This is essentially a kid's first dungeon crawler. There's some light resource management where you collect power, wisdom or magic cards by exploring dungeon tiles. Those cards can then be used to "scare away" monsters or acquire a gem.

The game is largely cooperative with kind kid cards given for helping another player but there is an ultimate winner based on who gets the most stars for defeating monsters, collecting treasure and completing very rudimentary quests (e.g. have 3 magic cards in your hand).

Components are great for the most part. The big chunky figures are fun to use, the gems really appeal to kids, as does the treasure draw bag. A few downsides; it's got a fairly big table presence, especially if you throw in an expansion. The box insert is not the best (it's hard to get all the cards out as the finger holes are not deep enough). The icons on some of the cards can be very tiny and hard to distinguish, especially for a 5 year old.

The box says 5+ and I think most 5 year olds will have zero challenge figuring out this game. My daughter is 5 and it took her two turns to grasp everything.

On it's own, I'd probably rank this a little lower as the core gameplay is extremely simple and it's a bit long for a game where you're almost always guaranteed to win. It can really feel like you're just going through the motions. However, when you add in the Trials of Tolk expansion with it's mini campaign, this game really starts to shine. Having a goal, unique events in a dungeon and story elements help keep the game fresh so I would highly recommend getting The Trials Of Tolk The Wise expansion to go with this.

All in all, it's a great introductory dungeon crawler for young children and there's nothing else like it out there in this age bracket.