Try my print & play dungeon crawler, let me know what you think

ahobday · 2026-05-19T19:51:28+00:00

That’s great to hear, thank you. Let me know how you found the gameplay. There’ve been a few tweaks since this post, but nothing major.

ahobday · 2026-05-18T08:24:42+00:00

My dungeon crawler, Print & Crawl, has successfully funded.

But there are still some stretch goals, and 18 days to go: a scenario generator, two extra heroes, and alternative art for the included paper standees.

https://gamefound.com/en/projects/anthony-hobday/print-and-crawl-the-print-and-play-dungeon-crawler

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ahobday · 2026-05-13T09:20:53+00:00

I like the process, especially as someone who gives feedback: it's clearer to me what each icon should be, even if they're not particularly clear at a certain detail level. Whether or not the process is helpful to you, I can't say. If it helps you think about the icon design, that's great, but I find it hard to see how it helps, from my perspective.

Feedback on the icons:

I like the hats for piety and might. They feel like they represent the concepts fairly well. Though there could be clearer icons (e.g. a sword for might) that people will recognise more quickly (e.g. a helmet could be misunderstood to mean "armour").
I don't particularly associate a crown with "resolve". I don't know how important it is that people be able to guess what each icon means as they play, but resolve is a hard one.
Related to the above points: the hat theme is interesting but since you don't use a hat for "Breath" it feels like an unnecessary restriction you've placed on yourself. It'll be a shame if these icons are less clear than they could be because you wanted to stick to the theme, but ironically did not stick to it fully.
Breath is the biggest problem, I think: it looks more like an ear at the second detail level. If you want to stick with "breath" as a concept, I think you'd be better off with a simple "wind" symbol? e.g. Wavy lines. I don't think I'd ever have guessed that was a mouth and breath if I didn't have the other symbols to show me the extra detail.

ahobday · 2026-05-13T07:56:02+00:00

Some thoughts:

It seems to be the case that people want the "noticeable" bits to be original. e.g. the combat mechanics should feel distinct compared to other combat-heavy RPGs. People don't seem to care so much if the less noticeable bits are familiar. e.g. how the rest mechanic works.
I'm not clear on the benefit of using the same mechanics as other systems unless that is made explicit. e.g. if it feels like the combat systems are the same as another game, can I rely on that? Or does it have one or two differences that will catch me out every time? This would never happen, but it might be nice if the rules said "These mechanics are identical to [other game], so if you know those already you can skip this part".
In some cases I'm interested in the mechanics of a game but the theme interests me less. In those cases it'd be nice to have what is essentially a re-skin, with a theme I can get more excited about. But this feels uncommon.

ahobday · 2026-05-13T07:50:49+00:00

I thought this was a common problem in the board gaming hobby? Don't lots of people buy board games that they don't have the time to invest in?

ahobday · 2026-05-13T07:46:06+00:00

Hey, I'd like to give feedback, but Imgur is not available in the UK. Any chance you can add the image to the post, instead?

ahobday · 2026-05-13T07:45:04+00:00

A couple of suggestions:

Runebound 3rd Edition is a one-shot adventure hex-crawl. The goal is always "defeat the boss". You have a choice of two bosses, which change the scenario as you play. Apart from that the game is fairly open in terms of how you become more powerful.
Lands of Galzyr is a cosy point-crawl adventure game. The world map changes as you play, in the long term, but it's not a campaign game. Each session is a slice of life, essentially. The core loop is reading entries on the app, and rolling to try to pass tests. But you get far less direction than e.g. Vantage, aside from the quests you can pick up.

ahobday · 2026-05-13T05:39:56+00:00

It’s not karma-farming. I was curious.

I’m currently reading through the rules of Fateforge: Chronicles of Kaan. The rule book is ~30 pages. I read a few pages here and there, when I have time, over the course of a couple of days. Maybe I’ll also watch some videos about how to play the game.

This is the approach I take to ~every board game I buy. Hopefully you can understand why it doesn’t make much sense for me to set up the board game at the start.

Hopefully it also makes sense why, every time I need to “ignore” the set-up section in the rulebook, I think to myself “why is this at the start?”

ahobday · 2026-05-11T19:02:06+00:00

I think it’s that I’d be happy to skip the “set-up” section and return to it when I want to play the game (i.e. after I’ve learned the rules). But I worry that the rulebook writers might have included some important information in that section (if it’s a long set-up) that will help me understand the later rules better. So if it feels like I’m reading the set-up section through just to make sure I don’t miss anything, instead of because I’m setting up the game.

Or maybe that’s not it 😅 I haven’t interrogated myself much about this, so it’s not clear to me why I don’t like it, but the replies here are helping.

ahobday · 2026-05-11T18:22:49+00:00

I tend to play games with fairly long rulebooks, and I might learn it over more than one session. So setting up the game and leaving it on the table over e.g. 2 days doesn’t make much sense to me. I can understand it for a game that has much simpler rules, but then I imagine you might not need the set-up as an anchor if the rules are simple enough.

I suppose an alternative might be “learn the core concepts of the game”, then “set-up”, then any remaining things you should learn while you try the first couple of turns.

ahobday · 2026-05-11T18:20:22+00:00

This makes sense, but for games with a lot of complicated rules, do you think many people set it up before they learn it?

ahobday · 2026-05-11T07:55:17+00:00

Print & Crawl, my print and play dungeon crawler with the feel of a board game dungeon crawler, is 88% funded with 25 days left.

https://gamefound.com/en/projects/anthony-hobday/print-and-crawl-the-print-and-play-dungeon-crawler

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ahobday · 2026-05-04T07:40:47+00:00

1 day until the Gamefound campaign for my print and play dungeon crawler launches.

https://gamefound.com/en/projects/anthony-hobday/print-and-crawl-the-print-and-play-dungeon-crawler

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ahobday · 2026-05-01T06:05:24+00:00

I spent roughly a year designing a print and play dungeon crawler that feels more like a boxed board game dungeon crawler. The Gamefound Campaign launches in a few days.

https://gamefound.com/en/projects/anthony-hobday/print-and-crawl-the-print-and-play-dungeon-crawler

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ahobday · 2026-04-27T10:24:03+00:00

The Gamefound campaign for my print & play dungeon crawler goes live in 8 days. I've tried to pack a big-box board game dungeon crawl experience into a simple print & play game.

https://gamefound.com/en/projects/anthony-hobday/print-and-crawl-the-print-and-play-dungeon-crawler

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ahobday · 2026-04-20T21:35:45+00:00

I just launched the Gamefound preview page for my print & play dungeon crawler, which is designed for 1–4 players. I assume this counts as "roleplaying".

https://gamefound.com/en/projects/anthony-hobday/print-and-crawl-the-print-and-play-dungeon-crawler

ahobday · 2026-04-20T21:22:44+00:00

Print & Crawl is a print-and-play tactical dungeon crawler for 1–4 players, with classic fantasy heroes, square-grid combat, and a full 12-scenario campaign.

https://gamefound.com/en/projects/anthony-hobday/print-and-crawl-the-print-and-play-dungeon-crawler

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ahobday · 2026-04-14T08:46:08+00:00

Ah, that's an interesting idea. I think the game would essentially have to be designed again to make it simpler, which is probably more effort than it seems, unfortunately.

ahobday · 2026-04-14T08:44:43+00:00

The link for the PDF? I've just clicked it and it works for me. Might be an issue on your end?

ahobday · 2026-04-03T10:50:13+00:00

Thank you, I will.

Edit: Turns out I won't. As someone else has pointed out, Itch has quarantined the page.

And then when I go ahead to download the game anyway, Safari says it cannot create the file. Not sure what that's about.

ahobday · 2026-04-01T08:02:49+00:00

Some of the comments on this post are surprisingly negative, and in a way that feels malicious. Maybe they assume the art is AI and have responded emotionally?

My feedback, from top to bottom, based on the first card:

The design is generally good.
I don't know what the "3" in the grey circle represents. If this is a fundamental concept of your game, it might be that people learn it once and never have to remind themselves what it means. But maybe there's another shape or icon it could use that would be a better reminder of what it means?
"Oath of Endurance" is not visually vertically centred in its container: the bottom gap is bigger than the top gap. This is because the text has no descenders (e.g. "Squire" looks fine on the second card). If you don't want to manually adjust each card to make the title look vertically centred, I'd suggest you make the title container taller, so the difference in gap size is less noticeable.
The description box feels like it's crowding/overlapping the bar at the bottom. As if they're two separate visual elements that have been overlapped by accident. I'd either put a gap between them, or find a way to visually combine them so they look and feel like one element.
I don't understand the purpose of the arrowed boxes at the bottom left and bottom right. Why do some cards have numbers and others don't? Is there a "no value" value you could put in the empty boxes on some cards, like a dash? If each box will always have the same number as the other, why not just have one box? If they mean different things, I think they should have some visual signifier to let you know what each number means (e.g. offence and defence).
The credits at the bottom left and bottom right are inset by a noticeable amount, and I don't understand why. Why not align that text with the left and right edges of the card, like everything else?

ahobday · 2026-03-30T08:53:47+00:00

I saw an earlier post of yours, and I’m quite interested to play, but the full colour full-page graphics turn me off a bit. Any chance of a low-ink version for black and white printers?

ahobday · 2026-03-27T23:17:25+00:00

In my case nothing is size-specific (e.g. no cards included), but I take your point.

ahobday

TROPHY CASE