Clank! Catacombs: Underworld Design Diary 6 – Rulebook Roundup!

July 30, 2025

Welcome to the final Design Diary for Clank! Catacombs: Underworld! At this point, we’ve now covered most of what Underworld brings to the world of Clank! Catacombs. We’ve taken a look at the Underworld, how to get there, some of the nasty surprises waiting within, new rooms to explore, and new items to buy!

There are still a few days left to join in the Kickstarter, so don’t miss the ferryboat to the Underworld!

For this final article, rather than focus on one topic, I’d like to traverse a variety of miscellaneous details related to the expansion… and if you’ve got questions that we haven’t addressed along the way, check out the full rulebook!

Setting Up Your Underworld Adventure

When playing with Underworld, you only place 3 purple (“safe”) tiles at the top of the dungeon tile stack. This was done because the Underworld presents more of a challenge and a greater distance to travel for players. This way, you’ll find ladders and/or Underworld chutes a little faster, as opposed to the normal 4, which felt a little too deadly. We weren’t sad to accelerate the players’ entrance to the Depths, especially when we wanted to encourage going “beyond and under” the Depths.

We also included a Fixed Dimensions variant in the rulebook, limiting the size of the catacombs tiles (to 5×5 or 6×6). We’re sure that some players already had house rules like this or similar, but we wanted to provide an official variant that players with limited tablespace could look at. You’ll also find a Mercy variant that deals with bad luck when in the catacombs. We strongly recommend using alongside the Fixed Dimensions variant, but personally, I would always use this variant. Basically, it gives players permission to rotate tiles when encountering “bad luck stuck” situations.

Monkey Business

When playing with the reverse side of the Underworld starting tile, which contains a new Monkey Shrine, players are directed to use the Monkey Shrine replacement token. This token covers up the Monkey Shrine on the original starting tile. The replacement token is double-sided, so players can choose between two effects for the new room that the token creates: gain 2 undercoins, or an Underworld chute.

By the way, the two ways down to the Underworld are ladders and Underworld chutes. So, during development, we sometimes laughingly referred to this expansion as the chutes & ladders expansion!

To Undercoin, or Not to Undercoin?

One thing we debated during development was whether to give players a starting undercoin or not. On one hand, giving them an undercoin makes going to the Underworld easier, which allows more players to enjoy the biggest part of the expansion. On the other hand, we didn’t want the Underworld experience to be the same, and we didn’t want “whenever you find a way down, take it” to feel like the one “right” way to play with the expansion. It’s far better if there is an interesting decision of whether and when to dive down into the underworld, and investing in cards that give an undercoin or two (e.g. Moneychanger’s Booth, Lantern) should allow those players to make Underworld trips more easily.

We debated this issue a lot, and we landed on including the following box in the rulebook, which gives permission for players to have an easier time in their first game but to enjoy the higher replayability of not starting with an undercoin:

Extra Goodies

We’ve already covered how the Underworld expansion comes with a handful of new market items. In addition, it comes with a few more prisoners, a few more major secrets, and a few more minor secrets. I really enjoy the additional variety of “stuff” to find, and how some of these finds can change the course of your game.

For example, finding an Underworld Chute minor secret can be a big deal. It allows you to place it in your current room, effectively summoning a way to the underworld. The thing is, it will remain in that room, so other players can use it! And for those of you who are wondering, it’s still worth 1 point if you never place it in the dungeon.

There’s a Book of the Dead major secret that is worth 5 points and counts as a Secret Tome at the end of the game. Worse than a Chalice, right? Well, maybe not. If you can maybe find a card that is worth points per Secret Tome you collected, it can be on par with, or even more valuable than a Chalice. The more important reason for the design is that when you find a Book of the Dead, you start to think about making a trip to the Forbidden Library to hire an Imp Assistant. I’ve found that the best Catacombs players are those who are good at adapting to the changing circumstances that the dungeon provides. (Adept adapters?)

The Underworld Awaits!

So…that’s Clank! Catacombs: Underworld! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the expansion. It was a lot of work to put together, with lots of iteration over time, but we also had a ton of fun creating and developing it. On behalf of the Dire Wolf crew, we hope Underworld makes your Catacombs journeys more exciting and fun!

…oh, and don’t forget to back it on Kickstarter!