Cutthroat Caverns Review

A little game that I've played recently was Cutthroat Caverns. In this game, each of the players represents an adventurer that is attempting to kill monsters in order to gain victory points, but the trick is that whoever gets the final blow gets all of the credit for killing the monster. Because of this, each player is trying to prevent all of the others from killing the monster. However at the end of each round, the monster will attack (and each monster has a different way of attacking). If you wait too long to finish off a monster, he may damage you enough to eventually kill you off, thus eliminating you from the game.

Cutthroat Caverns played fairly smoothly in that there were basic attacks, special attacks that you can put out to prepare for the next round, and cards that you could play out of turn in order to affect what another player's attacks can do. Unfortunately, the monsters are normally killed quickly enough that the special attacks don't really play much role in the game. Also, the concentration of useful out of turn cards winds up being pretty low, so the people that do draw them have a significant advantage against whichever monster is active.

After playing through the first few monsters (the game is played through a set number of encounters) Cutthroat Caverns became fairly monotonous, and the overall fun level of the game was limited. There were no real flaws in the game mechanics themselves, but something just seemed to be missing. It becomes a repetitive process of playing some little attack card and waiting for your next turn. I found myself waiting for the game to end far sooner than it actually did.

Overall, I give Cutthroat Caverns a 5.0/10. It is a cheap little card game, but even in that genre, I would recommend Loot or Lunch Money before this one.