One of the most surprising games that I played in 2016/2017 was 5-Minute Dungeon. What I liked so much about the game was that it was an innovative dungeon crawling card game where each dungeon only took five minutes to complete. The game does such a great job creating a cooperative dungeon crawl as players work together to play the corresponding cards to defeat the monsters and obstacles that stand in the way of the final boss. I ended up giving the game a 4.5 and I regularly debate whether the game deserved a 5/5. Well its time to head back to the dungeon as a new expansion for the game is launching on Kickstarter on May 22nd. 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! takes the already excellent gameplay of the original and adds in some intriguing twists to make the game more challenging.
We would like to thank Wiggles 3D Games for the review copy of 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! used for this review. Other than receiving the review copy we at Geeky Hobbies received no other compensation. Receiving the review copy had no impact on the content of this review or the final score.
How to Play 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again!
5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! is an expansion pack for the original 5-Minute Dungeon (you need the original game to play Curses! Foiled Again!). To avoid wasting the time of people already familiar with the original game, I won’t break down the rules from the original game and instead will focus on the additions to 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again!. If you are not familiar with how the original game is played, check out our review of 5-Minute Dungeon.
Setup
In addition to the normal setup for 5-Minute Dungeon, these additional steps are needed for the expansion.
- When picking the door cards for the dungeon boss, you will first take the five unique boss cards for the boss you are fighting. You will then add the normal number of door cards minus five due to the unique boss cards that you added to the deck.
- Find the artifact cards for the colors not being used by one of the players and place them color side up on the table.
- Add the two new action cards to each players’ hero deck.
Curses
When a curse card gets turned over it is set to the side of the boss mat. One player then turns over the next card in the dungeon. The curse card stays in play until a player is able to successfully remove the curse. Multiple curse cards can be in play at the same time.
When this curse goes into effect none of the players can use their left hand.
If at any time a player disobeys an active curse, the player has to place their entire hand into the pile of used cards (not the discard pile). The player also has to take back their illegal action if possible.
Artifacts
For each dungeon the players will have access to one artifact card from each colored hero not used by one of the players. These cards give the players a one time use special ability that they can use at any time during the dungeon. When the players want to use the artifact they flip the card over and take the corresponding action. Once an artifact has been used it cannot be used again until you get to the next dungeon. At the start of each new dungeon flip all artifacts to the colored side to show that they can be used again.
The players can use this artifact card to discard the top two cards from the dungeon.
The Druid/Shaman
For the most part the druid and shaman act the same as the other heroes. Instead of having a color focus like the other heroes, the druid and shaman have an equal focus on all of the colors. The druid and shaman also have their own unique abilities.
The druid/shaman have infinity resource cards which count for an unlimited number of resources of the pictured color.
This card will act as an infinite number of scrolls.
The druid/shaman also have two unique action cards. One action card allows the players to remove an active curse. The other action card allows players to draw cards from the top of their discard pile.
My Thoughts on 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again!
If I haven’t already made this clear, 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! is an expansion pack for the original 5-Minute Dungeon. If you don’t own the original game, you won’t be able to play Curses! Foiled Again!. As I already looked at the original game around a year and a half ago I am not going to spend a lot of time talking about the main gameplay of 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! as it is the same as the original game. For a quick recap I loved the original game as it is one of those games that are very hard to put down. It has an almost perfect balance between being accessible and giving the players enough decisions. For those of you who have never played the original 5-Minute Dungeon and would like some more information, I would highly recommend checking out my review.
Instead of rehashing what I said in the original review, I want to spend this review of 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! talking about what the expansion brings to the table. The expansion basically brings four new things to the game.
First lets look at the expansion’s namesake, the curses. Basically the curses act like event cards that stay in effect until a player plays a card or uses their ability to remove the curse. I was actually a little surprised by how much the curses added to the game. They do a really good job mixing up the gameplay and throwing a wrench into your strategy. When a curse card comes up it can totally change how you are going to approach the game until you are able to get rid of it. To keep some of the surprise intact I won’t go into detail of all of the curses but I want to give you a quick glimpse of two of the curses you can find in the expansion.
One of the first curses you will encounter is the “Cursed Blanket”. The Cursed Blanket prevents you from using your left hand until you remove the curse. Being right handed I didn’t think this would be that big of a deal but I quickly realized it is a bigger deal than I was expecting. It is quite hard trying to hold cards in your hand and playing them at the same time when you only have one hand available.
Another interesting curse comes in the second boss fight with the curse “Waffles Waffles!”. Waffles Waffles! limits your vocabulary in the game to the word “waffles”. If it wasn’t already obvious to you, it is hard to communicate strategy with the other players if the only word you can say is waffles. You either are going to have to be really creative in how you use the word waffles or you will have to find new ways to communicate with your teammates.
While I won’t spoil the other curses, I will say that there are even more sinister curses the further you advance in the game. These curses are one of the main reasons that 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! makes the original game more difficult. If you liked the original game but are finding the game to be getting too easy at this point, the expansion does a really good job making the game more challenging for players who are already really familiar with the game.
The curses are just some of the new boss cards that are added to each dungeon during setup. Each dungeon boss has their own set of five cards which are always added to the dungeon deck and for the most part make the game more challenging. I would say that most of the boss cards are event and curse cards but there are a couple additional mini-boss cards thrown in as well. These cards really up the difficulty of the game as they are some of the hardest cards in the dungeon deck. The game’s instructions recommend you be familiar with the original game before using them. I strongly second this recommendation as they will make it hard to complete a dungeon if all of the players aren’t already familiar with the game.
After the boss/curse cards, I would say that the second biggest addition in the expansion is the addition of the sixth set of heroes: the druid and shaman. By adding a sixth set of heroes it allows up to six players to play the game at the same time while also giving players more choices for which hero they want to play. In general I would say that the druid/shaman deck is a balanced deck as it doesn’t have a color that is favored over the others. Based on the character’s special abilities and action cards I would say that their emphasis is on getting rid of curses and allowing players to take cards out of their discard pile.
The thing that I like most about the druid/shaman though has to be the infinity resource cards. The infinity resource cards count for as many symbols of the corresponding color as you need for the current dungeon card. These cards are really powerful when you need two of more symbols of the same color. They are particularly useful against some of the mini-bosses and final dungeon bosses. The only problem I had with them is that they make you want to save them for as long as possible even when it is more prudent to use them rather than save them. I can see the druid/shaman being a hero that one of the players are likely going to use each game.
The third new addition to Curses! Foiled Again! is the idea of artifact cards. The artifact cards are mostly something that was added to the game in order to help out when you are playing with less than the max number of players. The artifacts are basically one time use abilities that give you a strong ability to make up for not having as many players helping you out. While I would say that some of the artifacts are more powerful than others, I like the idea of the artifacts. The artifacts can help get you out of some really tough situations. I think the artifacts do a pretty good job offsetting some of the disadvantage of having less players in the game. I would still say having the extra players is better but the artifacts are a nice addition to make playing with less players a little easier.
The final addition to 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! is the addition of two action cards to each of the five original hero decks. Two cards might not sound like a lot but they likely will be the two most powerful cards in their corresponding decks. While there are only two action cards for each deck, I like the variety they provide and they can really help the players when they get into trouble.
While all of the artwork for the expansion has not been fully completed yet, I want to quickly talk about the game’s components. All of the components included in my review copy might not be finalized but I have to say that I am already impressed by them. While some of the artwork is only at the sketch point right now, like the original game I love the expansion’s artwork. The expansion does a great job continuing the humor/charm of the original game. Basically the component quality fits right in with the original game.
So now that we have gone through all that 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! has to offer, what did I think of it? Well if it wasn’t already clear I enjoyed the expansion quite a bit. The expansion doesn’t drastically change the game but it does a good job adding some new mechanics that tweak the gameplay for the better. The expansion also increases the overall difficulty of the game which will probably be welcomed by people that have mastered the game. Basically if you liked the original game like I did, I think you will really enjoy the expansion as well. On the other hand if you didn’t really care for the original game, I don’t see Curses! Foiled Again! changing your mind.
While I really enjoyed 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! I did have a few minor issues with the game.
- The expansion does make the game quite a bit more difficult. Generally this isn’t a bad thing but it does make the game harder for new players. If you have players who have never played the game before or haven’t played the game in a while, I would recommend playing a couple rounds before you add in the expansion’s cards.
- While I really liked the artwork there were two minor issues I had with it. First when you first start playing with the infinity cards you will occasionally miss that they are infinity cards. The more you play with them though the easier they are to recognize. The developers have said that this is something that they are going to address for the final release of the game. The other issue I had was that the game currently has no way of distinguishing which are the new action cards that are added to the original five hero decks. This isn’t a big problem if you plan on always playing with the expansion but if you wanted to take them out it becomes more difficult to figure out what action cards came with the expansion. I hope the final version of the cards have some small symbol on the cards which distinguishes that the action cards are from the expansion pack.
- My final complaint with the expansion is that I wish you got a little more with it. It would have been nice if the expansion added a dungeon boss or a few more cards. The expansion does give you quite a bit of content and the main reason I am complaining is that I just want more content for 5-Minute Dungeon. I hope to see additional expansion packs for the game in the future.
Should You Buy 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again!?
With how much I liked the original 5-Minute Dungeon I had high expectations for its first expansion 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! Despite my high expectations I was not disappointed. Curses! Foiled Again! might not drastically change the core gameplay but it does a really good job adding some tweaks to the formula while keeping the main gameplay intact. For the most part I would say that the expansion can be considered hard/expert mode for 5-Minute Dungeon as most of the additions make the game more challenging. The curses/boss cards add some of the most challenging cards to each dungeon which makes the dungeons harder and more entertaining. I really liked the addition of the druid/shaman as it allows six players to play at the same time while also giving the players an interesting new hero to use. The artifacts and new action cards also give the players some new interesting powers to help them overcome their challenges. Basically if you liked the original 5-Minute Dungeon I think you will really enjoy 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again!
I would recommend that most people should purchase 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! If you have never played 5-Minute Dungeon before I would recommend picking it up along with the expansion. If you already own 5-Minute Dungeon and want more of a challenge I would highly recommend picking up 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again!. If the reason why you didn’t like the original game was because you felt it was too easy, I would consider checking out the expansion because it does add more difficulty to the game.
The Kickstarter campaign for 5-Minute Dungeon Curses! Foiled Again! launches on May 22nd, 2018. For more information about the game check out its official website.