Dungeon Blitz Challenge Day 1: Concept to early beginnings

Note: This idea only appeals to board gamers or people who are interested in a hurried concept series.

One day, in a chat, someone mentioned an inability to make the classic game Gauntlet into a card game. Within a minute, I had a solution which they so cruelly cast aside. But my concept was sound, hopefully balanced(as this challenge has NOTHING to do with playtesting), and figured I would SOOOOO love to design a coop dungeon crawler that plays in 60 minutes or less. I wanted to do all this and more importantly, have it ready by Geekway to the West which, under the best case scenario, gives me about a week to go from concept to printable design.

The game, Dungeon Blitz, foregos most concepts of combat and assumes anything reached within a radius by a certain character is dead. But I also needed something to push those bastards through the dungeon and so I needed a Pyramid Head constantly stalking behind the players, forcing them through. Win or lose, the concept is to get the game over with in 30-60 minutes and more importantly, have a concept go from txt to printable in only a few days. How appropriate that I will document this progress as the Dungeon Blitz Challenge...

Day 1: The Game Crafter, Square Cards, and Monster Sketches.

Since I plan to use The Game Crafter as my printer, I start by downloading some templates for Mini Poker Cards and Square Cards. The Square Cards are 3.5" x 3.5" which, designing this game around placing squares (Zombies, House on Haunted Hill), I had to consider how many spaces I wanted on each card. Being the clever bastard that I am (not), I decided Legend of Zelda style rooms should be best for the concept.


The various monsters. The very bottom right is an instant death character that will force players through the dungeon. The others are Skeleton, Slime, Flash Cat, Wraith, and Goblin.

Each game should also be slightly different as well as have certain types of challenges only solvable by teamwork. Hell, let's even go with scenarios, and pop 10 of them bastards on. So with the workable space on the cards, I could have a 6x6 room with a little over 1/2" squares, or a 7x7 room with 7/16th inch square, or an 8x8 room with 3/8" squares. Keep in mind, these squares WILL feature reused asset with the intent to just hammer out a shitton of rooms.


One hour, several tiles...

With only a basic concept going, these tiles worked well in creating this very basic room.


That's all I got done in a limited amount of time. Tomorrow, I plan to map out simple rooms on Grid Sheets and yes, MAOR TILES.