Kreel Manor: The Dungeon Crawl Card Game Review

Written by Chad Wilkinson. 

Tristan Hall is a designer who has deviated from the traditional tiles and miniatures approach to dungeon-crawling and proved that predominantly card-based delves can be just as immersive and thematic. His Kilforth series has established a distinct fantasy world with games such as Gloom of Kilforth and its sequels, whilst Veilwraith scaled things back to the grim, bare essentials.

Kreel Manor is the latest entry, building upon Veilwraith’s card mechanics but forgoing the monochrome art and sparse storytelling in favour of gorgeous colour illustrations and a more defined narrative; one that takes players into the twisted and dangerous locales of the titular abode. 

Playing Kreel Manor

A full campaign of Kreel Manor consists of five adventures. Adventures one and five are always the same, but the three in between are determined by the story choices made in the accompanying Book of Fables. Essentially, it’s a story sandwich: The game provides the bread, but the filling is up to the player and whoever they’ve forced to make it - Warrior, Sorcerer, Thief? Personally, I wouldn’t trust the hygiene of any of them, but from a design perspective, the end result of this flexible and interactive system is pretty tasty. 

Each hero has unique strengths as indicated by their skill cards, equipment, and special abilities, and these aspects will be upgraded as the narrative progresses. Similarly, the unique Story Cards of each hero, and how these interact with the Book of Fables, will be built upon from one adventure to the next. Consequently, Kreel Manor succeeds at providing the kind of customisation and attachment one hopes for in a dungeon-crawl. 

Success in Kreel Manor is dependent on how well a player’s character deals with the location and threat decks. The location deck is typically made up of five large cards, whilst the threat deck is considerably larger, and contains five ‘Plots’ and a number of ‘Foes’ seeded amongst the rest of the threats. Threats exist on what I call the ‘conveyor belt of pain’.

They first appear in the ‘Shadows’, travelling along three facedown spaces until they are flipped into the Threat Area. Typically, threats can’t be engaged in the Shadows, so there’s an element of tension to this mechanic. Conversely, the Threat Area throws all tension out the window as players scramble to prevent becoming overrun. 

To win, all locations, plots, and foes must be defeated, with each card requiring a particular ‘Sneak’, ‘Influence’, or ‘Fight’ value to be reached to do so. Reaching these values is achieved with a row of corresponding action cards which have a base strength value of either one, two, or three depending on their current position.

From here, values can be increased with skill cards, special abilities, or ‘tilting’, thereby blocking the card’s use that turn but raising its value by one. When an action card is used, it shifts back to the ‘one’ position, bumping the other two along if necessary.

Kreel Manor Review

It’s a wonderfully dynamic and luck-free system, requiring a decent amount of forward planning when needing to deal with the threat deck as economically as possible. On the downside, there is a level of mechanical tedium to the tapping, tilting, and sliding around of these cards, which can begin to detract from the theme and story. Furthermore, in comparison to everything else in the game, the action cards look incongruously plain. 

For the most part, though, Kreel Manor is a looker. Hyper-realistic art isn’t always what a game calls for, but here it’s fantastic. Locations look as if you could warily step into them, grotesque monsters are almost wince-inducingly repulsive, and the disconcertingly attractive humanoid-looking characters and enemies align with modern beauty standards to an uncanny degree. It’s almost as if a photographer has beat us to the manor, died horrifically, and we’re now plundering the corpse for the photos. Of course, it’s what’s inside that counts, and, thankfully, Kreel Manor’s gameplay stands out admirably in the crowded dungeon-crawl genre. 

Verdict: Should you play Kreel Manor?

You should play this game. 

A fantastic-looking dungeon-crawl card game with fun, quick, and clever card mechanics. If you liked Veilwraith, you'll find this mechanically similar but with more depth in regards to aesthetic and story mechanics.

About Kreel Manor: The Dungeon Crawl Card Game

Time: 30-120m

Players: 1-4

Ages: 14+

Price: £65

Designer: Tristan Hall

Publisher: Hall or Nothing Productions

What’s in the box?

• Rulebook
• Book of Fables
• 4 Spirit Dials
• 12 Power Dice
• 100+ Damage Tokens
• 3 Hero Boards
• 429 Cards