Sometimes you’re going through the game cabinet, and you realize only one member of the household actually remembers a game (that came out before the other one was born). So, naturally, you have to play it again! For us, (this time,) that game was Greed Quest.
Greed Quest is a competitive dungeon crawl put out by Steve Jackson Games way back in 2004. The overarching mechanics are fairly simple: everyone starts in the first room, going the same way, with their own deck of cards, of which they’ll each play one simultaneously every round. Easy. And somehow still so much chaos.
First off, each of the 12 rooms has a special effect, ranging from the relatively benign (“You may choose whether to keep or discard the first card you draw each turn,” or the one room without an effect) to the challenging – like the room where you can’t draw to refill your hand, and if you can’t get out before your hand empties, you move forward anyways but lose your next turn. Secondly, the cards themselves. Even simple movement is… less simple. Go! cards are a competition, with only the highest value played actually granting movement. Unless someone else played The Meek Shall Inherit, in which case whoever played the lowest value Go! card moves. Note that cards like this don’t directly benefit you, since you’re only playing one card per turn. They just mess with everyone else. I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that this game comes from the same company as Munchkin.
Third, once you reach The Horde! at the end of the path, you then have to turn around and make it back to the beginning! Which means those cards that grant movement based on where other players are get nice and tricky. Like the Odd Reversal in the photo – “If the winning Go! card is odd, trade rooms with that player after he moves.” The friend who ultimately won this game won because they – previously in room nine, when we were all on the return – swapped places with someone in room three! And as they made it back to room one, the person they’d booted to room nine swapped with someone else in room three. Oh, and room nine is the one where the deck picks your card for you! In short, it’s very much one of those “no lead guarantees victory” games. Chaotic from start to finish!
