Dungeon Mayhem: Lands Sophia Getty

Theme: The Why

Dungeon Mayhem is fast paced D&D themed card game where players battle it out as one of four characters: Azzan the Wizard, Sutha the Barbarian, Lia the Paladin, or Oriax the Rogue. Players attempt to "kill" each other through attacks until they are the last one standing. Dungeon Mayhem: Lands similarly involves this card based combat and enacts it on a larger, board based scale.

Mechanics: The How

The core of Dungeon Mayhem is player elimination. A player must keep themselves healthy using a deck tailored to their character while attempting to knock out others. Each player has only 10 hit points, or lives, so the game moves fast. Some common card types are shield cards, attack cards, healing cards, and draw cards. Dungeon Mayhem also gives each character a set of individual "powers" or specialty cards allowing them a unique action to either protect themselves or harm others.

New Game Mechanics

Dungeon Mayhem: Lands is primarily about Path Movement, Ability Spaces, Wild Cards, and Land Control. Players move along a board through four territories, each belonging to a different character. The ability spaces dictate the actions and well-being of a player's character. If a character passes home, they may collect a Magical Artifact, or a Wild Card with special attributes. Some tiles allow players to draw more cards from their deck or gain hit points back, while others cause sickness and initiate an ambush. If a character lands on an ambush tile, the owner of the land they are in may attack first, and the players get to battle each other as they would in the original game. When someone’s hit points are depleted to zero and they are defeated, their territory goes to the player that finished them off. To win, one must defeat their opponents in battle and subsequently control all of the territory on the board.

Storyboards

The Storyboards below depict a theatrical rendition of the gameplay of the new mechanics. Each concept involves Path Movement, however the main focus of the three concepts are the Wild Card, Ability Spaces, and Land Control mechanics.

Wild Card

Ability Spaces

Land Control

Animation

The Animation for Dungeon Mayhem: Lands focuses on the new mechanics of Path Movement and Wild Cards. The animation depicts a player moving around the board and passing their home space, allowing them to collect a wild card. The character and the player experience a moment of triumph before using the wild card to defeat an opponent.

Conclusion

The creation of Dungeon Mayhem: Lands was a long but highly satisfying process. It was a joy to take my favorite card game and address the only real complaint I had with it: that it was over too fast! I wanted to find a way to draw out battles and make the game even more reminiscent of a true D&D campaign, where one travels through strange lands and encounter trials and blessings alike along the way. I'm happy to say that even with a small set of new mechanics I was able to achieve this. It was a real privilege to be able to study the excellent character design and artwork of the original game, and I enjoyed getting to know the characters even more as I fleshed out the contents of this project. The making of Dungeon Mayhem: Lands was a journey of its own, and one that I am glad to have gone on.