A new game from David Dunham, the man behind King of Dragon Pass, takes his old kingdom-management design and makes it about one quest at a time instead.
Players must recover stolen souls from the dead in Thousand Hells: The Underworld Heists. The game shifts focus from overseeing an entire kingdom down to a tight group of adventurers.
A Shifting Underworld
Before any campaign in Thousand Hells starts, players get to choose their own traits and select three more crew members from a roster that includes surly lockpick thieves and nimble academics alike. These selections determine what tiles each character contributes to the game — specific actions and ideas that can be drawn upon when facing new challenges. In each encounter, a single character is tasked with leading, but players will also be able to draw a handful of tiles from other crew members.
A thief can lead the way, ready for the bat against a locked door. But a careless click sends the philosopher forward instead, and there are no second chances in the afterlife. That freedom of choice is also a hazard.
Early civilizational beliefs give shape to an ever-changing underworld. Dry chunnels pour into raging seas, and words and stories can bend granite. Players should be ready for anything.
A Long Road Down
This game borrows heavily from the earliest systems of faith, and the rules here differ from those that came before. You might find yourself appealing to gods, both major and minor, for favor. You could be questioned by spirits of the dead to move through vast labyrinths without harm. You could face down packs of howling beasts. You could join a marching army to go unnoticed. And you will almost certainly need to calm the feelings of your companions, who can quickly become manic after spending time in a place with no fixed form.
Dunham said that if your hires warn you they don’t like alcohol, insects, or seducing demons, at least one of those things will probably happen. It sounds like a worrying thing to say aloud before going down into hell, unless the guy who tried kissing a demon was using reverse psychology instead.
Campaigns usually last 40 minutes to an hour. With seemingly endless permutations, you’ll be dusting your knees off plenty of times.
From Kingdom to Crew
The kingdom-management RPG King of Dragon Pass, released back in 1999, relied entirely on story prompts to tell its tale. Rather than tracking gold and resources, the destiny of your people depended upon the choices you made. Every prompt bore the mark of King Solomon’s hand, shaping the whole experience.
The Thousand Hells approach is simpler than its counterpart. It’s about watching over one person, or at most five. Fewer people are involved, yet the force behind the words doubles in strength. That undefined lower realm becomes a setting where signs hold real weight, where what a word points to and the word itself compete for dominance, and where irony carries more force than plain science.
I was unexpectedly successful in my very first campaign, where the queen of the Eternal City employed me to bring back her two princes who had been killed by their uncle in the nether realm. Though I faced off against mercenaries, giant spiders, and a poetry challenge along the way, all of my crew managed to emerge from the world below without so much as a scratch. Even though we brought back only one of the princes.
It appears my very first victory was detected by the people who made the game. The picture shows just how fortunate I was to get it.
What We Make of It
A shifting underworld, crew-building, and storytelling come together to create a fresh approach to adventure books. Choices carry weight here: a careless click, a warning ignored, a tile pulled from the wrong character all have real results. Those who keep their eyes open are the ones rewarded by the game.
There are countless arrangements possible. This gives campaigns the freedom to head off in any direction, and the design accommodates that disorder. The basic cycle stays easy to grasp: select your party, choose your route, and face whatever the criminal world sends your way.
Key Facts Box
- Developer: David Dunham
- Game: Thousand Hells: The Underworld Heists
- Length: Campaigns usually last 40 minutes to an hour
- Setting: A shifting underworld inspired by early civilizational beliefs
- Crew size: Pick one leader and three additional crew members
How to Play
- Select your traits and three crew members at the start of each campaign.
- Task one character to lead each encounter.
- Pull tiles from other crew members when needed.
- Navigate labyrinths, fend off beasts, and temper your team’s emotions.
- Dust off your knees and try again when things go wrong.
See the video the story is built around at Kotaku.
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