Mine: The Board Game, and XCOM: The Board Game.

What Should I Pledge?:
$100 Dungeon Pledge: includes the Core Box, the Free Musketeer Mini, and all unlocked stretch goals.
$150 Crimson Pledge: includes everything in the Dungeon Pledge level, plus the Crimson Court Expansion and all Crimson Court unlocked stretch goals.
$330 Ancestral Pledge: includes everything in the Crimson Pledge level, plus The Cove Expansion, The Warrens Expansion, The Weald Expansion, and The Color of Madness Expansion.

Add-Ons:
$50 The Color of Madness Expansion
$50 The Cove Expansion
$50 The Warrens Expansion
$50 The Weald Expansion
$55 The Crimson Court Expansion
$100 Core Box (additional copies)

KS Exclusives
FOMO! The entire game is Kickstarter Exclusive, and is not headed for retail.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S. you’re looking at $330 for the Ancestral Pledge plus $34 in shipping for a total of $364.

Darkest Dungeon completes its Kickstarter on Friday, November 6th and tentatively ships in November 2021.