Wednesday 9 May 2012

Gaming Night - Super Dungeon Explore

Last night I went to my Local Friendly Neighbourhood Gaming Club and as it was something of a spur of the moment thing I hadn't organised a match up or anything There seems to be a lot of interest in boardgames at the moment in the club so I was quite happy to stand around and watch a game of Last Night on Earth, a zombie apocalypse board game. It seemed a bit more complex than the game of Zombies!!! I played the other week but there were certain advancements as in proper objectives and a gamer playing the zombies. I think if I was just going to lay down on a zombie game it'd be Zombies!!! it was a little more fun but it depends what you're after.

Following that we got a game of Super Dungeon Explore in. It's like Heroquest, band of adventurers enter a dungeon and try get treasure and beat the baddies. What's different is the cute Manga Super Deform characters and the 80's video game metaphor used throughout. The figures are awesome and it was really fun to play with loads of swapping of potions to regain health and lost 'lives'. By the end of the game our intrepid band of four heroes was reduced to just two but we had a laugh. Worth checking out.


I've had most fun on gaming nights playing these games but I can't help feeling like it's a waste of a night. 40k is the thing I want to do but it's a pain getting all the miniatures out and it's slightly more anti-social as it is a competition most times between you and the guy you're playing with. With the boardgames it's fun and you can have a laugh, there's less invested in it so if someone dies horribly everyone giggles but at the end of the day it's a bit of fun. When I played 40k last week I realised what a difference a few weeks off made.

So I'm struggling to come to terms with the fun and frolics of the intangible against the serious but experiential benefits of 40k. It's like choosing between playing Angry Birds and Dawn of War? Still, it's all good so at least I had a good night.

4 comments:

  1. You might want to wait for a few months until Zombicide from CMON comes out. I hear its like LNOE only better. I love LNOE so I cant wait for Zombiecide. As far as the 40k thing, there are many other games out there that will give you the crunch you want while still having fun. I went through the same thing a few years ago. Good luk on your journey.

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  2. Thanks PapaSpanky, I look at Warmachine, like the figures and fluff, see a healthy group of guys playing at the club and like the idea of having tactical options to enhance each figure and potentially have less to pack up at the end of an evening.

    BUT I really don't want to start something new, I'm already paying out for 40k - all the new 'nids are coming out of my pocket not my son's and obviously there's still the Dark Angels, but then 6th Edition will probably provide me with a bevy of goodness on that front.

    I'll keep travelling though and I'm glad you're along for the ride too, stay frosty.

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  3. I rather enjoy board games--often moreso than 40k. If you're interested in some of my personal favs, let me know. I do own Super Dungeon Explore (Was a christmas gift from a friend that knows I hate anime). I went into it with an open mind, but after playing it three times in one session, I didn't care for it. I'm thinking we must have been playing it wrong.

    When you played, did the console dominate? In all three games I played, the console killed a player in the first 1-2 turns, and then I was able to focus fire and beat down the other afterwards. It didn't seem like any fun at all. What was your experience like?

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  4. I'm not sure I understand quite the dynamics of it, is the console the 'Dungeon Master' so to speak. If so then he didn't really get a look in until the dragon turned up and we still had to finish of the miniboss. I think he set it up for three players but we had four so we might have had an easy time of it, with less opportunities for him to spawn monsters. I played the shadow assassin character which was quite cool, she got to backstab a lot which helped whittle away the baddies and by the time we got rid of the first spawn point I could teleport through the shadows to catch up with the other guys.

    I think the four of us playing together and ensuring we got loads of potions and healing effects helped but once the dragon turned up it got pretty brutal, hence two of the party dieing. However, I do feel those deaths were just a little unlucky and to carry on with the video game style I'd imagine it would have been at a point in a game that I'd have reopened the save point as I know we were just short on luck that didn't result on the entire party surviving.

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