Hellbringer Review

boardgamequest.com:

I still remember when the first Diablo game was released for PC. It was a dungeon crawler that threw endless amounts of bad guys and loot at you. While it was not without its flaws, it spawned a new genre of video games that’s going strong nearly 30 years later.

Ever since I got into tabletop gaming, I’ve yearned for a video game that can recreate the Diablo experience for me. While there have been dungeon crawlers aplenty, none really captured the feel of Diablo for me. There was also Sanctum, while it did an admirable job of capturing the Loot Piñata feel, the end game kind of fell apart on you.

Which brings us to Hellbringer. A game published by indie designer Maxime Gauthier. I remember playing this one on TTS during its Kickstarter campaign and thinking there might be something special here. Now that the final copy has arrived to backers, we can see how it turned out.

Games of Hellbringer task you (and any fellow players) with delving into the depths of a dungeon to slay a demon lord. I should mention that this is mostly a card game, so any exploring or traversing levels are abstracted via card draws. That being said, you begin the game by selecting your favorite class: Warrior, Paladin, Druid, Sorcerer, Monk, or Hunter. A number of decks are shuffled and seeded and you are ready to explore.

Hellbringer is quite a unique game, so I’m going to do my best to give you a high-level overview of the gameplay. If you want the full ins and outs, you can download a PDF of the updated rulebook here.

Each hero has 6 stats: Health, Armor, Sight, Energy, Skill, and Hand size. On a player’s turn, they can play or activate any cards up to their energy limit. Every item costs energy to equip and use (you get a free use when you equip it). Most will let you roll dice to attack an enemy, or boost some of your stats.

To attack a monster, it first needs to be within your sight (ie: if your sight is a 4 value, you can see any monsters of sight 4 or lower). You then roll all dice