Brave delvers have traveled from across the land in search of glorious, golden riches inside the dungeons of Skull Cavern. Treasures beyond their wildest dreams await below, but not without treacherous encounters hiding in every shadow. Sharpen your weapons, light your torches, and prepare your party to delve!

In Delve, player's guide different factions of fortune-hunting adventurers into the depths of Skull Cavern. Each faction approaches the game in an entirely different way. The Sellswords use their mercenary tactics to muscle through confrontation. The Forestfolk rely on their woodland instincts to adapt to obstacles. The Wraiths walk the worlds between life and death. And the Kobolds… well, they gibber.

Game play is very simple in Delve. Each turn, players explore the dungeon by placing a tile. Each faction is comprised of a leader, a brute, a thief, and a mage, as well as one duplicate delver class for additional asymmetry. As they search for gold and treasure, they must decide which of their delvers to place (facedown) on the newly explored tile. Each class functions in a unique manner, both in the dice they roll, and how best to use them. While brutes throw it all at winning fights, thieves use stealth to sneakily grab whatever spoils they can. Leaders offer options, while mages draw great power from rooms with magical rifts.

As the game goes on, rooms will eventually become completed. When a room is completed, one of two things happen. A battle for the gold and treasure will occur in rooms with delvers from more than one faction. As each class of delver contributes different combinations of dice, choosing the right delver makes all the difference. The player with the highest combat total will take all of the treasure, but half of the gold cards. The next highest combat total will get half of the gold cards that are left. The third highest receives half of what is left once more, while the last player leaves empty-handed.

Sometimes closing a smaller room or corridor with less loot and no competition is a more profitable path. However, closing a room without rivals to compete for the riches comes with a single snag: you must first navigate a perilous encounter! Monsters, traps, and certain doom await around every corner! Each encounter is entirely unique, but choose wisely! Perhaps greedy bandits leap from the shadows, eager to relieve you of your hard-earned spoils. Maybe a malicious magical contraption set ages ago springs to life. Or, worst of all, the tavern tales of dungeon yetis prove true! There’s no telling what danger — and fortune — lies around each corner.

Gold cards are numbered one to three in value, with one being the most common. Treasure cards provide victory points in addition to special abilities. Some treasures grant abilities upon collecting them, while others can be used later to navigate encounters. Most importantly, treasures are one of the more reliable means of obtaining XP in the game, a resource that can be used to activate your faction’s special ability, improve your hand of dungeon tiles, break the placement rules for corridors, and to succeed at encounters.

The game ends when the sun marker advances to the final space on the sun track or when all of the gold cards have been entirely plundered. Naturally, the player with the most valuable haul will be declared the most legendary gang of adventurers. So be bold, be quick, for your time is short and your satchel can only hold so much!

Designed by talented newcomer Pete Shirey and tabletop legend Richard Launius, Delve is a dungeon-building adventure that combines tile laying, dice-driven combat, and an engaging narrative for an experience like no other. Designed to provide a rich, immersive experience for lovers of adventure, Delve is equally inspired for gamers with a love of light tactics and variable powers, all in a charming fantasy setting. This tile-placing, dice-driven combat game employs head-to-head battles to lay claim on all of the gold and treasures one can hope to obtain! Adventurers will pursue different strategies to build their wealth and stymie their rivals. So grab your gear and get ready to explore the dungeons of Delve!