Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord

I've been pestering Thomas Denmark, the designer of Dungeoneer, regarding the re-print of his original Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord game. Back in August 2009, Atlas Games announced their re-print of this card-game set (originally released in 2003) and I have been visiting my FLGS every week since September to see whether it has been delivered.

Tomb of the Lich Lord finally arrived last week. Staff at my FLGS had already stocked it on the top shelf of the card-game section of the store, but I had little difficulty locating it and hurrying to the front-counter to buy my copy, and afterwards frantically tearing the wrapping off to enjoy my lastest acquisition.

The cards are terrific, and I love the rules-light gaming that this card-set and related rules provide. As I was reminiscing about Deathmaze, it occurred to me that my appreciation for that old microgame may be part of the reason I like Dungeoneer so much: it has the same rules-light dungeon-crawling feel that appealed to me all those years ago.

Dungeoneer only has six pages of rules, so it doesn't take long to set up and give this game a spin. The background is interesting, but light enough that you don't get bogged down in the backstory. And while SPI's Deathmaze 'room and corridor chits' provided little color or visual interest, Dungeoneer room and corridor cards that have both, in spades. Dungeoneer features room cards that are beautifully illustrated, and even the corridor cards are nice.