Dungeon Scribe
After a lot of delaying over the decision, I bought a Kindle Scribe at the start of this year. For those who don’t know, it is essentially a large-print kindle with a built-in notebook. It turns out that I loved the notebook feature and used it more and more.
I also love print-and-play games, but they did have lots of minor challenges on the Scribe - no way to easily roll dice, hold cards without scrolling through, and so on (yes, I’m that lazy). I began developing my own PnPOSW (print-and-play one-sheet wonder), and searching out for other games that required nothing more than a PDF and a pen, which is how I came across Word Dungeons by Joe from ‘What If?’ games.
It’s essentially a mash up of scrabble (but a more liberating and fun version) and a dungeon crawler. Most of the games challenge you to get from one part of the dungeon to the other, but there are a multitude of ways to do this, with doors to unlock, gems to collect, and a variety of other delightful challenges.
One clever aspect of the dungeons is that they are endlessly replayable. Your choice of the first starting word can send you down any number of paths, which makes it an incredibly satisfying play experience. I’ve gotten into the habit of screenshotting my finished game, wiping clean, and playing again.
So, to the latest offering, 100 Mini Dungeons. While the main dungeons can keep you occupied for a good length of time, these are smaller, satisfying bite-sized dungeons - each hand-drawn. and illustrated by Joe, and they really scratch the itch of a little mental stimulation which doesn’t involve scrolling.
Word Dungeons is currently raising funds on Backerkit, and it works out at 7p per dungeon. Each one takes a minimum of five minutes to play, which is just incredible value for a replayable game. Back it here: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/what-if-games/100-little-dungeons