I have been working towards this for a while; I was able to play my first game of Demonship by Black Site Studios this week.

For those unfamiliar, this is a micro-game for one player in which you attempt to get your survivor through a demon-infested ship of random rooms and corridors until you can restore power, set the self-destruct, and successfully escape. The rooms, contents, inhabitants, and the actions per round are all randomly determined. In regards to actions, d6’s are rolled and for every result of 1-3, the demons get an action (decided by the number on the die: evade, move, or attack) and 4-6 means the survivor moves according to the will and strategy of the player. The downside is that for every action the survivor takes the demons get another corresponding action as well, so the demons are getting as many if not more actions each round of play.

Adding to the mix are rules about each environment, boosts and heal-ups with randomly determined crates and barrels, and of course the frustrating process of trying to get the right sequence of rooms to come up on the dice.

Unsurprisingly, given my luck with dice, I lost the first game and my survivor was killed in the particularly treacherous cryogenic chamber, whose cold environment causes ongoing damage. There was a lot of rulebook page-flipping, which was particularly challenging because I’m using a pdf on a tablet, and I am considering making my own “cheat sheet” of the rules for quick access.

But all told it was a fun first game, and I am committed to trying again until I get this game beat.