Greed Quest is Steve Jackson Games' entry into the dungeon-bash genre. It foregoes such concepts as classes and skills, boiling the concept down to the bare essentials. A straight race for the loot at the dungeon's heart and back out again.

In game terms the players must get their characters from the traditional starting point of "Ye Same Olde Tavern" through a series of rooms to "The Hoard" at the dungeon's centre and back again. The paper game board is marked with twelve different rooms, each altering the effects of the game's cards in various ways.

The six decks, each a different colour matching one of the six character standees, are all identical and consist of ten different card types. Most of them are "Go!" cards, numbered from one to eight. Others include "Loot the Bodies!", "Dragon ATTACK!", and "Secret Door." The bottom of each character standee is marked with an arrow to indicate its travel direction — forward into the dungeon or back out of it.

Phil Foglio illustrates all of the full-colour components for this three-to-six player game in inimitably bright and breezy style. His humourous art imparts the majority of GreedQuest's flavour.

The rules sheet is clearly and simply written, and players will need to refer back to it fairly regularly to determine the effects of the cards in each room. If there is a downside to the components, it is in the relative flimsiness of the map sheet, and in the utter lack of internal packaging to protect the components.

Game play is simple. Each player draws from his own deck, and on each turn plays a single card from his hand. Everyone's cards are revealed simultaneously and the effects worked out. Basically, the player with the highest Go! card moves his standee forward one room. But "The Meek Shall Inherit" card makes the lowest value Go! card the winner, while "Dragon Sighting" cancels all Go! cards. "Secret Door" lets a player move forward two rooms, and "Tracking" moves a character one room closer to player of the winning Go! card, possibly moving him backwards! Rooms also have effects. "The 20' Deep Bottomless Pit" reduces the value of all Go! cards played there, and "The Unusually Frustrating Trap" room forces a player to empty his hand before he can move on!

Essentially, the card play handles both the game's movement and interaction. Although the interaction between the cards and map is clever and clear in its design, the game play does not lend itself to any deeper tactics than simple card counting. It does play better with more participants, though.

Greed Quest is a very light and easy game, not hard to learn or master. It is also quick to play, making it something handy to play between other games. But ultimatelyGreedQuest is too light, and does not offer the depth that will bring you back for repeat play.