Erune Board Game Review

Jim Gamer

1 day ago

8 min read

Erune

WBG Score: 7.5

Player Count: 1-5

You’ll like this if you like: Dungeon crawlers, app-driven games, and fighting monsters!

Published by: Arkada Studio

This is a free review copy. See our review policy here

Erune is the sort of game that could easily lose me before the first miniature hits the table. A dungeon crawler built around talking to an app sounds like exactly the kind of ambitious idea that might turn a perfectly good board game into a frustrating tech demo. Yet after spending time with this new Ultimate Edition, I came away thinking almost the opposite. The app is not perfect, and the dungeon crawling underneath it is fairly traditional, but together they create something distinctive, atmospheric and far more natural to play than I expected.

This new edition is important context because Erune has had a slightly rocky history. Earlier versions attracted criticism for app problems, rulebook issues and awkward voice recognition, while the newer version introduces a redesigned application, improved rules, enhanced scenarios and a significant visual overhaul. It still absolutely remains an app-driven game, though, and that technology sits right at the heart of the experience. And in truth, I have had mixed experiences with it. So strap in for the full de-brief.

SETUP AND GETTING STARTED

At its heart, Erune is a fantasy dungeon crawler for one to five players. You choose from adventurers with their own characteristics, skills, and magical abilities, tracking health, mana, stamina, experience, equipment, and progression on character sheets similar to those used in many RPGs. Characters start relatively modestly but develop quickly with new skills, spells, improved equipment (so much cool equipment!), and experience gained during quests.

The physical production makes a very strong first impression. Modular dungeon tiles, detailed miniatures, customisable character decks you can use to upgrade your skills with and plenty of furniture and scenery give Erune exactly the sort of table presence you want from this genre. The newer edition also benefits from strong artwork throughout, while the miniature sculpts have plenty of movement and personality rather than simply standing there looking vaguely threatening.

Where setup becomes interesting is that you are not simply opening a scenario book and building the entire dungeon before you begin, copying a map setup from a picture. Rather, the app reveals rooms, encounters, and information as you explore, which means the dungeon grows organically during play. The initial setup is often just one room with a few items in it.

This means you start each game pretty much instantaneously. You only see what your character can see. For me, that is one of the strongest arguments for using technology here, because it reduces setup while preserving the simple pleasure of genuinely not knowing what is behind the next door. There is a genuine sense of exploration often lost, simply due to logistics. Here, the tech fixes that. Much for the better.

HOW TO PLAY

Each round follows a straightforward three-part structure. The Spirit of Erune (the app) acts first, introducing events and changing conditions, followed by the Adventurers phase where each adventurer then gets two basic actions alongside any number of free actions, then the Master of Shadows phase (the bad guys, either controlled by the app or a human, your choice). In cooperative play the game handles the opposing forces, while in the asymmetric mode another player can take control of the Master of Shadows, controlling all the bad guys that spring up.

Those actions cover the familiar dungeon-crawling essentials: moving, attacking, searching, investigating furniture, detecting traps, and interacting with whatever the dungeon throws at you. But here, when you search, for example, you don't draw a few cards from a deck and pick something; rather, the app generates a random encounter, different for each game. So you could find a short sword and gold, or maybe something far more rare.

Combat uses opposed dice pools, with the weapons you have found or bought determining the attack dice you can use, and various protection speels, gear or clothing providing the defence, while stamina generated during play (seen on most dice) can fuel the growing collection of skills your character unlocks. Spells add another resource-management decision because mana is limited and individual spells can only be used once during a quest.

The app sits over all of this and handles a surprising amount. You simply press a button, or you can speak commands to search objects, open doors, trigger events, and interact with the world, while it delivers narration, random discoveries, loot, and story consequences. Searching the same location across different games will produce different results, which gives exploration a welcome sense of uncertainty, and each game will feel quite different in terms of what you find and what happens. This random event and loot selection is another huge benefit only really made possible by the app.

THE ERUNE EXPERIENCE

The obvious question is whether all that talking to your phone actually works. In my experience, yes, and much better than I expected. There is something initially slightly ridiculous about announcing that your adventurer searches a cupboard, but after a short while it becomes surprisingly natural, particularly because the app is doing something useful rather than simply replacing a deck of cards with a screen. And it all happens quite quickly, and from my experience, mostly smoothly. The voice actors are great too, and bring real life to the story. The AI generated main voice is a bit clunky though. There are lots of voices to choose from, but most are terrible!

More importantly, I like what the app allows Erune to do. There is a common argument against app-supported board games that asks what happens if the app disappears one day, and that is a perfectly legitimate concern. This game would not work without the app.

But if we let that possibility stop designers experimenting with technology altogether, we also close off a whole area of what tabletop games could become. And with this app, the game is much better. MUCH BETTER. I would rather judge Erune on whether the technology improves the game while I am actually playing it, and here I think it does.

The biggest benefit is exploration. In a traditional dungeon crawler, somebody often has to consult a book, build the next room, and inevitably see information the rest of the group does not. Or indeed, everyone sees it, and it's the same every time. No randomization. No hidden rooms. No unexpected encounters with delightfully voiced character actors bringing it to life. It's a massive upgrade here with the app that offers all this. The app can simply tell you what appears when you reach it, allowing the dungeon to retain all its mystery without requiring a dedicated game master. It also makes setup faster and keeps plenty of administration away from the players.

The app is not flawless. It requires precise wording to work for the voice activation, and previous versions were criticized heavily for bugs and awkward navigation. While this new version has fixed the voice activation from my experience, it still has quite a few bugs. The app can crash mid-game, forcing you to spend time away from the game, messing about with logging in and out to try and fix it. This doesn't always seem to work again after a short period. I have never lost a game. But it's five minutes away from the immersion, fiddling with tech. It completely takes you out of the game and destroys the flow the game has otherwise so successfully built up.

Strip the app away, and Erune becomes a much more conventional proposition. Movement, dice-based combat, monsters, searching, treasure, and character progression will all feel immediately familiar if you have played HeroQuest, Descent, or any number of modern dungeon crawlers. So the app is crucial to this game's success. It is not necessarily a criticism that the game is a little basic without the app, because the fundamentals are solid, the combat moves quickly, and the steady stream of abilities gives your character satisfying development without turning every attack into a spreadsheet. But you have played it before. And it is available in many other forms. But with the app, it feels fresh, unique, exciting, and, in places, ground-breaking. The addition of the app is crucial to this games success. But the functionality and stability of the app does need to improve.

I asked the publisher about all this and they told me "that the app is central to the experience, so its stability really matters to us, and we’re actively working on the bugs... We're tracking [all these issues] and want to iron [them] out... a full, thorough review of the English version is planned very soon, to fix it properly once and for all." So they are on it, and I expect it to be fixed in the future. And I have heard this new version is already much more stable than the old one, so they are on the right path.

Back to the game, I particularly like the stamina system. Your dice are not only about succeeding or failing because certain results can generate stamina too, and that stamina powers later skills which increasingly define how your adventurer behaves. There is a nice rhythm to building up resources, spotting opportunities, and then spending them on something more exciting than another basic attack. The spell system works similarly well because limited uses make casting feel like an actual decision rather than something you automatically repeat every turn. And the things you can do are exciting and fun to implement. You feel like a true hero destroying a few bad guys at once with a well-timed use of a powerful spell, and the subsequent good roll!

And the campaign of levels that you play through is meaty in substance and interesting in story. The levels feel varied and offer a great, lasting, memorable, and enjoyable experience as you play through. It's one I will play again with new characters, and I am keen to try the other expansions and levels available. It is frustrating that I cannot play through a full campaign here, as some levels need to be unlocked with other expansions. I don't mind other levels not being available for other missions or quests, but here they make levels within the one campaign I can play inaccessible. I can play levels 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 15, 17, and 18 from the main missions, but not the others. That seems off to me.

PROS

The app genuinely adds mystery and makes dungeon exploration easier to manage.
When the app works, it is fantastic!
Excellent production, artwork, miniatures and table presence.
Strong character progression through skills, stamina, spells and equipment.
Familiar dungeon-crawling foundations make it surprisingly easy to get into.

CONS

The entire experience still depends heavily on the long-term reliability of the app. And it doesn't always work.
Voice commands can occasionally demand more precise wording than you would like.
The underlying dungeon crawler itself is solid rather than particularly revolutionary.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Erune could have been a gimmick. An app-driven, voice-controlled dungeon crawler is exactly the sort of idea that sounds brilliant on a crowdfunding page before becoming considerably less brilliant when somebody is repeating the same sentence into their phone for the sixth time. Thankfully, that simply was not my experience. The technology settles into the background surprisingly quickly and, more importantly, earns its place by making setup easier and exploration more mysterious. And ultimately, the game is much better.

I admire the ambition behind it. Board games do not need technology, and I certainly would not want every game I own asking me to download something before I can play it, but that does not mean designers should stop experimenting with what technology can bring to the table. Erune uses it to reveal its world gradually, manage information, and allow the physical game to concentrate on miniatures, dice, characters, and adventure. I really want to support this sort of innovation.

But it does not always work, and it does need to be fixed and become more stable before I can fully recommend this. I am giving this a 7.5 because of these issues. A great score still. But it would be a 9.5 without the app bugs.

That all said, underneath the clever integration sits a solid, enjoyable dungeon crawler rather than a revolutionary one. The combat works, progression is satisfying, the production is excellent and the app gives the whole thing an identity it probably would not have otherwise. It has imperfections, but I had fun with it and came away appreciating both what Erune already achieves and what it is trying to push forward. Find out more about the upcoming new crowdfunding here.