Unboxing Week Post Part VII: Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King

Oh man, I’ve finally made it to the final day of Unboxing Week...day seven! Hand cramps aside this has been an interesting exercise in forcing myself to finish off a bunch of unboxings in a short period of time! Before we get into this final day of Unboxing Week, check out the previous six days. You’ll find the links below. 

Unboxing Post I: Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Unboxing Post II: Tokaido

Unboxing Post III: Roll for the Galaxy

Unboxing Post IV: Elder Sign

Unboxing Post V: Dice Brewing

Unboxing Post VI: Brew Crafters

Now that you’ve seen the previous six days, let’s move on to the seventh and final day of Unboxing Week. For the final game I’ve chosen to do an unboxing of a Kickstarter that I funded a little over a year ago. This was for the game Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King. This was a very large Kickstarter by Soda Pop Miniatures (their previous was done in conjunction with Cool Mini Or Not) and Ninja Division which ended up making over $1 million dollars and hitting all of their stretch goals. This made the $100 pledge too good to pass up as they ended up putting in an entire second box with other miniatures and goodies along with the base game. Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King is actually a stand along expansion to Super Dungeon Explore and brings in another way to play the game as well as streamlined rules to the original. There is a ton of stuff that came in this box, so let’s begin with the unboxing! 

To begin with I’ll start off with the box(es) that the game comes in. The box size is the same square shape that has become popular in modern boardgaming. It is roughly the same shape as the Ticket to Ride box. Now, while it is roughly the same width and height, the depth is larger. It would take about three Ticket to Ride boxes to equal the two boxes that came with the “Always Super” pledge for Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King. This gives plenty of room to store all of the goodies that come in these boxes. Both of the boxes (both the base game and the Boo Booty Box) are beautifully done and very high quality. I won’t worry at all about them taking wear and tear as they are made to take it well. Lastly, the artwork on both of these boxes is awesome! I think the box for the base game, while quite busy, is one of the coolest boxes I’ve seen for a game! The Boo Booty Box is also very cool artwork as it looks like a Boo Booty treasure chest monster from the game. Well done Soda Pop! 

Next up are the 3 books that are included in this game. These are the Classic Mode rulebook, the Arcade Mode rulebook, and the Explorer’s Handbook. I will admit that I haven’t gone over the Classic Mode rulebook yet as that mode isn’t really why I bought the game. However, I heard that it is fairly well done and really streamlines the original game and makes it more accessible. I can say that the Classic Mode rulebook looks fantastic and has a ton of great pictures to go over the different scenarios that can happen in the game. The Arcade Mode rulebook is also included. This goes over the rules of the brand new fully co-operative version of the game. I know that this has become a pretty hot topic of people who both love and hate this version. Personally I love it and I have had no problems at all with the rulebook. I can see how some people are having some difficulties in figuring out some of the rules but I think most of them make sense and are fairly thematic to the game. Again, this rulebook is absolutely beautiful and has a ton of great illustrations to help with the rules questions. Lastly there is an Explorer’s Handbook that has some of the story of the world of Crystalia. 

Next on the docket are the cardboard components and tokens. There are a ton of different tokens that come in this game. It was a fantastic game to punch (second only to Brew Crafters!) all the different bits out of their sprues. There are tokens for health, tokens for potions, tokens for status effects, tokens for wrath, tokens for princess coins, tokens for trap spaces, etc. As you should be able to tell, there are a whole lot of nice components that come with this. The artwork on all of these tokens is great and they are very thick cardboard. I’m not worried at all about these taking wear and tear as they are very tough pieces. 

Next up in the base game for Forgotten King are the cards. These are pretty good cardstock but they aren’t the linen finish that I love. However, while they aren’t linen finished, they do have a nice matte coat that makes them perfect for shuffling and they look great. The cards come in two different sizes, the normal poker size and the mini-size cards that are popular with Fantasy Flight Games. In the full size cards you have 48 loot cards, 36 treasure cards, 4 hero cards, and 18 monster cards. These cards continue the great artwork of the game and look great. The mini-cards come with 24 arcade mode cards, 36 explore cards, and 6 pet/wonder cards. The mini cards also look and feel great. 

Another thing to discuss is the 6 double-sided dungeon tiles. These are all super thick cardboard and the art of them look absolutely beautiful! I love all of the work that the artists put into the tiles to just make them look fantastic and so thematic with the dungeon delve that is this game. Just look through these tiles and check out all of the cool details that they’ve put on them. I also love that they are double-sided and modular so you can really put the dungeon together however you want to. 

We can’t talk about the components of a dice-chucking dungeon romp of a game like Super Dungeon Explore without talking about the dice! These dice are wonderful! They are all a translucent material and the 3 different colors of dice have different sides to them. The base game comes with 8 translucent blue dice, 6 translucent red dice, and 2 translucent green dice. They have great heft to them and it just feels great when you get to roll a handful of dice to crush your opponents beneath your newly acquired boots! 

Lastly, the base game comes with a ton of absolutely beautiful models! Soda Pop Miniatures has done an absolutely wonderful job in creating these miniatures. Now, understand that they are done in the anime chibi-style that they had in the original game as well. Now, I will just say that I love the chibi-style and think that they’ve done a fantastic job in creating a certain feel in this game and the miniatures just lend to that. This base set comes with 4 hero characters, 1 dungeon boss, 2 mini-bosses, 6 rabid squirrel creep models, 6 pets, 5 treasure chests, 3 boo booty models, and 4 different spawn points that come with a total of 30 models between the 4 of them. I won’t take the time to go over all of the model names, just look at the pictures to see how cool they look! 

 

 

This concludes the base set of Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King, but there were a whole bunch of other goodies that came with the Kickstarter Boo Booty box. To begin with they put in 3 decks of monster/hero cards for the Dragonback Peaks, the Caverns of Roxor, and the Von Drakk Manor. These are all upgrade cards for every model that was in the original game so that you can use them with the new rules that have been created for this expansion. I think it is cool that they included these with the Kickstarter so that you can take the original game and add those models and warbands right into Forgotten King. 

 

 

They also added a deck of cards that you can use to create “dark heroes” for some of the models. They cards turn some of the different mini-bosses into hero characters which give the game more variety. They also put in 30 plastic heart tokens and 12 potion tokens which look really cool! A “fun” addition that they added, just because they could, was a metal princess coin. We just end up using this as a token to help us know who needs to be used in the next turn. Another “fun” thing that they added in this game was a Crystalia coloring book. Why did they do this? I think they were just looking for another stretch goal but I will say that my 3-year-old daughter likes to color on it! Also, of course you get the full-size Boo Booty box that all of the extras came in. 

Lastly, the Boo Booty box was loaded with more miniatures! They ended up putting the Mistmourn Coast Warband into this box which includes 15 monster models, a mini-boss, and another hero. They also added in another 5 heroes (2 of which could also be used as mini-bosses) and another pet. They added the Pumpkin Patch spawn point which comes with about 12 more monster models. Then, because they hadn’t added enough models into this box, they put in another mini-boss and 6 giri creep models. There were so many more models shoved into this box that just adds to the variety of the game. 

This game is a bunch of fun. It isn’t heavy. It isn’t hard. It is just a fun game to set up and throw your characters into the game to crush the monsters that will try to destroy you. It is just some dice-chucking, Gauntlet-like fun! Phew, I did it! I made it through all seven days of my Self-imposed Unboxing Week. Hopefully I’ll actually keep up with my unboxings from now on so I don’t need to do this again! As always, that so much for reading and let me know if you have any questions or comments. Until next time, game on!