In Cavern Crawl, players take on the role of one of 4 adventurers to explore the caverns, fight monsters and collect loot. It can be played either cooperatively or competitively.
Players start on the same "Start" card, and have slightly different attack, search and defense abilities depending on their character. On their turn, they first draw a map card and connect it to the already placed cards, expanding the caverns and creating more opportunities for battles and loot.
Combat and gaining coins works through dice rolls. Players have to beat certain defence scores of the enemies in their roll, and they gain the associated rewards if they're successful. This can also include treasure cards which provide bonuses and extra abilities.
Players can pool their dice rolls together if they are on the same space, to make it easier to gain rewards or defeat monsters. In this case, the rewards are split.
Players can also attack each other for the chance to steal coins from their opponents.
The goal of the game is to be the first to find 10 coins and make it back to the entrance. Each character has an additional secondary objective which provides an alternative winning condition.