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5-Minute Dungeon

#1123BGG ↗

2017 · 2-5 players · 30min · weight 1.13 · 11,636 ratings

port: no portdifficulty: Hard
BGGv4 widev4v4 deep5Sources3Rules cardCandidateDeep dive
Bayes
6.59
Users rated
11,636
Owned
23,341
Wishing
2,425

At a glance — v4 wide

Controlled-vocabulary primitives + 8-axis MDA aesthetic vector. Vocab v1.

Core loop (micro)

Match symbols from hand to monster card within 5-minute timer; shout and slam cards cooperatively to defeat dungeon.

MDA aesthetic vector (0–3)
Sensation
2
Fantasy
2
Narrative
1
Challenge
2
Fellowship
3
Discovery
1
Expression
1
Submission
1
Mechanic-interaction primitives (4)
  • [3]time_pressure_realtime— “players have only five minutes to escape the randomized dungeon
  • [2]communication_constraint— “there's no time to form a carefully considered plan
  • [2]variable_player_powers— “players assume the role of one of ten heroes, each with special cards and abilities
  • [2]escalating_threat— “each boss, and each randomized dungeon, gets harder until players reach the fifth and final boss
discovery_score: 0.610

Archetype fits — v4 deep

How well this game shape maps to mobile archetype templates. Composite is a weighted sum of the 10 fit dimensions.

ArchetypeCompositeLTFSessionComboArcShare5inOnboard
Coop
communication_constraint + time_pressure_realtime + escalating_threat across five bosses is a Hanabi-adjacent shape — bluff_info_asymmetry from forced rapid coordination, not hidden info. arc_tightness 8 from boss climax. visual_legibility on 5" is the bottleneck.
5.907.0658458
Wordle
5-min sessions sit at Wordle's window edge, and the dungeon-of-the-day premise is a clean daily-seed shape. Symbol-matching could yield 'cleared in 4/5' emoji output. But the multiplayer real-time core needs solo reframing.
5.406.0736567
Snap
5-min co-op session is exactly Snap's match-window, and 10-character roster echoes Snap's factional roster. But the loop is fundamentally cooperative real-time, not async PvP.
5.106.0736457
Balatro
escalating_threat across five bosses gives arc tightness, and time-pressured symbol-matching has high decision density. But session_length_tolerance_min=5 is below Balatro's 15-30min target, and combo_scaling_depth is shallow — symbol-matching doesn't compound across rounds.
5.007.0337457
Cozy
Coop-or-Solo (Cooperative Game) tier removes the cap, but anti-cozy primitives time_pressure_realtime + escalating_threat dominate. Shouting and timer pressure are the explicit antithesis of cozy.
3.504.0425256

Sources (3)

Inputs to rules-card synthesis. Click any pill with ↗ to open the original source.