Super Dungeon Explore - Is it coming back?
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Board Games – Ninja Division (formerly Soda Pop Miniatures) has been posting up a new chibi game based in the Super Dungeon Explore universe: Super Dungeon: Conquest. Supposedly this game will give you a new way to play with the Master Class Miniatures they’ve been releasing as well as your existing collection. Oddly enough the rules they’ve released for free seem to be a variation on the Super Dungeon: Arena Rules that is a tabletop game. The units of measurement are in inches so I guess you’ll play with a ruler and dice. I don’t know that this is what fans of the property are looking for and the skirmish market seems to be flooded with properties with stronger rulesets.
They also announced that they’ll be releasing a new version of Super Dungeon Explore: Devil Island, this appears to be repurposing miniatures from the Ninja All-Stars game. They seem to have a massive stock of these ninja models as they’ve been repurposed in several games. This isn’t that surprising as Ninja All-Stars, while a fun game has some unique issues that make it harder to play than their other games.
Backer’s of their much delayed Kickstarters have been very vocally upset about both announcements. Understandably so, much. bad blood was generated by the mishandling of massive funding they generated back when Sodapop was a hot new company with a unique look and massive booth at GenCon. After years of scope creep and "revisions” they squandered the funding and failed to deliver the products that backers invested in. Overall the whole situation sucks, but they do seem to have a plan that might see the products delivered at some nebulous point in the future. So there is some hope.
With the lock down that’s lasted most of this year my kids have been pulling out many older games from the shelf. Many of them they are still a bit to young to play but when we got to the Ninja Division properties they were super excited. The bright colors, chibi art style and fun mechanics are just so perfect for them that we played through Super Dungeon Explored, Rail Raiders and Ninja All-Stars. Of the three they found Super Dungeon to be the most fun the simple mechanics and video game theme hit all my 7 and 8 year old’s buttons.
Of course being my children they were immediately disappointed that I hadn’t painted the models yet which meant Dad was staying up late squeezing some personal projects onto my painting table.
So far I’ve painted up about half of the Forgotten King box as well as several of the characters that they enjoy playing. The minis are a joy to paint and I wound up tracking down the warbands, tiles and bosses that I didn’t already own just to complete our collection. I’ll be squeezing a few of these in each time I have a little space on my table with the hope being to have it fully painted by the end of the year.
