Dungeon Legends is a lightweight cooperative deck-building game set in the world of Avel. Players take on the roles of heroes exploring underground locations and battling monsters to complete objectives in each chapter and advance in the campaign.

Gameplay

The rules are straightforward. Each hero starts a round with a hand of five cards and can play as many cards as they wish during their turn. Cards provide a range of benefits, including melee and ranged attacks, defense, movement, and dust—the game’s currency. Heroes can also use each of the six location actions once per turn. While some location actions remain consistent across chapters, others are unique to the mechanics of each chapter.

At the end of a player’s turn, a card is drawn from the game deck, which reveals either an event or a monster. Events are almost always negative, and monsters are added to the monster row, pushing everything further. Managing these monsters is critical—the game is lost if any monster is pushed off the row. Defeating enemies provides various rewards, the most significant being powerful item cards that enhance heroes’ decks. So, battling monsters prevents losing the chapter and is the primary way to improve each hero’s abilities.

Although deck-building is a core mechanic, there is no way to thin your deck, meaning players are stuck with their starter cards for the entire game. Additionally, all cards in hand must be discarded at the end of a turn, encouraging players to play as many as possible. However, this design choice can cause frustration. While discarding three cards at a time provides a small benefit, being forced to discard one or two cards that are useless in the current round but can be useful in the next doesn’t feel great.

The game includes five chapters, each lasting 1–2 hours, and presenting a unique puzzle. In one chapter, players must fill and move buckets to extinguish fires; in another, they align cards on the monster track and remove them using location actions. Each chapter also introduces 10 new cards to the common game deck, adding unique monsters and events.

The game deck also acts as a timer—running out of cards before achieving the chapter’s objective results in a loss. Characters don’t die, but if a hero loses all their HP and is knocked out, the game deck advances by two cards, effectively costing the team one round.

Luck is a significant factor in Dungeon Legends. While planning actions and careful use of cards is essential, the order of events and enemy cards drawn from the deck—or even the initial layout of location cards—can make a chapter noticeably easier or more difficult. The early chapters are relatively forgiving, but the later ones are more challenging. This increases replayability and ensures players won’t win all the chapters on their first attempt. However, it also means that bad luck can still lead to a loss even with a perfect play.

The rulebook is not great. The rules are generally hard to follow, and some examples appear before the related rules are fully explained. Overall, we found it difficult to navigate. Another questionable decision is placing the iconography guide at the end of the storybook instead of providing it on separate sheets for easier access.

Artwork and Components

The game’s artwork is gorgeous, though we are not a fan of the character portraits. This is a minor nitpick, as the mat design, card illustrations, and component artwork are excellent.

Component quality is equally impressive. The game includes a neoprene mat, which certainly elevates the experience. The foil item cards are beautiful, and the dual-layer player boards are an excellent choice. The box also features tuck boxes for character, chapter, and general components, making organization and setup easy. Overall, the production quality is top-notch.

Final Thoughts

Dungeon Legends is an accessible and enjoyable deck-builder with excellent production value and engaging puzzles. It’s not a deep or strategic deck-builder but works well for lighter game nights, younger players, or those new to the hobby. While the rules can be difficult to grasp at first, they’re easy to teach once understood.

The game is certainly fun, but it’s swingy and highly affected by luck. It could benefit from more content, perhaps in future expansions, but it still provides entertainment for a while. Overall, it’s not for everybody, but it will resonate with the right audience.

Disclosure: We received a review copy of this game. Also, there may be an affiliate link in the links included at the end of this article.