A great card game is coming to Steam – don’t believe Munchkin’s haters
The hit card game Munchkin will be adapted to a video game, bringing a classic, if slightly ridiculed, dungeon game to Steam this year.
A challenging dungeon crawler – which happens to be one of the best card games in the world – Munchkin puts you in the shoes of an aspiring adventurer. You and your team of rival heroes will take turns attacking satirical creatures, collecting tons of loot and discovering various magical items.
This is all very stupid. Munchkin is essentially one big parody designed to please classic fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons. You’ll use items like Horny Helmet and Staff of Napalm to defeat equally strange creatures with names like Plutonium Dragon and Floating Nose.
This upcoming digital adaptation, slated for release this fall, looks like a faithful recreation of the original card game. How announced (opens in a new tab) by developer Dire Wolf Digital, it will let you play Munchkin’s online multiplayer games or a series of solo challenges on PC, Android and iOS devices. Even his cartoonish art style seems to have been transferred directly.
Division crawling in dungeons
Although Munchkin has been one of the more popular card games of the last twenty years, it has built up a fairly divisive reputation. It is often shown as a fantastic introductory game for beginners to the hobby. Its simple rules are quick to master, its graphics are adorable, and it’s based on many of the mechanics players may know from video games.
It also encourages interaction with players. Between digging the dungeon door, you’ll use every opportunity to backstab your friends. A big part of the game is to successfully blackmail your path to victory as you throw monsters at your friends to make them ask for help by taking their treasure for yourself. Expect a lot of sneaky trades before he inevitably breaks those promises to earn the greater share of the loot pie.
But there are also those who curse Munchkin as an overly simplistic long playtime game. The pieces are unbalanced, and the load of spin-offs – adding everything from more cards to the Warhammer 40k theme – certainly didn’t improve the image of the game.
The novelty of this fantasy world may fade away eventually, but don’t dismiss Munchkin as a total joke. At its heart is a fast-firing dungeon crawler that will make you laugh as well as test your friendships. For those who prefer stupidity over strategy.
This adaptation is certainly in good hands. Dire Wolf has developed several adaptations of digital board games in the past, including the asymmetric strategy game Root, the charming Everdell city builder, and the Game of Thrones board game. They have all been well received for their comprehensive transfer of the original board games into a neat digital interface.
