Sirrob01

Wizards of the coast (WOTC) has just re-released the Dungeon! board game. I played this game a heap as a kid, although it was one of the very early 1975 Aussie editions by  Jedko. So the game was actually older than me (still is).  I was very excited that WOTC had done a reprint and re-release and basically kept the core of the original game intact ie they resisted the urge to tinker with the game.

The game on re-release was very reasonably priced ($22 AUD) which worried me a little as I wasn’t to sure how good the quality would be. However I took a gamble and ordered three copies , one for myself, one for my brother and one for my good friend. The three of us played dungeon way to much together so I wanted to get a copy for each of us, as much for the nostalgia and memories as anything.

Ready to explore the Dungeon

Opening the box up I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the components the board is solid and actually backed on a thicker board than what I’ve come to consider as normal. The cards are simple and colourful and the artwork overall well executed. If there is one item which was a little bit of a disappointment it was the player counters included, they are fairly unstable and don’t look that great they are okay but just not as good as the rest of the components or as functional. The only other bit lacking was no storage compartments for the bits basically just an empty box. Those minor quibbles aside the reprint is excellent value for money.

What you end up with after you unwrap the cards

I decided to work at fitting out the box to better hold the components as well as replacing the player counters. First up I had to come up with a layout for the box to fit all the components. To this end I cut out 2 x 1 inch frames of 8mm thick PVC foam board and glued these together which made a lip raised up from the base of the box by 16mm. This was primarily to accommodate the 16mm square dice. I then subdivided this into 3 rows 2 down each side to hold the cards and a larger section in the middle for the tokens and the new player counters these strips are just under 1/2 an inch wide. Below you can see a picture of the box fitted out ready for filling.

Next up I designed some card-boxes to hold the monster, treasure and spell cards. I based the design of the boxes on a shrunk down cigarette packet (cigarette companies got that right). I textured the boxes to resemble locked chests and did 3 different colors; blue (Spells/Spares), red (Monsters) and yellow (treasure). I am very happy with how these turned out and I plan to  strength the hinge area on the inside with a strip of sticky tape. I also came up with a new Silhouette/Robo/Cameo cut template that means the Cameo and SD marks are on the one page but does mean I need to release two slightly different cut files. I think releasing two cut files is slightly better than releasing two pdf versions as the cut files are normally very small 50kb as apposed to pdfs which can be 5-10mb, the only problem is I cant test the Cameo cut files so if someone uses it and it works okay please let me know.  I’ve included the deckboxes at the end of this post if anyone else wants them, I included 3 blank/unlabelled versions at the end of the PDF.

The last little improvement  I made was to the player tokens. Previously I had stumbled across some nice miniatures by Battle Studio, unfortunately they had no backs so I couldn’t use them for wargaming but for Dungeon! were facing doesn’t matter they were perfect. I basically bought 4 of there sets and then picked out the minis I liked, I then modded the mini’s. Firstly I colour coded the characters clothing to the right colours for the classes, next I laid them out the Onemonk way ie black borders and tabs, lastly I made some mods such as switching some weapons, in the case of the elf mage she is composed of 3 different miniatures. The mini’s themselves are sized almost spot on 25mm to the eyes although I did need to scale a couple a little. I used the flat Reivaj basing technique for these and made 20mm hexagon bases which fit well with the game board. I ended up with 16 character minis, 8 male, 8 female:

Top Row Warriors, Bottom Row Rogues

Top Row Mages, Bottom Row Clerics

I was very happy with the size of the paper miniatures at 25mm and I’m seriously considering scaling all future card miniatures to 25mm to the eyes as then I could base my terrain on 20mm instead of 25mm and save a little space. I still have some other additions I’d like to make like some custom treasure cards and an expanded rulebook but for the moment I just want to get the 3 copies all finished up to the below layout then I’ll look at additions in the future:

Flip Top Card Box Download:

Dungeon Card Box

Dungeon Card Box Instructions

Below are the cut files as usual I’m tricking wordpress and have renamed the extension to odt, after you download them rename the extension studio

Dungeon Card Box SD Cut

Dungeon Card Box Cameo Cut

In case  anyone wants the blank mesh, I’m releasing the below file into the Public Domain, I’d appreciate a mention if you use it but no obligation.

Dungeon! Cardbox Mesh Only

Enjoy the card boxes and if you see a copy of Dungeon! grab it you wont be disappointed for the price 🙂