The Dungeon Adventure: An RPG for Pre-Schoolers

A while back Sasha and I were playing with some toys and I built a maze out of blocks. With the blocks we had, you couldn’t make a decent maze but it occured to me that our maze would make a decent D&D style dungeon. We had some of her figures walk through the maze fighting simple monsters, and I thought to myself, “I could make this work into a real game.”

Kids Dungeon Adventure RPG
The Dungeon Adventure RPG for Kids

Soon after that, the Dungeon Adventure was born. It’s simple enough for me and my 4 year old daughter to walk through a dungeon and complete a quest. Here’s how it works.

1. You build a dungeon out of blocks you already have.
2. You fill the dungeon with monster cards and treasure cards.
3. Set up an overall quest for the kid(s) to complete.
4. Have them walk through the dungeon and complete the quest.

The game uses a super simple battle system using normal, 6 sided dice and hitpoints.

Sasha playing Dungeon Adventure
Sasha playing Dungeon Adventure

After playing 5 or 6 times with more complex dungeons and more interesting stories, I decided we would try and sell a version of the Dungeon Adventure online as a download and print game. I set up a website for it this week and registered a domain name. Let me know what you think!

Owen Ryker Garvey

I’m a dad. Again!

Owen Ryker Garvey was born on September 18th, 2009 at 2:39PM. He was 7lbs, 12oz, 20″ long, and a great addition to our family.

Isn't he cute?
Isn't he cute?

He’s named after a character in the John Irving novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany. It’s Jeanne’s favorite book and I liked it a lot as well. I definitely liked the name. We sweated the middle name for months and finally settled on Ryker. Some other candidates were Issac and Elias. I hope he likes it!

Naming someone is freaking hard. My wife says I overthink it, but sometimes I feel like giving someone a name is like letting someone else pick our your tattoo. He’s the one who has to live with it for the rest of his life. What’s in a name? Sure you can say that, but I think we all have been influenced by someone’s interesting, odd, or boring name.

Jeanne and Owen are both doing great and we’re settling in at home. So far Sasha has been great with him. I’m headed back to work tomorrow.

People always say the day their kids are born is the greatest day of their lives. I think they are insane or kidding themselves. Even if everything goes 100% well, it’s an immensely stressful and uncomfortable day. For me the best day is when we’re all home and everyone is doing great. Like today.