Earlier this year, I was introduced to the solo card game Mini Rogue. Published by Nuts Publishing, this delving game has you exploring a mini dungeon, trying to make your way to the bottom level.
Hot on the heels of its Kickstarter delivery, a new standalone expansion has been released. Mini Rogue: The Council adds new play modes, new characters, and new cards to encounter. Is it a worthy successor/expansion? Let’s find out.
Gameplay Overview:
For those of you who are new to Mini Rogue and are curious about the gameplay, head over to my review of the original game for the full ins and outs. For the most part, the core gameplay here is identical, so I’m not going to spend much time rehashing how the game is played.
Instead, I’ll talk about what’s new here. The first thing returning players get is four new characters. The Rat Catcher has powers triggering around spending and gaining food. The Flagellant has you using your health as a resource. The Plague Doctor has powers that trigger off characters being poisoned. And the Alchemist, who can buy potions during exploration or use money to reroll character dice.
Mini Rogue: The Council has also advanced from being a strictly solo game. If you own the original game, you can combine them to play cooperatively with up to three players. If you aren’t interested in cooperative play, you can also play the game competitively now. One player will take on the role of an overlord directly opposing the dungeon crawler.
Game Experience:
Mini Rogue: The Council is a great expansion for fans of the original game. It adds in a ton more variety without adding too many new rules. And since it’s a standalone expansion, you don’t need the core game if you want to start with this one. Always a fan of more variety, I’ve been eagerly looking forward to this one as I wanted to try out the new rooms and characters.
I’ve played each character a few times, and they all slot in nicely and feel pretty unique. I think my favorite is the Rat Catcher, who can use food in new ways. By spending one food in combat, you get to roll an extra die for the whole encounter. And their exploration power allows you to regain a food after any trap or monster encounter. I really liked the extra way to use food as a resource.
Moving on from characters, there are also some new monster powers to trip you up. There are now Swarm monsters to face. These are 3 enemies you face simultaneously. So a Murder of Crows has 3 life each, and you need to do a total of 9 damage to kill all 3 of them. Damage you do carries over from one to the next if there is extra, but they also roll their own dungeon die during combat. So the first round, three dungeon dice will be rolled. As your shield only works once per round, it might block the first crow attack but not the others.
There are also ranged enemies now, who do their attack before you (yikes!). Some enemies have a dodge power that, if they roll a 5 on the dungeon die, your attack misses. The new Savage power also triggers off a 5, but instead it deals 3 extra damage to you.
Probably the biggest change here is the addition of the Overlord Module. Now you can have another player actively working against you. And if you want to keep it solo, there is an automata mode to run the overlord. The Overlord, of which there are 3 different ones, has Omen points and powers to affect the game state. For example, the Seer can force a reroll of the dungeon die, swap around rooms before the delver sees them, or prevent the use of skills and potions in a room. The overlord also will have the ability to level up during the game, making them stronger.
To help give the delver a bit of a buff, they now start the game with two class cards. They are allowed to use one of the stats from the card to buff themselves (for example, adding the starting money from the second class to your first class). They also get to use the powers of the second character. The skills work independently, so you can use both of them each round.
Overall, I’m glad Overlord mode is here for players that want the extra interaction. I tried it once, but I prefer Mini Rogue as a solo game, so I didn’t spend too much time on it. And since I lose the game enough already, I don’t need the added challenge of the automata overlord. Maybe once I get better at the game, I’ll explore it more. But for now, I’m content to just use the new content.
Final Thoughts:
Mini Rogue: The Council is another win for Nuts Publishing. All of the content can be combined with the core game, and it also works fine by itself. I liked the new characters, bosses, and rooms to explore. And the new modes might be enticing for those who want to play with other players or are just looking for some player interaction. My only gripe about the game is that now I want some kind of big box solution to store everything, especially if more expansions are planned.
Even though this is a standalone expansion, I’m going to rate it on our expansion scale, as a numerical rating would be the same as the original game.
Hits:
• New characters
• New play modes
• More variety without too much added complexity
Misses:
• Game can still be a bit swingy at times
