Advert: This prototype was loaned for review purposes – but I have backed the game with my own monies! All opinions are my own, always.

It’s Cavern Shuffle! Innnnn! SPAAAAAAAAACE!

You might remember how much I love the first Cavern Shuffle: Maze of the Minotaur. Gravy Boat Games recently launched the second printing alongside two new adventures: Peril on the Planet and Lair of the Lich. This is a review of the former (prototype).

Key stats

1 player | 15 mins 

Publisher: Gravy Boat Games
Designer: Ryan Dawson
Artist: Bodie H

Categories: Solo, Card game, Sci-fi
Key mechanics: Solitaire

Gameplay overview

The Cavern Shuffle series is based on the old school card game, Solitaire (also known as Patience and Klondike), but adds a dungeon-crawling twist. Your mission is to level up your party of brave adventurers, collect useful items, conquer obstacles and defeat enemies. Get strong enough to take out the Big Boss Crawler and you win the game! 

In set-up, cards are dealt into the Solitaire layout to form the dungeon (see the photo below), with the Big Boss Crawler in the first column. You start with only one item – the Scanner, which is currently useless until you collect ‘specimens’ to feed into it (more on this later).

Instead of 4 plain suits, you have 4 adventurers divided into two suits: Lawful (Chemist and Medic) and Chaotic (Engineer and Soldier). To level them up, you need to move adventurer cards from the dungeon into the 4 party piles (one for each suit), but you have to do this in ascending order, so starting with card 1, then 2, then 3…and you can only move the card if it’s the topmost face-up pile in a stack (i.e. doesn’t have a smaller card on top of it). If that wasn’t tricky enough, every time you level-up a member of your party, the Crawler moves along to the next column in the dungeon, blocking you from using those cards until it moves again. 

You can also move adventurers around the dungeon by stacking them on top of one another – this is essential to uncover and reveal the other face down cards in the dungeon! But you can only place them in sequential descending order – so a 5 can be placed on a 6, a 9 can be placed on 10, and so on – and you have to alternate suits: Instead of red and black suits, you alternate Lawful (Medic and Chemist) with Chaotic (Engineer and Soldier). Any cards already part of a sequence must move together (e.g. 5-4-3 moves together to a 6) but you can split sequences as long as you take the sequential cards together (e.g. moving 4-3 from a 5 to another 5). But don’t forget – cards within a sequence are blocked and can’t be moved to the party piles unless the cards below them are moved first (either to the party piles themselves, or to another sequence stack in the dungeon). Like with normal Solitaire, whenever you uncover a facedown card in the dungeon by moving/removing the card on top of it, you flip it over and reveal it.

It’s not just your adventurers wombling around this dungeon! You can also find:

• Helpful items – these can be removed from the dungeon straight away, added to your inventory and used at any time. One ranks up a party member by 1 level, one lets you remove and adventurer from play (you can add it back when you need/want) and one is an infected crewmate that can be used as a wild card in a sequence (but you have to defeat it if you ever want to remove it!). You can only use them once so use wisely!

• Obstacles – there are 4 obstacles in the dungeon, each more difficult than the last, and you can only remove them if you have the right party member at the right level. When you remove them, they become specimens for your Scanner, yay!

• Enemies – to defeat them your party’s total level must be at least equal to the Enemy’s difficulty. But beware, they also have special abilities!

I’ve mentioned the Crawler moves whenever you level up. But when it reaches the final column, it flips over to its infected side and moves in the other direction. While it’s infected, all infected abilities on revealed enemies are activated – essentially making them more annoying. The Crawler flips back to its uninfected side when it reaches the other end of the dungeon.

The only item that can be used multiple times is your Scanner, assuming you have the specimens you need. You can use it to shuffle the Explore draw/discard piles together, to peek under 1 column of cards in the dungeon, or to reduce the difficulty of an enemy.

You also have your Explore deck, the remaining cards that weren’t dealt out during set-up. These are flipped over 3 at a time, letting you use the topmost card if you can and revealing the card underneath. Taking a card out of the Explore discard is usually optional (there’s an Enemy exception) and sometimes you might not want to take them out straightaway. That’s because when you get to the end of the deck, you reset it (without shuffling) and go through it again – potentially revealing different cards if you removed any last time through.

If you can get your party’s total level to match the Crawler before you get stuck – you win! 

My thoughts

I love the original Cavern Shuffle: Maze of the Minotaur, and a lot of why I love it also applies to Peril on the Planet (I go more into their differences at the end of this section). Solitaire style card games are just my jam, the gameplay is both relaxing and addictive. I lock in easily, giving my brain a rare moment of calm. I always play multiple games in one sitting. 

The twists added by the Cavern Shuffle series make for a game that feels both familiar and different. Obviously like the original Solitaire, luck is a driving factor. But there’s more to think about because you want to remove the right cards at the right time, save your Items for the perfect moment.

Not only are you trying to balance when you level up with blocking a pile you might need, you also have to be wary of triggering the infected state of the enemies, because it can be mighty inconvenient let me tell you! FRENZY is the weakest enemy and only needs a party level of 5 to beat it – unless it’s infected because then it’s invincible! Occasionally I would withhold leveling up party members to avoid the infected state for as long as possible – but then when it was infected, I would try to level up as quickly as I could to get the Crawler back to its uninfected state. Reflecting on it, I think most of my losses could be attributed to infected Enemies blocking my progression – especially those annoying Frenzy buggers.

Peril on the Planet has the same artist as the original (as does Lair of the Lich), which is only a good thing becauseI love the personality they add to the cards. And it has the same excellent quality, with a sturdy box and yummy linen finish cards. It’s a lovely little travel companion!

It’s important to remember that you don’t need to max out the Party members to level 10 to win, you only need to beat the Crawlers defense (28). This is more achievable, but winning is still hard! It can also feel a little anticlimactic compared to a traditional solitaire win, but I suppose nothing is stopping you continuing until everyone is level 10 if that’s what you want to do (if you can get that far!).

The only downside to the Cavern Shuffle series is that it’s trickier to get if you’re not Canada/US based, unless you managed to get in on the recent Kickstarter. Hopefully this will change in future, because it deserves all the love.

How does Peril on the Planet differ from Maze of the Minotaur?

Aside from the obviously different themes, Peril on the Planet adds a layer of…well, peril! It’s definitely a step up in trickiness. They both have a similar skeleton (and I imagine Lair of the Lich will too), with the same types of cards and gameplay (Adventurers, Items, Obstacles, Enemies). But their abilities are different, and Peril introduces the transitional infected state, switching up the abilities/difficulties of the enemies.

Then there’s the starting items. ‘Short Rest’ in Maze of the Minotaur has a single, one-time use – shuffling the explore piles – but it can be used from the start and is often a Hail Mary if you get stuck in the early game. Peril on the Planet’s Scanner does the same ability (and others!) and it can be used multiple times, but you need to get the specimens first. So the Scanner is less useful in those unlucky games where you’re stuck from the start.

Verdict

As I expected, I love Cavern Shuffle: Peril on the Planet and can’t wait until my own copy arrives. If you’re a card game fan, especially if you used to enjoy the classic Solitaire card games, I really recommend getting a hold of one of these.

Personally, I think each Cavern Shuffle would be different enough to justify having them all if you wanted (I’d already fully backed them before trying this prototype!). If you’re only getting one, go for whichever theme appeals to you most, or try the original Maze of the Minotaur first as it’s the simplest variant (compared to Peril, but I have a feeling Lair of the Lich will be the most challenging – I’ll let you know what I think when I get it!).