Cassette Dungeons!
Cassette Dungeons! Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 17 Monster/Item Cards that present danger and become single use Items once defeated.
- 8 Treasure Cards that are essentially Items, but better.
- 4 Trap cards that increase the danger within a specific dungeon room.
- 3 Dual sided Boss cards of which you must defeat 1 to conquer the dungeon.
- 3 Dual sided Dungeon Maps across which you will travel.
- 6 Hero Cards each with a unique skill you may use during your exploration.
- 1 Health Tracker card
- 1 Player Pawn
- 4 six-sided dice
- 1 Health Cube
Preparing the Game
- Separate each type of card into their own deck and shuffle them.
- Reveal one Dungeon Map and choose one Hero to use for this game.
- Place your player pawn in the first dungeon room and set your Health tracker to 11.
- Begin the game from "Step 4. Proceed" found on the next page.
Facing the Dungeon (Turn Sequence)
Step 1. Rolling
Roll any of the four dice you wish, leaving the dice you don't roll where they are. Each die you roll can be placed on any empty die slot on any card in play, so long as the placed die rolled a result equal to or higher than the value shown in the dice slot it is placed into. Placing dice in slots on your Hero card will immediately apply the effect described next to that slot.
Step 2. Suffer
Suffer the penalty above each empty dice slot on each Monster and Boss you currently face.
Step 3. Loot
You gain each defeated Monster as an Item, which is described at the bottom of the Monster's card. Enemies are defeated if they have no empty dice slots. Defeated Bosses are discarded. See Items/Treasure.
Step 4. Proceed
If no undefeated enemies remain, discard all revealed Traps and follow the arrow to the next Dungeon room. Reveal the cards shown in that room, and immediately gain all Treasure and Health shown in that room.
Take Another Turn
Resolve Steps 1 to 4 in sequence, over and over, until you die (when your Health reaches
(The printed sentence ends at "reaches" in the source; the rest of it is not present on the page.)
Items and Treasure
Items and Treasure you own can be used at any time, after which you discard them, keeping these two types separate. If you have more than 4 in total, immediately discard until you do not, without using the discarded card's effects.
If a deck runs out, create a new one by shuffling the discards of that card type. If the cards are double-sided, flip some.
Beating the Dungeon
Proceed from the Boss room to win! However, you may feel compelled to record more victories...
If your Health drops below 1, you die and the game is over.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below are some questions that have been asked about the game.
How does a turn work?
A turn proceeds through the four Steps explained under "Facing the Dungeon (Turn Sequence):" in the rules. If there are still enemies present in your current room, you will not proceed to the next room during Step 4: Proceed. You will need to defeat all enemies (as described in Step 3: Loot) to proceed through rooms. Otherwise, you fight the remaining enemies in the following turns, until you lose, or defeat all of them.
Do we roll all the dice every turn?
As explained in Step 1: Rolling, each turn, you roll any amount of dice. There are four dice in the game. No matter where they are, you may grab them and roll them. If they are on a Hero, you may roll them. If they are on an enemy, you may roll them.
You may leave dice on enemies so that you keep the result of those dice, or you may take those dice to try and re-roll better results to take out a different enemy. Re-rolling a dice allows you to re-allocate it, which can sometimes be beneficial. You may wish to prioritize defeating a new enemy that appeared, removing a good roll from a tough enemy to re-roll that dice in an attempt to defeat a weaker enemy.
Do you roll all the dice and place them or one at a time?
You roll all of your selected dice at the same time.
Why are there two paths on each map?
If you Proceed in Step 4, you choose which of the available paths to Proceed along, in the direction shown on the path.
When can you use health in a room?
As stated in Step 4: Proceed, when you Proceed into a room, you immediately gain the health in that room. You cannot store the health. If you cannot use any of it upon entering the room, it is wasted.
Do you fight all monsters at once?
Yes. You face all currently active enemies, no matter how many of them there are.
Do you take damage after each die or all are rolled?
You take damage after every turn (if applicable).
What do the icons mean?
Health is your health. Enemies will often reduce your health if you don't allocate a dice to the relevant dice slots on those enemy cards. Some rooms will grant you health when you Proceed to them. Some Items will also grant you Health when you use them.
The Monster icon is used on Monster-type enemies (not Bosses), and is most frequently used to indicate that you reveal a new active Monster from the top of the Monster deck, as a result of not occupying a die slot with a Monster icon above it.
The Items icon refers to Items. Each time you defeat a Monster, you take that card into your "inventory" as one of your Items, which can then be used and discarded any time you wish. When you discard an Item, it returns to the Monster discard pile.
The Boss icon: place these cards in a new deck and randomly draw a new Boss every time you enter a room with this icon!