Shovel Knight: Dungeon Duels review—Shovel Drop onto both friend and foe!

I play a lot of games. Some are great, most are good, a few are terrible, and there's plenty that are just "alright". But the rarest ones are just good, or even alright, yet have mechanics compelling enough that they draw me in despite their shortcomings. Games that I enjoy playing, but I'm not itching to go again once I finish—yet it provides a wholly unique experience. Apex Theropod is like that for me; it just feels so alien to other deckbuilders, and even when I die to the boss, it's due to the mountain of small decisions I made. Shovel Knight: Dungeon Duels is one of those games.

I have several issues with it, such as the rulebook or the disheartening death system (plenty to say on that later), and it certainly isn't a game I'd bring to the table often, but it has a charm to it aside from the IP that gives me enough enjoyment to keep it on my shelf. This is a big deal, as I'm constantly trying to find excuses to get rid of a game due to collecting too many, I have a problem needing a larger apartment to fit more shelves. I don't think this game is for everyone, and your group really needs to be on the same page with playstyle—passively co-operative or aggressively take-that—to enjoy it. But to those compelled by novel mechanics, I think you may find something here worth keeping on your own shelf.

Rules and Components

The copy I was provided is the “3D Edition”, and the minis in this game all look great. They aren't hyper-detailed like many other large-box Kickstarter-funded products, but that lets them get away with some fun poses. I absolutely love motion blur on the Hoverhaft propellers, which makes up for how much I despise facing them in this game. I have heard some complaints about the size of the box due to the minis space requirements, but I honestly believe it's worth it—they are some of my favorites in a while.

To help with the side-scrolling aspect, the game includes a double-layered tray for the map tiles to slide across and keep them perfectly aligned. This wasn't a necessity, but I can't imagine how fiddly and frustrating the game would have been without it. Although, oddly, the mini tray lid has a slot for just the boss board, even though this map tray needs to sit on top, and the boss board fits inside it.

The rest of the components are fine. They aren't anything special, but they aren't egregiously bad either. I would have liked if the enemy reference sheets were a tad smaller so they fit in the game insert instead of tucked between the insert and the box, and I also would have liked to see some turn or action reference cards included to help get players into the game.

The rulebook for this game was very disappointing. I understand why, aesthetically, a pixelated font was chosen for the text since it matches the source video game. However, it was unpleasant to read, and I would have much rather that the rules put function over form. The rules are also missing a few key clarifications that require all players to come up with their own houseruling. When enemies move, they move towards the nearest player until in range, which is typically sharing the same space. Easy enough, but if an enemy can't reach the player, say the two are diagonally adjacent, does the enemy move horizontally towards the player first, or vertically? The enemy's position for the next round can drastically change the game, and it would only have taken a single sentence to declare which movement the enemy prefers.

Enemy movement was the largest issue, but there were a few other, more minor problems with the rules and missing edge cases that should have occurred during playtesting. For example, the jumping rules could have been polished a bit more and added a few extra clarifications (if I die jumping across multiple spike pits, which one do my coins drop into?). Should this game get a second edition or a reprint, updated rules are a simple improvement that would easily improve my rating of it.

Gameplay

The goal of SK: DD is to have the most coins at the end of the game when your chosen boss is defeated. Coins are gained by defeating enemies and hitting the boss, but are lost when you die or are hit by the boss. This is standard enough, but a slight twist is that when a player loses coins, they stay on the board until someone picks them up, allowing your opponents to swoop in and steal your hard-earned—or stolen—coins. While you can't damage a player directly due to the Codes of Shovelry, players are allowed to knock each other back with attacks and, ideally, shove them into spike pits for instant death. This is where your play group needs to be on the same page, since it can still be perfectly fun without constantly trying to screw each other over.

In addition to fighting the various enemies, players need to contend with the map as well. This is the game's primary selling point, as the designers have brought side-scrolling into a two-dimensional board. "Side scrolling" in dungeon crawlers isn't wholly new—Machina Arcana allows players to explore as much as they'd like in any direction, removing extra rooms to keep the board tiles down to 2x2—but the SK: DD board will "scroll" whether the players are prepared or not. At the end of each round, a new tile is added to the right while the left-most tile is removed, instantly killing enemies and players alike still on the tile. After getting through the standard starting biome, the tiles drawn are unique to whichever boss players choose to face during setup. Nine bosses mean nine different biomes, keeping each play varied even before the final confrontation.

Despite using the same throne room map for the final fight, some bosses change the environment at setup or even during the game. For example, Propeller Knight replaces the middle of the board with platforms moving across open air pits, while Treasure Knight deploys spike pits with some of his attack cards. In addition to triggering a special attack at the end of each round, the bosses have their decks of attack cards they draw after each player's turn, identifying which spaces are targeted with their large and presumably flashy attacks. The deck isn't shuffled when reset, so after a single cycle, players are actually able to memorize the attack pattern, which is a pretty neat concept.

If the four basic Shovel Knight characters aren't compelling enough, eight of the bosses can also be used as players with both different stats and a different ability from the Shovel Knights, giving plenty of variability with each game. Only Enchantress herself is unavailable as a playable character, which I was mildly disappointed by, as I enjoy playing her in the Exceed card game system and would have liked to fight as her here as well.

With two players, the game length felt great. I haven't played the variant rules included, but each player controlling a single Knight set a nice pace for the game, and even the first playthrough sailed very smoothly. With four players, however, the game became a slog. We were constantly checking the map and how risky jumps were, with players frequently smacking each other to steal coins. This meant a lot of analyzing options or catching up to everyone else. In my four-player game, we had the misfortune of fighting Treasure Knight with one player in a clear lead. This meant a lot of the lead player getting one or two hits in on the actual boss, while everyone else focused more on trying to push the leader into the spawned spikes to steal enough coins to become the new leader. I have yet to play the game with three, and I think the death-phobia contributed to the slow pace, but it seems that four players may just be too much of a time investment for what the game offers.

Before I get into the issue I have with dying in the game, I want to note that the game does the core gameplay well. Player turns are simple actions typically resolved by rolling the same set of dice and counting a particular icon. Even though players can attack each other during any phase of the game, no damage is dealt, making PVP rely solely on positioning. The items purchased from Chester feel impactful and worth losing coins to get. The enemies themselves are unique enough to feel different, but have an incredibly simple activation phase—aside from the missing clarification. Combined with the side-scrolling and array of options for boss/biome and player characters, there's a lot to like.

The Death Mechanic

Death in SK: DD can be both brutal and slightly beneficial. When players die, they drop half their coins in the space they died in, draw one Relic from the deck of their choice, then remove their model from the board (and if it was their turn, lose the rest of the turn). The only way to get these Relics is to die, and in addition to each card having a different effect to be used on the owner's turn, they can also be discarded to affect a dice roll depending on their type. The only exception to this is the Heirloom, which is worth points at the end of the game. These make for a nice catch-up mechanism that can also help players overcome whatever killed them, like giving a boost to jump over a particularly large set of spikes.

However, because it's so easy to die on your turn due to the random chance of die rolls, players will often miss out on actions early in the game before they have a chance to buy better items when Chester appears. On top of losing half the coins the player already had, they miss out on the chance to earn more from the rest of the actions they would have taken. Enemies also knock the player back towards the first column whenever they hit the player. Even if the damage isn't enough to kill the player, they could be pushed into a spike pit and immediately die, or be pushed into the first column and die after the enemy phase, when the column is removed. This is especially annoying since the lost coins are removed from the game as well.

It can be disheartening to have a solid lead only for a Hoverhaft to spawn in and avoid your attack(s), leaving it alive so it can push you back into a Goldarmor, which hits you and knocks you into a set of spikes with no way to recover the lost coins. Or when the game starts and players have no option but to spend the first two turns trying and failing to jump over rows of spikes.

The biggest issue from this actually isn't being set back by the coin loss—that mechanic was taken straight from the original game. The issue is how much death rips away the player's agency, or how little agency the player has in preventing their deaths. If you could continue your turn right after dying, I wouldn't hate jumping so much and would be much more likely to make a risky jump because it's exciting, instead of being afraid of losing my entire turn. Enemies pushing you into spikes is fine, in my opinion, but being pushed into a "safe" space only to die because the map left you behind always leaves a sour taste in players' mouths, in my experience. I would love to incorporate a mechanic for players to save themselves with a jump roll as long as their Knight is standing when the map moves, rather than death and permanent coin loss.

Solo Mode

This game does offer a solo mode, which was quite fun at first. The player has three lives with the option to buy more, but other than that, it plays the same as it would with opponents. Progressing through the map was a nice puzzle, as all the enemies would focus on you, and the enemy deck was adjusted so you won't get swarmed or face the tougher ones by yourself. The boss was an issue for me, though this would be dependent on which one you fight.

I had chosen to fight Propeller Knight, whose boss board has moving platforms and holes. This meant that when the boss hits me, and Propeller Knight gets a second attack if he misses, he may end up pushing me into a pit and immediately removing one of my lives. The boss's turn structure is also unchanged, so after my turn, Propeller Knight would draw an attack card, possibly hitting me and knocking me back, then teleport to my space to hit me some more. This made the experience frustrating as, despite my best efforts, I couldn't prevent myself from taking a fair bit of damage and/or falling into the pit. I don't mind difficult games, but this fight had just felt largely hopeless.

Without another player to both make the game more interesting and draw a bit of attention from enemies, I found that the experience was less enjoyable, and there are better options for a similar experience. I would not buy this for the solo mode, nor would I suggest that anyone try it out. It's functional, but not special.

Final Comments

I didn't love Shovel Knight: Dungeon Duels as much as I'd hoped, but I do like it. The game has a good foundation and does enough that I haven't seen in other similar games. But the issues with the rulebook and the negative experience with players' frequent deaths led this game to fall somewhat short. On the bright side, these are both issues that could be solved with a second edition of the rulebook since none of the components would need to change. I'm not sure what the developers may or may not have planned, but if they ever do address these issues, it could easily become one of my preferred dungeon crawlers.