I reviewed this game for my #33in28 series on Thoughty at http://briebeau.com/thoughty/33in28-week-3-reviews/

An excerpt:

This is a gorgeous game. The text is large and easy to read, the bullet lists and card symbols make things easy to navigate, and it’s also got lovely styled art and layout. I really like a game that fully embraces its vibe, and this game certainly does that! 

To play the game, you set up a block tower, then roll a d6 and pull that number of blocks from the tower. You draw cards and put entries in your diary based on the Dwarven Runes that those cards represent. The Runes can give instruction to do a gamified action, or ask details about the journey. If the tower falls, the game is over – you refer to the cards you have drawn to tell what happened in the end, and how you met it so untimely. I love tower falling mechanics! This one has a great section on how the ending goes, as well.

I generally lean away from games with inevitable ends, to be frank. This game though? I was immediately dragged down to the Mines of Moria, alongside Durin’s folk, with the massively arching ceilings and cragged cliffs that lead down into dark endlessness that rises hard and solid again beneath you. That is what just reading through this game made me feel, and the bits of play I practiced (reading prompts based on card draws, as I could not figure out where my block tower was) confirmed that feeling.