How to Play

Cavern Shuffle: Maze of the Minotaur

1-1 players 15-15 min 8.2 Board Game Geek Rating

This solo dungeon crawler adapts solitaire mechanics where players build sequences with four adventurer types, alternating between lawful and chaotic alignments. Level up adventurers by moving cards to party piles, increasing your combined party level. Navigate obstacles requiring specific adventurer levels and defeat enemies using total party strength. The Minotaur boss moves through dungeon corridors as you progress. Victory requires achieving party level 30 to defeat the Minotaur.

Published 2024

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Set aside special cards

Remove the Short Rest and Minotaur cards from the deck before shuffling

Shuffle the deck

Mix all remaining cards thoroughly

Place the Minotaur

Put the Minotaur card face up on the leftmost pile (pile 1) to start the Dungeon

Deal the Dungeon piles

Deal one card face down for each of the next six piles (piles 2-7)

Add face-up cards

Starting again from left to right, place one card face up on pile 2, then deal one card face down on piles 3-7

Continue the pattern

Repeat until pile 7 has one face-up card with six face-down cards beneath it

Position the Short Rest

Place the Short Rest card above the first Dungeon pile in the Inventory area

Create the Explore pile

Place remaining shuffled cards face down in front of you below the Dungeon

Prepare the Party area

Leave four empty spaces above the Dungeon for leveling up Adventurers

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Build sequences in the Dungeon

Move Adventurer cards from one Dungeon pile to another, alternating between Lawful (Cleric/Barbarian) and Chaotic (Rogue/Ranger) suits while counting down in value

Level up Adventurers

Transfer Adventurer cards to their corresponding Party pile in ascending order from level 1 to 10

Flip revealed cards

When a face-down card is uncovered in the Dungeon, turn it face up

Explore the deck

Flip three cards at a time from the Explore pile to the Discard pile when no Dungeon moves are available

Complete Obstacle Encounters

Use the appropriate Adventurer whose Individual Level meets or exceeds the difficulty (1/3/5/7 based on obstacles already completed)

Defeat Enemy Encounters

When your Party Level (sum of all Adventurers' highest cards) equals or exceeds the Enemy's number, remove it from play

Collect and use Items

Set aside Item cards when found and use them once when needed