The Living Maze

Par Crow Brain Games

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The Living Maze is a single player, rogue-lite, dice rolling, dungeon diving, adventure card game and is a game idea I've had rattling around my brain for the last couple of years. The idea was of a card game that builds a maze as you venture through it, which means it changes not only each time you play, but each time you go through the maze...and thus The Living Maze was born!

After much deliberation and piles of paperwork, you were able to finally purchase a large chunk of beautiful land containing natural wonders, such as "The Golden Hill of Greener Pastures", "The Ancient Barn of Hallucinatory Hay", and "The Crystal Stream of Rejuvenation".

However, upon further inspection of the fine print, there seems to be even finer print stating the following: "Whomever shall be "lucky" enough to own this spacious and lovely land henceforth becomes soul-bound to the dark and ominous labyrinth nearby, lovingly referred to as "The Living Maze".\

What does this mean for you? Well, it means you've been assigned the task of attempting to stop the ancient evil before time runs out by any means necessary.

Being the more...pragmatic type, you decided the best bet is to hire a party to search the maze and discover the secrets found within the ever-changing halls and hope the adventurers are up to the task of defeating the beasts wandering those dreaded halls.

Playing the Game

The goal of the game is to, as per the land ownership contract, defeat the ancient evil trapped in the halls of the Living Maze within 8 weeks (game play-wise, that's 8 runs through the maze).

As the player, the number of adventurers you have is represented by ten-sided dice (d10s) while a standee represents the party location in the dungeon. As your dice pool represents party size, the more dice you have means higher attack skill and more health.

Standing in your way however will be devious traps, unpleasant monsters, and vicious bosses. Fear not as the maze also holds knowledge, contains secret passages, and friendly healing wells to aid your adventurers on their quest!

Starting with a randomly chosen Final Boss and 2 dice (2 adventurers), you'll draw and play cards from the deck to create a maze while moving the party standee throughout, attempting to increase the strength of the party and locate artifacts rumored to be hidden within.

The Final Boss will be chosen randomly and placed into the deck with the Week 1 cards. Draw and place cards from the deck to build the maze, moving the player standee to each newly placed card, and resolving that card when necessary (resolving a card includes fighting monsters, disarming/bypassing traps, and searching rooms/halls).

This continues until the Final Boss is revealed. Once revealed you can choose to continue searching the maze while risking the Final Boss escaping (if they escape, the game is lost) or take the safe option and exit the maze immediately, allowing your party to return and granting you the opportunity to hire an additional adventurer.

After leaving the maze, the remaining cards (non-Week 1 cards, which includes additional Monsters, Traps, and Bosses) are now shuffled into the deck, increasing the challenge your adventurers will face while increasing the chance to gain experience and earn artifacts.

Cards are again drawn from the deck to build the maze. As with Week 1, the meeple is placed on the played card, with cards being resolved immediately; however, you will now alternate between building a path for yourself and building a path to the Entrance from thee Final Boss space.

This process will continue (draw, play, move, then resolve a card then draw and connect a card to the Final Boss path) until a path is completed between the Final Boss space and the Entrance space.

Once a path is created for the Final Boss, their Ability may activate, which can cause Monsters to be reanimated or Traps to be rearmed (some Final Bosses may have an ability that affects their attack, defense, or movement). The Final Boss will now try to escape the maze, generally moving one space for each turn you take, and, as with Week 1, if the Final Boss reaches the Entrance before you, they will successfully escape their prison and the game will be lost.

You may continue to draw and resolve cards while the Final Boss moves until one of the following conditions occur: you choose to fight (and defeat) the Final Boss, all dice are lost via combat with monsters or traps, or you choose to have the party leave the maze.

Game loss occurs if one of the two occur: the Final Boss reaches the Entrance before your party or you are defeated by the Final Boss.

While traversing the maze, if the path to the Final Boss exists, you may choose to fight them at any point, however, the fight will be tough and it may be in your best interest to exit the maze to hire new adventurers.

Don't worry though, if you don't feel your party is strong enough to defeat the Final Boss, you may have the party leave the maze, shutting the door behind them. This allows you to hire a new party member (represented by added an additional die to your dice pool). With each week passed, a new adventurer will be added to the party until the 8th and final week where no new adventures are available to hire.

So you're might be telling yourself "This game looks fun, and while I like to play solo games, sometimes I like to play games with someone else...I wonder if there's another mode..."

If this is you or someone you know, well I have fantastic news! When I was first designing The Living Maze my goal was to make a fun game for one, but as I continued to work on the game and get ideas/feedback from players I decided to implement a PVP mode wherein one player plays the game normally while another player controls the Final Boss.

The player controlling the Final Boss gets access to 3 cards during their turn and gets to build the path to the Entrance how they see fit. And if they're feeling extra spicy, when the path is connecting, they may choose to chase the other player through the maze instead of trying to exit.

Combat also works a little differently. Normally the player controlling the Adventurers gets to roll when dodging the auto-attack from the Final Boss, however that didn't exactly seem fun for the player controlling the Final Boss so I granted them the ability to roll the dice to attack the player.

Full playthrough/review from BoardBossLive

"Despite the slim possibility of some sort of bias, I do believe The Living Maze is a fantastic game!" --- Dan Feldmeier, Creator of The Living Maze

"Satisfying lighthearted game, absolutely charming art style and a risk/reward mini dungeon leave for lots of replayability. I really enjoy the way the dice work, I like having a little bit of control over my luck. Its great fun if you want something fairly light and engaging." --- cdjem17 (Tabletop Simulator Review)

"Just wrapped up a session of The Living Maze and I'm hooked! The random dungeon generation keeps things fresh and exciting every time. Plus, the artwork is top notch, adding a fun vibe to the gameplay. It's easy to learn, but offers endless replayability with it's strategic depth." --- adamrr81 (Tabletop Simulator Review)

What's in the box?

Note: Box displayed is an early prototype version and dimensions/design are subject to change

There are 2 versions available:

1. The Standard Edition includes 75+ cards, a removable tuck box for additional portability, 10 d10s, 2 wooden meeples, and 30 wooden cubes for tracking resolved cards.

2. The Deluxification Edition includes all the previously mentioned items plus the 28 in by 23.5 in neoprene game mat, 80 card sleeves,15 acrylic standees, and 3 Tracker Dice.

Color of dice subject to change