Review: Dungeon of Abkadev

The Dungeon of Abkadev by Peter Konink is a Print & Play Adventure that closely mimics the gameplay of the Fighting Fantasy (FF) gamebook series. This adventure is based on the winning One-Page Dungeon 2016 of the same name.

The rules are very similar, including the magic, to the rules of the classic Citadel of Chaos which is the second in the FF series. Classic game mechanics are extended with random wandering monsters and the abstinence of roll or die situations. If you played any of those books before then you will understand it very quickly.

View inside the PDF file. (Credit: Pieter Konink. Fair use.)

While the story places you in the aftermath of a massive battle between two mighty wizards, the actual gameplay is just one big dungeon. You explore the dungeon to find the Tome of Vyzx for your wizard master. Even though the adventure consists only of 100 sections you get everything from monsters, traps, riddles to map drawing. The difficulty is high as it is impossible to obtain all three keys on the first try. Knowing traps and encounters before hand will help you to select the better routes and fitting magic spell. If you do not get all keys it is better to restart the adventure as back tracking is very tedious. Once you have collected all keys and finished the adventure there is little replay value.

The adventure contains several good illustrations that enrich the atmosphere. Together with the good layout and type setting the adventure looks really good when printed out at home. Dungeon of Abkadev is a great dungeon crawler every FF-fan should play.

Printed copy, used for playing (Credit: Pieter Konink. Fair use.)