New Games for July 28th, 2023 - Converge into the Cunning Doom DNGN

It's New Game Friday David Wiley (Cardboard Clash) is here to tell us about the new games.

Here’s what is new this week:

• DNGN
• Converge - Kickstarter Preview
• Dungeon Pages: Valensi, Cunning Whisper

https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games

DNGN

DNGN is a 1-2 player, diceless dungeon crawler with a minimalist style and branching campaigns. Players each take control of an Adventurer, and work together to explore dungeons, defeat monsters, and complete missions, using an innovative stamina assignment system to plan their actions each turn. Over a series of missions the Adventurers will increase and customize their abilities, improve their skills, and purchase new equipment, to be able to take on the greater threats to come, and make decisions affecting the party’s path through the campaign.

If you enjoy dungeon crawls with relatively simple rules but tons of room for clever gameplay decisions, you won’t want to miss out on this game. With a 9-mission campaign and more to come in expansions, this is exactly the sort of game that will beg to hit your table often as you enjoy its minimalist approach to design - letting the gameplay itself shine as the focal point for the players. If you love the idea of games like Gloomhaven but can’t commit to the long game sessions and extremely long arc, something like DNGN might be exactly what you’ve been looking for in a game.

Converge

The suns of Malvios are dying. Across the planet, survivors race to glean what hope for the future they can find in the failing light. Pooling their resources, experts from all walks of life converge to find the best path forward – and the team they’ll need to follow it.

This is a game with rules that were so simple, I was certain I was overlooking something. While the rules themselves might be easy to read and understand, the way in which you achieve success is layered with incredible depth as you try to outrun the opponent toward scoring points on shared objectives each round. Whoever scored more points the previous turn gets the artifact, and if a player has more points in a turn when they already hold the artifact, they win. But here’s the really cool thing: you can even play cards onto your opponent’s side, making it so you can muck up their carefully-laid plans. With several sets coming that can be mixed and matched, this is certainly one that should have your attention if you enjoy playing games with 2 players.

Check out the Kickstarter here: 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/239309591/converge-by-peter-hayward

Dungeon Pages: Valensi, Cunning Whisper

Her methods may be unpopular with some on the council, but it’s hard to argue with her results. Yet some wonder about her motives. Can she be trusted after this latest crisis is dealt with? Time will tell.

Her Undead Army will be a really huge boon for the players, and you’re going to need it for this week’s challenges. The Temporal Bats are going to be an absolute annoyance, as they force you to mark doubles on a different map or take damage. Shallow Grave traps are immune to Evil Dice, making them even more annoying than the standard trap. And the boss, well…let’s just say you’ll want to kill it off as fast as you can because this one does more damage after every attack. Eventually, even the best of defenses will crumple to its accelerating might, so you will want to hope the dice are with you when you challenge the Soul Feaster.

Game of the Week: Doom Machine on sale for just $5!

Face off against an ever-evolving, ever-growing machine of death and destruction! Find and defeat the doom core before humanity is annihilated.

If you like rolling and allocating dice, this will present plenty of fascinating decisions on how to use the 5-10 dice you’ll roll each turn. Dice can be used to manipulate other dice, to prevent incoming damage, or used in sets of 1-3 to deal damage to machine parts as you try to uncover the Doom Core and destroy it before it destroys you. And that’s what is really neat here: the machine evolves, grows, and cycles each of its parts every turn. If you like a dynamic challenge for your gaming experience, the Doom Machine is ready to deliver.