Fantasy Pug Quest is a light dungeon crawl themed card game from Tin Hat Games where players are trying to save the day by pitting their cute dog characters against a variety of monsters. The game is designed by Alessandro Rivaroli and it can be played solo or as a fully cooperative game for up to five players. You'll usually be playing together against monsters whose moves are dictated by the game but there's additionally the option of adding a player as the Evil Lord in command of the monsters.
The ten different doggy protagonists reflect the standard character classes from Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games (RPG) but tho' Mariano De Biase's cute art gives this game a humorous look, it's a serious cooperative game where players have tactical and push-your-luck choices to make as they manoeuvre into position to use their combo attacks on the monsters.
The pugs' adventures take them to three different 'worlds', each of which imposes its own special rules. You'll be collecting various coloured energy cards to use as your resource to power up your attacks, so that's in effect a set collection aspect. And you'll encounter and fight a series of similarly canine-themed monsters from the deck before coming up against a powerful Boss monster. Hopefully by the time your pugs have to face the Boss, they'll be levelled up and powered up with treasure cards to help them to victory. Time tho' is of the essence as you're also playing against a game 'timer' (number of rounds).
Fantasy Pug Quest is fun to play and it's quick: our games mostly ran to around 40 minutes. Tho' there are tactics involved, particularly in your movement to position your character relative to other heroes and the monsters that are on the board, this is a game that older children can play and enjoy. It's just a pity that, at 36 pages, the rulebook is longer and so more foreboding than it needs to be. Don't let it put you off: this is a game that you can be up and running with from scratch in around 15-20 minutes.