Dungeons of Infinity: Kingdom Cost is live (Return to the Dungeons of Infinity)
Update: Dungeons of Infinity has launched on Kickstarter and the campaign will run for 17 days. You may pledge just for the Kingdom Cost expansion, or get the base game only either with standees or minis, or go for both base game and expansion. The all-in bundle gets you extra dice, coins, and a hero pack.
Our preview post below was published on September 4.
Dungeons of Infinity is a 1-5 player dungeon crawler which is going to receive an upgraded second edition by Sky Kingdom Games, as well as a new expansion, Kingdom Cost. The Kickstarter campaign will launch on September 7. Note that the new rules have not been released yet, so this gameplay overview is based on the first edition rulebook.
You can either play a campaign, including story cards that provide narrative content, or a one-shot scenario. In the latter case, you start by picking up Heroes to form your party (you are free to choose the party size as you deem fit, from 1 to 5 heroes). Heroes start at Level 1 with 0 Experience and a Health level specified by their class and level. Different heroes have different stats besides their starting Health: Hit Chance, Noise, Power, Defense, and Action Points. They also come with a distinct set of abilities, starting out with 4, and being able to unlock an additional 4 by leveling up (you choose one per level). When leveling up, you reset your Health to a new, higher total and your abilities get upgraded as well. Before starting the adventure, you reveal 10 cards from the two merchant decks (one for weapons and armors, the other for items) that you will have the opportunity to purchase before venturing into the dungeon. You start with 3 gold coins per character.
You can spend Action Points to move. You explore the dungeon tile by tile, each tile being an entire room. When you reveal a tile, it has a number on it. Different ranges of numbers correspond to different types of tiles (the correspondence depending on the difficulty level) so that when you reveal a tile, you draw a card corresponding to the range its number falls in. There are four such types: body, pile of debris, mist, and treasure chest, and they all come with a specific deck of cards. Mist types typically trigger a trap or an enemy encounter, with a number of enemies that scales with the number of heroes of your party. When enemies are spawned in such a way, they focus on the active hero who revealed the tile. Furthermore, a reward card is added to the row of enemies, which your hero may claim if they defeat them.
Enemies, much like heroes, have Hit Chance, Power, and Defense stats, as well as a Health Points total. They can also have elemental attacks and elemental weaknesses. To fight your enemies, you must spend Action Points, either to activate your hero-specific abilities or to perform attacks. When performing a normal attack, you first roll a d20: if your roll result is below or equal to your Hit Chance, you deal damage to the enemy, equal to your Power minus their Defense. Each successful hit grants you one Experience Point: when you reach a certain amount of them, you can level up. Once you have no action points left, the enemies will retaliate, attacking in turn with the same rules, except their Hit Chance is lowered by your Action Points total. On their turn, other Heroes can enter the tile and make the enemies targeting the first Hero focus on them instead.
Action Points can also be spent to interact with the merchant on the starting tile and buy new items. You can even order the merchant to retrieve one specific item if it is not currently on display, but you will have to wait for three turns before the item becomes available. Equipping items costs 1 Action Point as well.
In the game there is also a Threat Meter. The threat level goes up with each hero turn, and each time a hero engages in a fight. When the threat level reaches the end of the Threat Meter, you will start drawing Lord Event cards. They show a number and a Lord action. First, you pay attention to the number: if it matches one of the tiles in play, the Lord of the dungeon will spawn there; otherwise, nothing happens. Once the Lord has appeared, the Lord's action will direct how they roam around the dungeon, usually driven by the Noise stat of the Heroes. If the Lord stumbles on one of the Heroes, they will focus on them and a fight will ensue! You can still attempt to run from the fight by rolling 8 or less on a d20, but this will cost 2 action points to the fleeing hero (or 1 if they are unsuccessful).
The win condition depends on the chosen scenario (or on the campaign). It may require you to gather 12 coins, kill target enemies and go back to the exit, or escape three Dungeon Lords hunting you through the dungeon. In any case, you lose the game if the Health Points of any Hero reach 0.
The new edition will offer upgraded components (miniatures for the Heroes and Dungeon Lords, gametrayz, dual-layered character boards), the opportunity to choose between a standard (with standees) or deluxe pledge. Upgrade packs will be available for returning backers. The new expansion adds two new heroes, three new dungeons, a new campaign that is a follow-up to the one from the core game, and more of everything else.
So, is this a "re-release" of the game from years ago? When I was lookin' at some Videos on BGG, some were from 5 years ago. 🤔 The Rulebook had a lot of complaints against it.
I poked around the Kickstarter page for some additional details, and as usual, it looks pretty awesome. Well, most KS Campaigns are like Movie Previews/Trailers - they always make it look great. Sly marketing.
P.S. Why do they call movie Previews - what they used to be called - Trailers? What was wrong with Previews? To me, Previews makes much more sense than Trailers.