Kinfire Delve: Vainglory's Grotto is a tactical and cooperative card game for 1-2 players. As Seekers, you will fight your way through the well deck of challenge cards to reach Vainglory, the master of the well, and face her in an epic final battle.
To defeat Vainglory, you'll battle and puzzle your way through her well deck of 57 challenge cards before facing her final gauntlet. On your turn, attempt a challenge by playing a matching skill card and rolling the dice. Add enough progress tokens to a challenge and you'll be richly rewarded. But fail and you'll face the penalty by losing health, discarding cards, or being forced to return cards to the well deck.
Even when it's not your turn, the cards in your hand can be played to boost your teammate's action. But be cautious–emptying your hand means gaining exhaustion and suffering effects that can lose you the game.
Survive long enough to reach the bottom of the well and reveal Vainglory's final form. Break through her gauntlet of protectors in order to face and defeat her once and for all and win the game.
—description from publisher
- Engaging puzzle with strong thematic flavor and tactile art
- Satisfying, tense dice/card interplay when luck lines up with smart play
- Solid solo experience with clear sense of progression and risk management
- Dice luck can derail runs and force significant setbacks
- The rule set and board-state interactions (consumed/exhaustion, attached cards) are complex and may overwhelm new players
- Long play sessions and intense decision points can be draining
- Dark fantasy exploration, perilous trials, boss battles, and looping wells.
- A fantasy dungeon/well descent into a realm called Vain Glory's Grotto.
- Story-focused solo gameplay with boss guardians and deck-driven progression.
- Marvel Champions
- Arkham Horror: The Card Game
- Star Wars Unlimited
- Pursuit of Happiness
- The Game of Life
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Attached cards and multiple Glory variants — Vain Glory has multiple variants; certain attached cards influence challenges and penalties when combatting or progressing against Vain Glory.
- Boosts and tactical decision-making — Cards can be used as boosts to increase attack or mitigate penalties, influencing risk-reward decisions and card economy.
- Color-mated card play — You must choose a card from your hand that matches the color of the target; white cards can serve as wilds, blue and other colors have specific uses.
- Combat: Dice — Combat is resolved by dice rolls whose results are modified by boosts and color-matched cards; wilds and color constraints affect outcomes.
- Dice-driven combat with boosts — Combat is resolved by dice rolls whose results are modified by boosts and color-matched cards; wilds and color constraints affect outcomes.
- Exhaustion and consumed cards — Failing challenges often generates exhaustion cards; some cards are consumed and can lead to a potential loss if too many are in play.
- hand management — Players manage a hand of cards, discarding and drawing to maintain options; running out of cards forces drawing from an exhausted deck with consequences.
- Hand management and draw/discard dynamics — Players manage a hand of cards, discarding and drawing to maintain options; running out of cards forces drawing from an exhausted deck with consequences.
- Matching — You must choose a card from your hand that matches the color of the target; white cards can serve as wilds, blue and other colors have specific uses.
- Multi-use cards — Cards can be used as boosts to increase attack or mitigate penalties, influencing risk-reward decisions and card economy.
- Well/depth progression — Defeat guardians to delve deeper into the Well; the bottom of the Well presents final challenges and rewards; clearing layers progresses toward the victory condition of defeating Vain Glory.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- The board game Garden we love it all
- I'm really enjoying it so far
- The dice are forever in my favor now
- This is the most stressful thing ever