There’s a healthy amount of overlap between the hobbies of video gaming and tabletop board games; especially with both hobbies arguably at the height of an indie market boom.
Adding to this relationship between gaming platforms, Super Dungeon Tactics is an upcoming turn-based strategy RPG based on the multiplayer fantasy board game Super Dungeon Explore by Ninja Division. The PC, Mac and Linux title, developed by Underbite Games, looks to bring the overall look and feel of the tabletop version to an expanded audience.
Super Dungeon Tactics takes players to a variety of colorful and dangerous locales.
With a vaguely anime-inspired chibi art style and character models, Super Dungeon Tactics presents a top-down strategy/role-playing experience reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Players have several character classes at their disposal when building an adventuring party, each with differing strengths, weaknesses, abilities and equipment. In the full version, specific loadouts can be equipped before embarking on a quest.
Classes in the original Super Dungeon Explore are present again in Tactics, including the familiar fighter, ranger, mage, knight, rogue and more, as well as the versatile and clever warden class.
Battles consist of arranging characters into starting formation and maneuvering them around the map to engage various monsters and baddies. Careful placement will be required to prevent suffering serious harm; the battles quickly raise the stakes in terms of enemy numbers and skill.
Where Super Dungeon Tactics sets itself apart is with the ability dice system. Between each turn, a handful of dice are rolled by the computer, each bestowing a random bonus such as attack power, a defense boost, health restoration, ect. Both players and enemies select bonuses from this dice roll and assign them to party members. Assigning dice bonuses to the right characters can make the difference between a round of combat going your way or ending in disaster.
Like in the board game Super Dungeon Tactics is based on, placement on the map and the wise use of abilities is crucial.
Upon release, Super Dungeon Tactics will ship with a full campaign on top of a quick-play mode. Players will fight their way through richly animated environments to a charming yet thrilling soundtrack, grabbing valuable loot all the while. Character progression is tied to gear, so players can swap weapons and armor among party members to keep characters from falling behind.
Fans of Super Dungeon Explore may have a new way to get their cartoonish dungeon-crawling fix with Tactics, which is expected to release in the fall of 2016.