Clank! Catacombs

My love for the Clank! series of games is boundless and unfettered. I own and have spent many hours in the loving embrace of both Clank! and Clank! In Space! as well as various expansions for both and I am now currently just over halfway through the campaign of the mighty Clank! Legacy, one of the richest and most rewarding experiences I have had in board gaming. 

So when publisher Dire Wolf announced a whole new game in the series in the summer of 2022 once again designed by Paul Dennen, I was immediately intrigued and very excited. Clank! Catacombs promised to iterate on the Clank! experience by maintaining the same core deck building gameplay loop while completely eschewing the traditional fold-out or modular boards we have come to expect in previous titles in the series.

Instead, Clank! Catacombs borrows from the likes of that bastion of modern board gaming, Carcassonne, with players building out the dungeon they are delving into tile by tile ensuring no two games will ever play out the same way. 

Components

For those familiar to the series, upon opening the box to Clank! Catacombs, the contents will feel mostly the same. Players have their own brightly coloured wooden meeple, each die-cut to a unique silhouette, simultaneously simple but vibrant. The dragon meeple stands tall and ominous as it progresses up the rage track getting ever angrier and deadlier.

The dungeon deck retains the sense of humour that has always permeated the Clank! series, poking fun at genre tropes with a level of warm disrespect, simultaneously poking fun at players while also giving them a little nudge and a wink.

The luxurious embroidered felt bag for Clank! cubes returns, a deep black pocket of death that hands return to turn after turn, praying that the next batch pulled contains none of their colour. Instructions are crisp and clear with highlighted boxes which explain the rules specifically new for Clank! Catacombs for those with experience with the previous games. 

The tiles that comprise the play area itself are composed from the same thick card stock used for tokens in previous games. They are clear and crisp enough to ensure the iconography pops, paths are obvious, symbols are clear, but the tiles are also robust enough that they feel like they will stand the length of time despite handling and rubbing against one another.

Gameplay

Clank! Catacombs like its predecessors is a deck-builder at heart and the extra rules overhead here for those familiar with the previous games is minimal - it will not take long to learn the new rules required.

Players still each start with the same identical 10 card deck, drawing five cards a turn and using them to move around the board, to attack monsters in the way and to buy new cards from the shared market of dungeon deck cards, evolving their deck as they delve ever deeper. Each player is still required to move into the dungeon until they find an valuable artefact which they must then try to return to the starting tile before they draw the attention of the dragon that watches over the catacombs one too many times.

If a player would move off one tile into a space where another isn’t already present, they draw a fresh tile from the draw pile and place it adjacent to the one their meeple currently sits on. Tiles are all square and can be placed in any orientation that they feel best suits their objectives at that time. As such, the dungeon is constantly expanding and evolving as players spread out in different directions each hunting down the best treasure.

There is a new class of card in the dungeon deck called ‘Devices’ which are one use only - the player pays for them to receive a one-off effect then the card is discarded rather than being added to their personal deck. Some cards and monsters even carry the ability to rotate tiles that have already been placed, potentially changing a straightforward run back to the starting tile with the prized artefact into a hazard-strewn lurch into danger. Each tile has been designed in such a way that it can be placed in any orientation next to any other tile similar to the aforementioned Carcassonne. 

Conclusion

The evolution of Clank! as a series has been fascinating to participate in. Clank! In Space! changed from base Clank! in providing a board that allowed some basic modularity. Different spaceship layouts ensured that players couldn’t simply lean into a favourite route through the map, requiring a degree of flexibility. 

Clank! Catacombs takes this one step further by not even starting the game with a map or board on the table. Mimicking the exploration of an uncharted dungeon players must figure out the confines of this dangerous environment as they go, picklocking gates to open paths to new areas, stepping blindly through the door into unexplored areas and attempting with every step to ensure that you are the first player back with the bounty.

And this constant freshness, the ever evolving landscape as players move around the map is why I believe Clank! Catacombs will become the default version of Clank! for many people. If someone were to ask me which version of the game to pick up having never played before, Clank! Catacombs is certainly what I would point them to. It’s a wonderful iteration and I cannot wait to see what Dire Wolf has in store to support the game going forward in terms of new content.