Mini Rogue: Solo dungeon crawl where you control your own adventure

You’ve Played Solitaire, Now Play a Solo Dungeon Crawl

Encountering monsters, traps, treasures, and really, really big monsters while wandering a dungeon, going from room to room, all alone? Oh my. That is the premise of Mini Rogue, a solo, dungeon crawl card game in a minimalist package. To play the game, you select a character, fight monsters and bosses, avoid the traps, loot all the treasure you can (if you are lucky), and go to the next level. Then repeat it all over again. And again. And again. Did I mention, all by yourself?

The solo dungeon crawl game provides you with a solid 20+ minutes of entertaining “dungeoneering” through tightly designed cards and limited use of game components. Mini Rogue is perfect for light gaming on nights when your friends are working, your spouse controls the remote, committing to work, or traveling for business. Complete with dice and loads of dice rolling, this game provides a unique dungeon exploration experience each time you play, similar to One Deck Dungeon and Escape the Dark Castle.

What is the Solo Dungeon Crawl Mini Rogue Card Game?

Mini Rogue is a single-player game with instructions for a 2-player, cooperative mode. In the game, you are an adventurer delving deeper and deeper into a dungeon (or higher and higher into a tower). Progressing one room at a time, one level at a time, and one floor at a time. A grind to seek the Go’s Blood: a fabled and mysterious ruby gemstone.

To create the game’s dungeon, you select a series of room cards at random and place them in a grid. Then you engage with each room card as you move through the dungeon. In each room, you might engage with a monster or discover a treasure. Find a rest area and meet a merchant, dodge traps, or encounter a variety of sinister things.

In the game, you move through the dungeon until you reach the last room of the area. There, depending on which area you are in, you might encounter a “boss” monster. Upon defeating the boss, you reset the board to the next area and continue exploring. With each level, the monsters get more and more difficult to overcome. But with each level, you gain experience and grow in your skills. The increased skill means extra dice to overcome the stronger monsters. Play continues until you find Og’s remains on the last level or you die.

Setting Up The Dungeon Crawler, Mini Rogue

First, select your character to use in the card game

In Mini Rogue, you can select one of four characters. Each character has its own strengths and weaknesses. After selection, set your character next to the Character Mat.

• Crusader. Strong initial armor. They can stun monsters and give bonus armor when entering a room.

• Mage. Starts with balanced stats. The Mage can conjure the effects of a fire, frost, or poison potion and reveal an extra room.

• Priestess. Increased initial health. They can apply the loss of health as damage to a monster and remove curses from a character.

• Rogue. Higher starting gold. Can double the damage during an attack and skip a room.

Next, Set your stats on the Character Mat with the appropriate colored cube.

]Each character has a different starting amount for their stats and supplies. First, note the amount on the Character Mat with the appropriate cube. Then, as the game progresses, you increase or decrease the amount by moving cubes along the scale. For stats and supplies, you have:

• Experience. When you get enough experience, you gain extra character dice.

• Health. Represents your life. When zero, you are dead.

• Armor. Each point of armor reduces the damage you take by 1 point.

• Food. As you clear an area of the dungeon, you need to eat. If you can’t, you will lose three health points.

• Gold. Allows you to buy or sell various items from merchants. Can be offerings at shrines to get blessings.

• Poisons. Different potions have different effects to use in combat.

Next, prepare the remaining space for the card game

Place the Rewards/Ghost card next to the Character Mat. Use this card when you discover and fight random ghosts. If successful, the card notes the rewards.

Afterward, place a character (white) die and a monster (black die) on your character card. You will be rolling these for skill, combat, and survival checks.

Then, place the Dungeon Mat above the character card. The Dungeon Mat tracks your progress through the floors of the dungeon. You set a gray cube on the square representing the first area of the first floor. If the area has a monster icon, a boss is on the last card of the dungeon.

Next, prepare the dungeon for a solo dungeon crawl

Shuffle the room cards and place 8 of them face down, one at a time, in a 3×3 grid. Leave the last spot (9th) open. When finished, set the remaining room card aside. The following are the types of room cards:

• Items Cards. Perform a skill check. If you pass, you might receive an item that augments your stats and supplies or aids you in combat.

• Monsters. You fight to the death… No retreat. No surrender.

• Trap Cards. Perform a skill check or suffer the effects.

• Tomb Cards. Successful skill checks might reveal useful items.

• Bonfire Cards. Allows you to reset your character’s action and restore some health.

• Merchant Cards. Supplies to restore your stats or upgrade your armor.

• Treasure Cards. Gain some gold and other helpful items.

• Shrine Cards. Make an offering for the chance of a helpful blessing.

Finally, shuffle the Boss Monster cards

Place the Og’s Remains card face down in the 9th slot of the grid. Next place the shuffled boss monster cards, face down, on top of Og’s remains. Now, you are ready to begin your solo dungeon crawl.

Now, How to Play a Solo Dungeon Crawl Card Game with Mini Rogue

]The object of Mini Rouge is to survive the dungeon and find Og’s Blood, a fabled and mysterious artifact. If you believe the rumors, Og’s Blood is a ruby gemstone. You have to move through the various rooms in the dungeon. In each room, you might find an item or a trap. Treasure or monster. Merchant, bonfire, shrine, and others. The game consists of a preparation phase, an exploration phase, and a delving phase.

The preparation phase for the solo dungeon crawl

• First, prepare the dungeon as noted above by creating a 3×3 grid with the room and boss monster cards.

  • Start by shuffling all the room cards. When complete, place 8 room cards in the first 8 slots of a 3×3 grid.

  • Shuffle the boss cards next and place them face down on Og’s Remains in the remaining slot.

• Next, reveal the top, left room card and place your meeple on it. Your adventure begins here.

• Finally, look at the Dungeon Mat. If you are in an area of the floor that contains a boss monster, flip the top most boss card over.

Crawling the dungeon in the exploration phase

Start by resolving the room card where your meeple is.

• If you need to perform a skill check, roll both dice. If the white character dice is a:

  • 5 or 6, you pass.

  • Anything else, you fail.

• Compare the result of the black, dungeon dice to the success or fail resolution on the card.

• If the card is a monster or boss, combat begins. Set the health on the monster tracker to the health noted on the card. Then collect your character, dungeon, poison, and/or curse dice and roll them.

• Character attack phase

  • Activate any poison or curses from the dice rolls.

  • If the character dice is an

    • X, you miss.

    • 2-5, you hit. Set the character dice aside and that becomes your damage.

    • 6, is critical. Re-roll the dice and add the result to the previous 6.

  • Perform any feats (allows you to reroll any dice).

  • Use any potions you have in your collection.

  • If you hit, subtract the total amount of damage from the health of the engaged monster or boss.

• Monster attack phase

  • If the monster has any health left, look at the dungeon dice. If the dice shows a

    • 1, the attack misses.

    • 2-5, the attack hits for that amount of damage noted on the monster card.

    • 6, the attack hits and you ignore your armor when calculating damage.

  • Apply any monster effects if the attack deals at least 1 point damage to the character.

  • Repeat the combat until the character, monster, or boss is dead.

Reveal the cards below and to the right of the room. 

If there are no cards:

• below, reveal the room on the right.

• On the right, reveal the card below.

• Choose which room to move into.

Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you reach the last room

• If the Dungeon Card notes a boss monster, combat begins. Once you defeat the monster, move to the Delving Phase.

• Otherwise, move to the Delving Phase.

Delving Phase to Begin the Dungeon Crawl Again

• Consume 1 food ration.

• Flip your character card face up if you used one of their special abilities on this floor.

• Move the adventurer’s cube to the next area on the Dungeon Mat.

• Remove all the dungeon room cards and shuffle them along with the unused room cards.

• Began again with the Preparation Phase.

A Game Review of Mini Rogue, A Solo Dungeon Crawler

I have been exploring ways to play role-playing, dungeon crawling games solo for a while. Since getting back into tabletop games, I have been missing the RPG dungeon crawlers. I was looking within solo rules for Dungeon & Dragons and full RPG-type games but was unable to find one. Then, while chatting with the folks at Red Racoon Games, I discovered Mini Rouge. It was on their recommendation that I decided to try it.

I discovered a game where you are on your own, but never lonely. Mini Rogue is for those who love classic dungeon crawl games but don’t have the time for a full RPG game. At its core, it’s a solo card and a dice game with characters, monsters, traps, and treasure cards. The goal is to defeat as many monsters as possible. To achieve this, you need to get gear, skill up, and defeat the final boss. If you do so, you collect the end-game treasure. You need to do this though before the monster kills you!

I will admit that I was a bit skeptical about the whole RPG card game (and the tiny box)

I wasn’t sure how a card game mimic’s the dungeon exploration and character skilling experience of an RPG. Sure card games can generate random monsters and determine combat? But chomping on noms to keep your health up? How could they allow for the advancement of armor and weapons? Increasing skills to defeat the ever-strengthening of the monsters? The questions were flowing when I opened the box.

And surprised how well Mini Rouge filled that dungeon crawling, RPG itch

Mini Rogue does an excellent job of allowing you to work through an ever-changing dungeon. All the time while skilling up, discovering treasure, purchasing gear, and defeating monsters. The ongoing resetting of the room cards for each level of the dungeon keeps the gameplay fresh. Most importantly, throwing oodles and oodles of dice. And with each dice throw, a hope of successes to overcome the bosses and discover Og’s Remains.

In solo play, you throw dice for combat, traps, and skill checks. Depending on the results, you either succeed or fail. You increase the dice pool you can use by “skilling up”. A larger dice pool means you can overcome stronger monsters. The monster’s strength, health, and damage are all determined by the floor level. This allows the game to become difficult without becoming frustrating.

The random dungeon crawler also forces you to make decisions with each card flip

Constant decision-making requires you to push your luck with each round. During exploration, you have to balance obtaining food with the buying of items. The resting to regain health with the discovering a treasure. With each card flip, the decisions you make will stick with you as you explore. For example, if you choose to buy an armor point instead of food, you might lose your food in another room. Then, after you complete the area, you don’t have any food to eat. If you don’t eat food, you lose three health.

Similarly, if you don’t get new weapons, you might damage the boss hiding in the last room. Same for your character’s special ability or a potion you might have found. When used, they’re gone. If you used them early, you won’t have them for a stronger monster father into the dungeon. The direction your character takes could bring you bad luck with the single flip of the card. Bad luck is a monster or trap that causes you to lose experience along with your health.

The dice rolling lends a nice bit of memorable moments in the game

With each trap or skill check, the dice could cost you treasures. In each monster battle, a single dice throw might end the game. The dice determine your success, your failure, and any rewards or punishments. This is like in an RPG game where a single dice roll could make you a hero or a corpse. Or a series of successful dice rolls can build your hopes. Then, bring them crashing down with one last, failed roll. For combat, the rolling brings in hope for an “exploding six”. If you roll a 6, a critical, you get to reroll the dice and add the results to the previous roll. If you roll a 6 again, you get to roll again and add the results to the previous (12). But if you push your luck too far and roll an X, you miss and you lose everything.

Mini Rouge is not without room for improvement though in its gameplay though.

As I played Mini Rogue, I became concerned with the limited amount of room cards to shuffle each round. The randomness keeps the game fresh but I worry it won’t last. Same with the boss monsters. Expansions that increase the number of cards available. After incorporating those, the freshness should return.

I struggled with the instructions. Gameplay is smooth and simple when you learn the rules. Understanding the instructions takes time and gameplays to understand. The large collection of icons used on the cards requires understanding. I had to flip many times through the rulebook to understand the meaning of the icons. This constant flipping slows down the gameplay. A cheatsheet would help this problem and make gameplay efficient. A simple download from their website could deliver it. To help with the instructions, BoardGameGeek does maintain a nice Mini Rogue PDF FAQ.

That said, Mini Rogue has become a game favorite of mine. Sitting where it belongs on my primary game shelf in my game room. A dice rolling, push your luck theme with a bit of resource management appeals to me. The constant random card reveals keep gameplay fresh and exciting. All in all, excellent. And all the expansions are on my Christmas list this year.