Deadly Doodles First Impressions

In Deadly Doodles, you need to map your way through a dungeon picking up treasure and slaying monsters.

But don’t take it too seriously.

Draw cards, draw a path through your dungeon, and rack up points! Collect loot and fight monsters…or run away screaming! Can you defeat the dragon for the big score?

Deadly Doodles Game Play

Pretty simple one this. Firstly, you have a dry wipe board representing your dungeon. You need to draw lines to collect weapons to kill the relevant monster. You also need to collect the bags of gold and of course, slay the dragon in the middle.

To do this, you have a number of path cards laid out from a deck. Each shows different paths that must be added to your dungeon. Some of the cards make you draw additional cards or show traps that need to be added to your dungeon.

The path shown on the cards must be drawn from either one of the 6 entrances, or from an existing path. If you choose not to use a card, or you can’t use it you mark it off at the bottom of your board.

On the map there are 6 Axes labelled A-F. If you go over an axe you mark on your board that you have it. There are also 6 monsters labelled A-F too and if you run over them you cross off. But, you’ll only get credit for killing it if you have crossed off the relevant lettered axe by the end of the game.

Scoring is simple and is all done on the board.

Scoring

You score 2 points per treasure bag picked up, doubled to 4 if you also killed the Dragon. Score 1 point per weapon, 4 points per monster killed and 1 point per unused entryway.

You lose 2 points for each monster you went over if you don’t have the relevant weapon and also -2 points per map card you didn’t use.

Each player calls out the space they wrote their traps and if your path crosses that space on your board you trigger it and lose 3 points for each one.

Most points win.

Theme

I mean sure, it’s not supposed to be thematic is it? You can ‘kill a monster’ THEN pick up the weapon to kill it with after etc You can also teleport around the dungeon, assuming you’re controlling one hero in a linear timeframe.

Not that I’m taking this seriously 🙂

I do like how you’re effectively mapping out the dungeon as you go.

Setup

Give out the boards and pens and shuffle the cards.

Components & Artwork

There is nothing exceptional here. But, what you do have is of good quality and the iconography is very clear.

Ease of Teaching & Accessibility

It’s very easy to teach and of course, it’s very accessible. There are not too many rules and those that are there are easy to understand.

Deadly Doodles Summary

As far as ‘Roll & Write’ or ‘Flip & Fill’ games go we have a LOT of them, especially in 2019. I like Welcome To but this is closer to another favourite of mine Qwixx which is much lighter.

But this is a fun one. Putting all the routes into place has that cool puzzle feel like a game with Polyominoes. But there are a lot of games that do that and do it well.

I do worry about replayability as I do in all these games but we’ll see I guess. There is an expansion on the way so maybe that will help?

Jesta ThaRogue