Dice Throne was originally a competitive dice battling game based on the yahtzee three roll mechanism, which will activate character abilities and wear down your opponent until there is a winner. The adventures box is a co-operative expansion upgrade that turns the game into a dungeon crawl experience with minions and boss battles, wrapped together by a simple campaign to beat four bosses.
The core of the game revolves around your chosen character, who have beautifully drawn boards which show their various abilities. These can be triggered by rolling five dice, looking for combinations of symbols such as swords, hearts and explosions or numbers from which you can build straights. These board located skill combinations are further supplemented with a unique card deck for your hero, which will enable you to take extra actions such as manipulate the dice rolls, upgrade your board abilities or inflict and remove status conditions during your battles.
The adventure game has a campaign over eight rounds to battle through progressively more difficult dungeon crawl style portals, fighting minions, with each one followed by one of four bosses in turn. After each game you will be able to buy new loot cards that you have collected to enhance your card deck, thus slowly increasing your gameplay strength as you progress to higher portal and boss levels. The alternating games of dungeon crawling and boss fights break up the play and provide different gameplay experiences.
In terms of how i categorize my games, this one could sit across all camps as it has become a real mix of dice rolling, dungeon crawling and light deck building, and is also family friendly, and of course you can still play it as a competitive battle as originally designed. There is a lot of versatility here, with an expanding list of available characters, now moving into the Marvel themed world, are all pretty enticing and offer different types of skills and ways of playing. The artwork and production of all elements of this game are amazing, with neat dice trays and bold artwork colours making the game pop. There is a lot of variation in trying new character combinations too, with variable loot acquired each game, and different portal set ups and random decks for minions. Of course more minions would be most beneficial in the long run, but all the hero characters, if you can afford them, offer a lot to work through and come with varying complexity levels so you can always find one to suit your mood or skill level.
The game mechanically relies on its three stage dice rolling, with card decks and status effects adding enough depth and variation to keep you thinking strategically. It is also not an easy game to beat by any means, and does offer a challenge, but its easy to play mechanics and really fun dice rolling make it a great experience. The campaign ties things together, but is not story led and is too lengthy in reality, and there is a points system to compare how well you completed it, although beating the game is tough enough to be the only challenge needed. It has quick set up which means that it likely gets played more often than more complex ones, and is a fun experience solo, co-operatively or competitively. It continues to be expanded and developed with new themes and variations of mission types, generally getting better and better.
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Expansions
There are expansions you can add to enhance or change the gameplay (my additions highlighted green = own, blue = part owned, red = not purchased) :
Hero Characters
The core of the game, there were initially two big season boxes called battle chests, each containing a set of eight heroes, also available in sets of two, which enables you to pick and choose to a certain degree. The hero list is Season One > Barbarian, Monk, Moon Elf, Ninja, Paladin, Pyromancer, Shadow Thief, Treant and Season Two > Artificer, Cursed Pirate, Gunslinger, Huntress, Samurai, Seraph, Tactician, Vampire Lord. Next came an Outcast set of four horror themed heroes > Pale Lady, Raveness, Necromancer, Headless Horseman. Vanguard set offers four more fantasy heroes and a dragon boss to fight against > Druid, Sun Elf, Forge Master, Duelist
Adventure Box
The expansion Adventure box is not a stand alone product, as you will need at least one hero pack to play it. If you already have characters then adding the co-operative adventures comes with a high recommendation and turn the game into a co-operative campaign. Unchained is a smaller further expansion that provides a Vault Witch boss to fight against, 12 new minions, loot cards and some one shot missions which are quicker solo or co-operative games, that feels like an essentual addition for Adventures as it is much easier to play a quick game with.
Marvel Heroes
Marvel hero characters have been added to the game, these initially included in a box season set > Thor, Loki, Doctor Strange, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Spiderman, Captain Marvel, Black Panther. A later follow up season added the X-Men of Cyclops, Wolverine, Lady Jane Grey, Gambit, Rogue, Storm, Iceman, Psyloche and then Deadpool as a special extra single purchase.
Marvel Missions
A new missions expansion enables solo or co-operative play against Marvel enemies. These are one shot boss fight missions and feature allies to assist you and is compatible with all existing heroes, not just the Marvel ones. This is a neat addition to enhance your gameplay and is quicker to play than the original adventure campaign system.
Accessories
These include painted models to replace the standees within the game, and then playmats, dice, dice trays, acrylic tokens and card sleeves. None of these are essential really and models only really track your progress through the dungeon area.