Heroes of Tenefyr

To set up the game, players first select one of the available final bosses, such as the Chaos Dragon or Stone Titan. The chosen boss's cards are shuffled, and one is placed face-up, with the rest forming a face-down deck. Each player then receives a starting deck of 13 cards: six cards with a value of 1, six cards with a value of 0, and one special character card (e.g., Thief, Barbarian, Cleric, Bard). These individual decks are shuffled and placed in each player's play area. The dungeon is prepared by creating five levels, each with two decks of four cards. The top card of each dungeon deck is revealed. Corresponding reward cards are placed next to each dungeon deck, matching the dungeon's level. A difficulty marker is placed on the game board (easy, normal, or hard), and a player token is placed on the starting space of the dungeon track. Any remaining cards are returned to the box.

The primary objective of Heroes of Tenefyr is a cooperative one: all players must work together to defeat the chosen final boss. This is achieved by successfully navigating through dungeons, defeating enemies to improve their individual decks, and ultimately facing the boss in a final combat. Players win or lose as a team.

A player's turn is divided into several phases. First, the player draws 3 cards from their personal deck. If the deck runs out, the discard pile is not reshuffled until the player decides to leave the current dungeon. Next, the player must play all cards from their hand, generating power based on the cards' values and activating any special abilities. After playing cards, the player resolves combat against the current dungeon enemy. If the combined power from all players' cards meets or exceeds the enemy's required power (which scales with the number of players), the enemy is defeated. If the enemy is defeated, the player who dealt the final blow adds the enemy card to their discard pile, which can later be shuffled into their deck as a new, often more powerful, card. Players then decide whether to continue exploring the current dungeon (flipping the next dungeon card) or voluntarily retreat. If they retreat voluntarily, the player token advances one space on the dungeon track. If they fail to defeat an enemy, they are forced to retreat, and the player token advances two spaces.

Heroes of Tenefyr is a fully cooperative game, meaning there is no individual scoring. The entire group either achieves victory by defeating the final boss or suffers defeat if they cannot overcome the challenges presented by the dungeons and the boss.

The game can end in two ways. Players win collectively if they successfully defeat all versions of the chosen final boss. Players lose if they are unable to defeat a dungeon enemy and are forced to retreat, or if they fail to defeat the final boss during the mandatory final combat. The final combat is triggered either when the player token reaches the skull space on the dungeon track or when players collectively decide they are ready to face the boss.