Cube Delver - Jonathan Hinson

A solo push-your-luck treasure-hunting game of fate, fortune, and fatal missteps.

Introduction

Welcome, brave adventurer.

You’ve descended into a cursed dungeon armed only with your instincts; and a bag full of ever-shifting fate. Within the darkness lie ancient treasures, magical potions, and monstrous threats. The deeper you go, the more danger stirs. Damage is not discarded; it returns, haunting your every step.

Each turn, you’ll draw a die blindly from the bag. What you pull; and what you do with it; could be your salvation, your fortune, or your doom. Will you press deeper in search of glory? Or retreat with what treasure you can carry, before the dungeon consumes you whole?

This is a game of risk, resourcefulness, and relentless escalation. Every decision matters. Every die tells a story.

What You’ll Need

60 six-sided dice, 10 of each of 6 different colours.
(Recommended colours: Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Purple, Black)

You may substitute colours as needed; just make sure each colour is consistent and distinguishable. All dice should be the same size and texture.

1 opaque bag large enough to mix and draw dice by hand.

Suggested dice sets (non affiliate links):

Aim of the Game

Your goal is to explore the dungeon, claim as much treasure as you dare, and return to the surface alive.

Each turn, you’ll blindly draw a die from the bag; it could aid you, harm you, or tempt you with riches. As you venture deeper, the dungeon grows more dangerous: damage dice return to the bag, and risk mounts with every step.

To escape, you must retrace your steps by removing your Travel Dice one at a time as part of your reroll cost. Once all Travel Dice have been removed, you’ve exited the dungeon. Your final score is the total value of your Treasure Dice at that moment.

If you run out of Health Dice, you die and your treasure is lost. The deeper you go, the higher the risk; and the greater the reward.

How to Play

Start by finding one Health Die and one Travel Die from the bag. Place both into your tableau and set them to a value of 3.

On each turn:

Draw one random die from the bag.
Roll it at least once.
You may reroll it as many times as you like. Each reroll costs you one other die from your tableau (returned to the bag).
- You cannot return a blue Travel Die for rerolling if the last die you removed was also a Travel Die.

Once you’re satisfied with the roll, resolve the die based on its colour.

Dice Rules

Reminder: A die is always rolled at least once after being drawn. You may continue rerolling it by paying the cost, as described above.

Green Health Dice

Place the die in your Health Row at its final rolled value. This represents your remaining life in the dungeon.

If you ever have no Health Dice in your tableau, you die and your final score is zero.

Red Damage Dice

Roll the die and apply damage as follows:

Remove one Health Die that matches the rolled number.
If there is no match, remove all Health Dice with lower values.
If no lower values exist, you take no damage.

Then return the Damage Die to the bag.

Instead of rolling, you may choose to return both the Damage Die and your highest-value Health Die to the bag. This is a way to “soak” the hit for a chance at a smaller loss.

Damage Dice are never placed into your tableau.

Blue Travel Dice

Travel Dice are placed in a horizontal row, left to right. This row tracks how deep you’ve delved into the dungeon.

To place a new Travel Die, its rolled value must be equal to, or one number higher or lower than, the value of the rightmost Travel Die in your row. If this condition is not met after rolling, return the die to the bag.

To begin your escape from the dungeon, you must remove Travel Dice one at a time from your tableau when rerolling other dice. You cannot remove Travel Dice for rerolling two turns in a row.

Once you have no Travel Dice remaining, you have escaped the dungeon and the game ends. Your final score is the total value of the pip across all Treasure Dice.

Yellow Treasure Dice

You may only place a Treasure Die into your Treasure Row if the number of Treasure Dice in the row is less than or equal to the number of Travel Dice currently in your tableau. If this condition is not met after rolling, return the die to the bag.

The value of each Treasure Die counts toward your final score when you escape.

Trap Rule: If the final value of the Treasure Die you are placing matches the value of any existing Treasure Die in your row, you must flip one of your Health Dice upside down so that it becomes a lower value if able (for example: 6 becomes 1, 5 becomes 2, 4 becomes 3).

Purple Potion Dice

Potion Dice are placed into your Potion Row at their final rolled value. They are used to trigger specific bonus actions (see Optional Actions).

Black Curse Dice

Curse Dice are placed into your Curse Row. If you roll a die in future that matches the value of any Curse Die in your tableau, you cannot reroll that die.

Curse Dice cannot be removed when paying for rerolls.

Optional Actions

After placing a die into your tableau, you may take one of the following bonus actions per turn:

Lighten the Load
Return one Treasure Die and one Travel Die to the bag.

Premonition Potion
Return one Potion Die to the bag. When you draw your next die, you may return it to the bag and draw again (once).

Healing Potion
Return one Potion Die to the bag. Increase the value of any one Health Die by 1 (up to a maximum of 6).

Dispel Curse
Return one Potion Die and one Curse Die of matching value to the bag.

Phase Potion
Return one Potion Die to the bag. Change the value of your rightmost Travel Die to match the value of the Potion Die.

Improve Potion
If you have two Potion Dice of the same value, you may return one of them to the bag and increase the value of the other by one.

Ending the Game

The game ends when you either:

Escape the dungeon by removing all Travel Dice and survive, or
Die by losing all your Health Dice.

If you escape, your final score is the total of all Treasure Dice in your tableau.

If you die, your score is zero.