Bug Run

Bombyx · 2025

Translation, English to German

This quirky take on a semi-cooperative dungeon crawler had me smiling a lot while I was working on it. The basic premise is that everyone plays an innocent bug (a wasp or caterpillar, for example) who has been imprisoned in a tower dungeon by big mean baddies – in this case cute or cuddly mammals like hedgehogs or bunny rabbits. The heroic escapees must make their way up through the tower by traversing four floors, battling their way past enemy guards or fulfilling quests. Combat uses dice, quests often call upon our bug champions to flip a token (basically a coin toss). Player interaction comes from the fact that defeating guards will usually require more than one attack and multiple heroes can gang up on one guard. Quests often offer multiple options of how to tackle them. In either case, only one hero will reap the best rewards, so letting your “comrades-in-arms” do the heavy lifting and swooping in to snatch away the best loot at the last moment is the real meat of the game. This even extends to the occasional fight breaking out among the heroes when it comes to who gets to go up the stairs to the next floor first. Despite all game components being icons-only, so language-agnostic, the rulebook gives almost everything in the game a flavourful name. There’s a rusty sword to pick up, you can learn how to show off for bonus points at the end of the game or how to push into a fight as an optional extra. Because these names often reflect the game effects, there was a lot of space for creative translation, which I always enjoy a lot. A fun romp!