Dungeon Fantasy GURPS

Dungeon Crawling with GURPS
The Dungeon Fantasy (DF) line of digital downloads from Steve Jackson Games and published 2008 has been around for a while. The first four products in the line are subtitled, Adventurers, Dungeons, The Next Level, and Sages. At one point they were all available as print books, but are currently digital only. The goal of the Dungeon Fantasy line is to enter a cave complex or other "dungeon" - type environment "- and seeing lots of monsters, killing them, and taking their treasure." Sound familiar?
Dungeon Fantasy supports players who are interested in playing the classic type of game White Box introduced the world to, but using the GURPS rules. DF1 Adventurers contains guidelines for creating the kind of class - based iconic adventurers White Box called fighting men, magic users and clerics, as well as thieves and other later classes, using the point-buy system of GURPS. DF1 does this using templates which describe the iconic character and list suggested attributes, skills, advantages, disadvantages and spells. The resulting characters are described as "two dimensional 'heroes' from a non-culture", but with the necessary abilities to survive in a dungeon environment where combat and deadly traps are common.

Once players have characters ready to adventure the referee using Dungeon Fantasy 2 Dungeons can introduce them to the "dungeon". DF2 is a game aid to help referees design a suitable environment and choose GURPS rules that facilitate a "fast and loose dungeon crawl". The emphasis in DF2 is tailoring GURPS to give a game similar to the classic dungeon experience. Suggestions include handling traps and environmental challenges frequently associated with the dungeon environment and for hack-n-slash combat with monsters, looting and recovering, all in keeping with the GURPS design philosophy of making the game one's own. The DF products are not a stand alone system, but rather tools to help the referee use GURPS Basic Set in a very specific way.
Although I have had the Dungeon Fantasy books 1-4 for some time, they are not something I consider essential to running a dungeon-style fantasy campaign with GURPS. I was already running GURPS as a fantasy RPG before I read DF. I have borrowed ideas from DF and find there are many good suggestions contained therein for the style of game I like to referee. For players who didn't progress to GURPS play by starting with The Fantasy Trip then Man-To-Man, DF might be more essential.
Steve Jackson Games recently started a Kickstarter campaign to fund a Dungeon Fantasy stand alone boxed game powered by GURPS. I am going out-on-a-limb thinking this will not be vapor-ware because Steve Jackson Games has a good history with past Kickstarters. How much this new product will make use of the DF play aids is only a guess. The new product promises five new books, cardboard figures, combat maps and dice. It looks like a beginner box to me, an entry point for the system that is manageable, something GURPS has needed for a while. With new artwork dedicated to the fantasy genre and a streamlined system easier for beginning players, I am looking forward to the Dungeon Fantasy box.