Clear the Dungeon
INTRODUCTION
In Clear the Dungeon, you are a monster exterminator hired by the King to rid his castle of pesky beasts. As you tread through the dark and dingy dungeon cells, monsters will appear. Beat them down with a powerful attack and wipe them out using their weakness against them. Exterminate the monsters before running out of power and victory will be yours.
MATERIALS
Clear the Dungeon requires a fifty-four card deck: aces up through kings in four suits as well as two jokers.
SETUP
Separate all of the face cards (J’s, Q’s, & K’s) from the deck. These twelve cards are used to form the dungeon monster deck. The rest of the cards (A-10, jokers) make up your power deck.
Shuffle the dungeon monster deck and deal out four columns face down with three cards in each column. Flip the top most card of each column over to reveal the first set of monsters.
Shuffle the power deck and place it face down in front of you.
PLAY
Each turn has three phases: draw, attack, & discard.
DRAW
Draw three cards from the power deck. These three cards make up your hand. Each card will have to be played or discarded before drawing again.
ATTACK
Each monster type has a different power level: jacks 11, queens 12, and kings 13.
Decide how you want to play your cards. Place them on the monsters you wish to attack.
Three cards must be used to defeat a dungeon monster. Added together, the first two cards must be equal to or more than the monster’s power level. Suit does not matter.
The third card is used to finish the attack, and it must match the monster’s suit. Rank does not matter.
A monster is immediately defeated once the third card is played. Remove the defeated monster with the attack cards and place them in your clear pile.
For example, if you are attacking a jack of hearts, your first two attack cards must add up to 11 or more. In order to defeat the monster, your third attack card must be a heart of any rank. Once the heart card is played, the monster is defeated.
JOKERS
Jokers are worth a power of 10, and they may be any suit needed.
DISCARD
Any cards that cannot be played (or that you choose not to play) must be discarded prior to drawing your next three card hand. Those attack cards are considered misses and must be placed face up on the discard pile.
RESERVE CARD
Choose how you discard wisely. The top card on the discard pile is your reserve card. It can be played as if it is part of your hand. Once it is played, the next top card of the pile becomes your new reserve card.
WIN
If you defeat all of the monsters before running out of cards in the power deck, you win the game.
Increase the difficulty level by removing the jokers and/or playing without the reserve card.
Enjoy the game? Consider buying the designer a cup of coffee.
Play Clear the Dungeon in your browser! A huge thank you to Pedro Fontoura for this.
NOTES
7/30/2023 - Clear the Dungeon was designed to feel like a traditional solitaire card game. Winning these sorts of games typically relies on the distribution of the cards. The jokers were included in version 1.0 to help increase a player's chance of winning. After more development, the reserve card was added to give players more choice and opportunity for strategy.