The Dark is a dungeon-crawler card game for 1-7 players, currently in it’s print-and-play beta version. It’s free to download.

This very early version is in black-and-white with very simple graphics.

The Dark features a classic group of adventurers exploring a dungeon. One player lays out the dungeon cards, while the others control the adventurers. Adventurers leave torches to light the way through the dungeon as they explore, and for each torch placed the character player gains a point. Roles are then rotated, and scores compared to determine the victor!

This set contains:
1 double sided dungeon entrance card.
6 adventurer cards, each with their own deck of 7 cards.
47 dungeon master cards, including 4 instant cards.
1 deck box.

The Adventurers:
Guard: Loves a scrap. Good at the stabby-stabby. No so good at the hygiene. Scared of water, so cannot cross the many and varied puddles dotted around the dungeon.

Librarian: Great at magic. constantly coughs up warp-points. Carries a lot of books around, and is scared they’ll get destroyed by the bonfires in the dungeon, so cannot cross doorways blocked by fire.

Miner: Intent on ignoring the normal passageways of the dungeon and blasting new tunnels through the place. Spends most of his time underground so is terrified of heights, and cannot cross the cracks in the floor.

Vampire: Here for a long time, not for a good time. Hated by the other adventurers, but kind of useful. Can’t go through doorways without being invited and there’s no one around to invite them.
Aversion to silver.

Explorer: Jack-of-all-trades kinda person. Bit of a coward. Rubbish at fighting monsters.

Zombie: Barely alive. Probably still braindead. Rarely does anything, but oh so great at this adventuring business when they wake up and start smashing heads together.

The Decks:
Instants: Most adventurer deck cards and some dungeon master cards are Instants. Reveal the card, do what it says, then discard the card. Simples. Instants only affect cards in play, not cards in the decks.

Permanents: These cards stay on the table until the end of the game or until another card causes them to be discarded.

Dungeon cards: These make up the dungeon for your adventurers to explore. They’re played dark side up with the nasty stuff on. To win the game the character player needs to flip these cards over to their light side, revealing nicer stuff.

“Misplaced” cards: The dungeon deck contains 4 instant cards. Some of the adventurer decks contain cards that can be played as part of the dungeon as if the character player were the dungeon master.

When placing cards that form part of the dungeon:
• Cards must be played adjacent to another dungeon card forming a grid. Cards should meet along the full length of a long or short
side of the card.
• Cards may not be placed corner-to-corner.
• Cards may be rotated 180 degrees, but not 90 degrees, they must always be in “portrait” orientation, not landscape.
• Cards can be placed in a way that rubble or other obstacles make the dungeon impassable in the next turn, but cards cannot be entirely blocked by rubble.
• Cards cannot be placed further back than the dungeon entrance, otherwise the table gets very messy very quickly.

Reach:
At many points during the game you’ll need to check if an adventure can “reach” a monster or chest. Checking this is simple, just draw a line with your finger through the dungeon from the entrance card to the monster or chest in question. If you’re not blocked by items that your adventurer is afraid of, or by more doors than you have keys, your character can “reach” the monster or chest in question.

The Adventurers will be blocked by:
Rubble: Impassable. Find another way around.
Locked doors: Can only be opened with a key.
Kind of like locked doors in real life. Vampires have trouble with these.
Puddles: Easy to walk through, unless your adventurer card states otherwise.
Bonfires: Easy to jump over, unless your adventurer card states otherwise.
Cracks in the floor: Easy to jump over, unless your adventurer card states otherwise.
Open Passage Ways: All characters can freely pass between rooms with open passage ways.

In the dungeon you might find such varied items as:
Monsters: The dream-team for any dungeon master. They look different but all do the same thing: cause the character player to lose cards until the monster is defeated. Don’t hate the monster; hate the game.
Wooden chests: Like silver chests, only made of wood.
Silver chests: Like wooden chests only made of silver. Vampires really don’t like silver that much, so can’t travel through rooms containing silver chests.
Warp Points: Any adventurer can travel from any warp point to any other warp point.
Mine Shafts: Any adventure can travel from any mine shaft to any other mine shaft.
Keys: For opening doors. All doors in the dungeon can be opened with any key, but you need as many keys as doors you want to open on a single character route. For example, if in order to reach a monster, the Guard needs to travel through 3 doors, you need 3 keys. No, you can’t just take the key with you along the way
because… I don’t know why not. But that’s not how the game works, okay?
Bombs: Classic little bomb type bombs. When a bomb is revealed, the dungeon master can instantly discard a card from the top of any adventurer deck that can “reach” the bomb. If the bomb is on an instant the dungeon master can pick any adventurer deck.
Torches: This is how you win the game. As dungeon cards are flipped, torches will appear. The more torches, the higher your score.

-description from designer

Games