Do you like raiding dungeons? Do you like fighting dragons? Do you like Dungeons and Dragons? Well, good news! Passport Game Studios has come out with a game that’s perfect for you! Dungeon Raiders is a card-based RPG where players work together to conquer dungeons filled with monsters, traps, and treasure! Only one player can be crowned a winner so, although you work together, you work against each other as well. You’ve got to avoid damage from monsters and traps while getting more treasure than the rest of your adventuring party. Can you succeed?

This game! I can’t tell you how enjoyable this was for me. I played with two of my friends and it was so much fun! First of all, the rules are really easy to understand, and game set up is relatively quick. You get to play as one of the five typical RPG characters: Thief, Wizard, Warrior, Explorer, and Knight. Each character gets a different starting card, life points, and money, so choose wisely! Or, do what my friends and I did and choose randomly! (I got the thief.)

One of the most fun mechanics of this game is its adaptability. We played by the rules, but we also had no trouble immediately homebrewing some stuff. For example, when a character dies, their treasure is normally lost. For our party, when the explorer died, we decided to loot the body. The knight and I then argued over how the loot should be split. We considered using our power cards to duke it out, but ultimately decided that convincing arguments were better. We almost split the loot 50/50, except I argued (exceptionally well, I might add) that the thief was more inclined to steal treasure than the chivalrous knight and should, therefore, get more of the bounty. This directly led to the last two players standing tying for the win, which was fine by us. There are ways to resolve a tie, but we tied in those too, and decided we could leave the dungeon as comrades!

I don’t want to give too much away because, seriously, you should buy this game and play it always, but I need to mention the card artwork. I love it! Some things are pretty basic, like the treasure counters, but those monster cards are astounding. My personal favorite is the zombie card. And yes, there are lots of dragons in this game, and it’s wonderful!

I’m actively racking my brain for some constructive criticism about this game, and the only thing I can think of is that the treasure cards need to go up to 20. Each side of the treasure card counts up to ten, but you’ll get more treasure than this. This is an easy fix though. My group just used a life marker to indicate ten treasures once we started getting to the higher numbers. Problem solved.

Dungeon Raiders really did hit it all for me. It’s easy to set up, easy to understand, easy to adapt, is small enough to fit into a purse or backpack, uses luck and strategy, has high player interaction, is funny and original (no, the concept of battling creatures in dungeons isn’t that original, but you the artwork and trap cards definitely help in this category), and is really something I want to play over and over again. If you want an RPG experience, you can do it with Dungeon Raiders. If you just want a fun and light game, you can do it with Dungeon Raiders!

Seriously, play Dungeon Raiders.

Score: A