No, not THAT 'Dragon Quest', just a game primarily about catching dragons. Our theme for winter camp this year was 'Saga', so everything is all about dragons and adventures and whatnot, so I made this little game. It's been cobbled together from sprites and animated backgrounds from a thousands different games from a thousand different corners of the internet, and It's barely educational at all. You won't be building much vocab with it or anything, but the kids love the hell out of it. It's basically a big fun time-waster. Any game where the kids get fun little cards and see their number get bigger and bigger is like crack cocaine to them.

I'm not gonna lie, this thing is big and unwieldy and probably more complicated than it should be, so sorry about that. That being said, the kids went nuts over it, so it was well worth it all the trouble. You've been warned.



I'll explain the way the game works as best I can, but if you don't really know how something works then ask away, or feel free to just improvise whatever rules you think would make it work better.
There are a set of cards that come along with the game which really help keep track of what team has what items, so I recommend printing 'em out. I laminated mine, but will admit that it's a huge pain in the ass to do so.

How the whole shebang works:
Basically, this is DnD boiled down to the absolute basics. Kids explore a big map, fight monsters, and find and spend treasure. All you need to play are the card files that I've included, and a 6 sided dice. If you're got one of those awesome big soft fluffy dice that the kids can throw around the class, all the better.

Teams start at the little village in the middle of the map, and explore the surrounding areas one square at a time. Each square contains something - usually, a dragon, or sometimes, an NPC or a challenge. The further away from the town they explore, the more difficult the dragons become. Nearby town they are all rather weak, with usually around level 4 or so. Towards the edge of the map, they are approaching level 20 or even higher.

Basically, the only thing the kids have to do is roll the dice, and get equal to or higher than the dragon's level. If they win, they get a prize! If their total is lower, they lose a heart. They can keep trying as long as they have hearts. If they win or run out of hearts, move on to the next team. As the game progresses students will find or buy items that give them bonuses. Towards the end of the game, most of my teams were rolling numbers around 20+ each turn.

At the beginning of their turn, students can spend their money at any of the shops they've discovered. (You'll notice that there are 2 shops that do not have gray tiles over them - I left them open so that students could find them easily, but I don't let them purchase anything until they've managed to get that far. The magic item shop, for instance, is pretty far away but sells very powerful items.)

RULES

• Each team starts out with 2 hearts. They always begin a turn with at least 2, damage is not persistent. They can buy addition hearts from the shop by buying a health potion, which gives them more chances to roll the dice if they fail. Click the health bar to make hearts appear, and click the heart to make it disappear.
• Magic Items - if a team discovers a magic item (pretty much all of the items in the game are magic), they roll the dice again to see how powerful it is. NOTE - Magic Wands/Staffs should ONLY BE X2, anything higher is way too powerful.
• Teams may only have 1 of each type of weapon. For example, they cannot use the bonuses from 2 swords, but a sword and an bow and an axe together is fine. If a team already has a magic sword and finds another one, they may re-roll and see if they can get a higher bonus.
• Teams CAN, however, have as many of the same kind of porings as they like. Porings are a good way to build up a cheap, but substantial bonus.
• Some areas require items from the shop to proceed - for example, you need a torch to explore dungeons, or goggles to explore bright areas. These areas will have a warning when you discover them.
• Dice Rolling- I drew a big target on the blackboard, instead of just rolling the dice, my kids would hurl the big fluffy dice at the target. It's a fun little way to make the game a little more physical and exciting. Do it however you like though.
• You can keep track of what bonuses a team has just by looking at what cards they have, but it's a good idea to keep a running tally of their bonuses on a separate sheet of paper, for your own sanity.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO DO:

• Install the Pokemon GB font from here - http://www.fontspace.com/jackster-productions/pokemon-gb . This isn't critical, but it makes everything look much, much better.
• Copy and Paste the gray map squares from slide 1 onto slide 2. I left them separate to be easier to edit.
• Print and Cut the cards. You may need more depending on how many teams you have, and I recommend printing 2 of the coin sheet.
• Six Sided Dice. The bigger and fluffier the better.

Additional Notes:

• TEST THIS GAME FIRST. This thing is HUGE and runs differently on different machines. It runs like garbage on my office PC, but runs like butter in the classroom for some reason. In particular, pasting the gray tiles over the map seems to slow things down for me. Make sure everything works before you make any plans around this.
• Magic Wands are OP as hell. They SHOULD only give a x2 bonus.
• The home village doubles as the Item shop, just click it to go there.
• It helps to print slide 2 and mark off which sections have already been explored. This way, you can pause the game and resume it another day just by clicking away the gray tiles you've already been to.

The covers everything I can think of, but my brain is a bit fried. If you've got any other questions, let me know.

such a wonderfuly awesome game. Thanks for your work on it.

Alright, so I just finished the game - it took us 3 days to clear the map out, and that's playing for about an hour and a half each day! This thing takes a while. A few things I've learned -

The kids' rolling starts out low, but their powers increase exponentially as the game goes - Towards the end, I just gave a flat +15 to all the dragons, as the kids were regularly rolling 40+, and some even as high as 70. (When all the weapons and items of the game are in play, the numbers get BIG). I might go back and make the dragons tougher eventually, but I'm ****** spent. All in all, the game was a huge hit.

And definitely keep a running tab of all their bonuses on a piece of paper - I can't imagine trying to count cards every turn.

Amazing.

Just one thing. Are the printed cards meant to represent what they find in the chest? ie. If they find 4 coins, give them a 4 coin card?

Great work OP,

Thanks for all the hard work

Exactly - if they find money, give 'em the coins. There are singles and stacks of 5, also, gems are just worth 10. There is a card for pretty much everything that they can find. You know how much kids love anything on cards, it's addictive.

This looks AMAZING! But one big question before I become too attached to it! Can I finish this in a 45 minute class, or is this better for camps when I can devote two or three 45 minute class sessions to it all at once?

This game is absolutely ridiculous. Muchos respectos and thank you for sharing.

Sts: Teacher, who is winner?

T: Who had fun?!

*hands shoot up*

T: EVERYBODY WINS FOREVER!

Was it by sheer chance you are using ragnarok online sprites or were you actually a player? d:

Man, the hours that I've wasted...Well, it served me well in the end!

Love the game it's great.

My main concern is that there seem to be missing item cards. Most notably for some of the swords that students can find. The blue gem, green gem and yellow gem stones. Some different looking hammers and shields. Also the potion cards, though the last I can see as not needed. Is there a page of missing items or do you just make due, as in if the get any sword no matter what it looks like you still give them the regular sword card?

Thanks again for all the hard work.

Just as you said - the students get a generic 'magic sword' card. I just included different designs in the game to make it more visually interesting, but there's only 1 type of card. Same for axes, hammers, etc.

Great game!!

My only question is about the poring healers. I'm confused as to how they are suppose to work. If anybody could explain this to me I would appreciate it. 

If your team takes damage, they get a bonus on their next roll. So if they're down to 2 hearts, they get +3. If they're down to one, they get +6.