This game was loaned to us by Nerdy Pup Games via the UK Board Game Review Circle on Instagram in exchange for an honest review.
All thoughts and opinions are our own.
Super Squad High
Nerdy Pup Games
6.8
What is Super Squad High?
Designed by Michael Addison and published by Nerdy Pup Games, Super Squad High is a co-operative game that has players balancing their school and social lives whilst also being teen superheroes. Players will have to fight the city’s crime wave whilst keeping up with their schoolwork and trying to unmask the villain behind it all. Super Squad High is aimed at ages of 14+ and has a play time of 1-2 hours. It includes a solo mode and can be played by up to four people.
What's in the box?
Each Player has the following components:
- 1 Player Boards
- 6 Green Meeple Heroes (Colour choices are green, blue, pink or purple)
- 6 Memory Cubes
- 4 Relationship Token
- 1 Health Marker
Super Squad High also includes:
- 1 Rulebook
- 1 Game Board
- 8 Custom Dice
- 8 Student ID Cards
- 8 Classmate Cards
- 8 Power Cards
- 12 Class Cards
- 40 Costume Cards
- 18 Clue Cards
- 2 Hall Pass Cards
- 48 Meetup Cards
- 16 Crime Cards
- 4 Summary Cards
- 32 Schoolwork Tokens
- 8 Rumour Tokens
- 24 Like Tokens
- 24 Classmate Trait Tokens
- 5 Damage Tokens
- 1 Leader Token
- 4 Rift Tokens
- 3 Clue Track Markers
- 1 Grey Time Double Meeple
- 1 Cloth Bag
- 1 Mastermind Envelope
Super Squad High is beautifully put together. It leans hard into that fun, modern comic-book vibe, and it really pops when everything’s spread out on the table. The colours are bold, the characters are wonderfully diverse, and Tan Ganguly’s artwork shines throughout.
The hero meeples are an instant favourite for us — having them printed is a small touch that adds a lot of charm. Overall, the components feel sturdy and intentional, with custom dice and plenty of tokens that make the game really tactile and satisfying to play. Every piece feels like it belongs and supports the theme perfectly.
The only thing we bumped on is the sheer footprint. The oversized board looks fantastic and keeps the iconography crystal clear, but it does ask for more table space than the game really needs.
How to Play Super Squad High
Setup
Start by placing the board in the centre of the table. Lay out the Classmate cards around it, matching each card to its interest icon. Shuffle the Trait tokens and give each Classmate one of every type by placing them on the matching spaces.
Randomly choose a Villain, Scheme, and Motive to create your scenario. Then adjust the clue track for your player count by covering the 2, 3, and/or 4-player marks as needed. Place a number of Class cards in the centre equal to your player count, filling any gaps with Hall Pass cards. Sort the Meetup decks by interest and the Costume decks by colour, placing them within reach.
Organise the Crime deck with Level 1 on top and Level 2 underneath. Remove cards based on player count, as instructed in the rulebook.
Each player chooses a colour and takes the matching tokens. You’ll also draw two ID cards and two Power cards, keep one of each, and put the others back. Then take a Costume card that matches your choices, along with one random card to complete your starting deck. From the bag, draw two Class tokens and place them in the top two slots on your player board
Finally, choose one player to be the Team Leader.
Taking a Turn
Each round—called a day—is split into Morning, Afternoon, and Night. Every player gets six actions per day, two for each time of day.
At the start of the day, the Team Leader draws Crime cards equal to the number of players and tucks them under the Leader token. Before anyone takes actions in a given time of day, the Leader checks the Crime cards. Any crimes matching the current time of day are placed onto the board in their labelled locations.
Players then take turns, beginning with the Leader, by placing an action token onto the board. You can either:
- Visit a location, or
- Fight crime
Each space can only be used by one player—once it’s taken, it’s taken.
Winning and Losing
The game builds toward uncovering the villain. Once the final clue is revealed, you’ll face the villain directly. Complete all the villain’s tasks to win.
You lose if any of the following happen:
- You can’t draw a Crime card at the start of a day
- The supply of damage tokens runs out
- Any hero ends the day with an F grade
Our Thoughts on Super Squad High
Super Squad Highmakes a bold first impression, and that starts with the set-up. It’s not the quickest game to get to the table — there are randomised elements to prepare, like the crime deck, character cards, and personal superpowers — and that does take a bit of time. Once the random bits are sorted, the rest is mostly layout work
The rulebook is generally solid, but there are a few moments where details feel vague or incomplete. We always try to play our first game straight from the rulebook, and this was one where we ended up pausing to check a video explanation because certain interactions didn’t quite click. It explains the basics well — it’s the little edge cases that could use more clarity.
In terms of price, Super Squad High is currently only available directly from Nerdy Pup Games, and for what’s in the box, the value feels fair. The production quality is where Super Squad High truly shines. The superhero meeples are a highlight, the cardboard and wood components feel great, and everything comes together to create a cohesive, comic-book-style world. The theme runs through every part of the game — the board, the cards, the iconography — and it really sells the idea of training as a young hero in a high-pressure academy. It really does feel like a premium product. Future editions could be made more affordable by changing out some of the more premium components.
The gameplay loop is easy to grasp: two workers per phase, clear actions, and a nice rhythm once things get moving. We’ve only played with two players, but from our experience, the game feels like it would be smoother and more forgiving at higher counts. With just the two of us, juggling the crime track and progression toward objectives sometimes felt like choosing between two equally urgent fires.
There’s also a noticeable number of steps required before you can actually push the game toward conclusion — multiple processes, checks, and little memory tests that don’t always result in meaningful progress if you guess wrong or misremember an element. That can be frustrating, especially when it feels like you’ve put in the work but gained nothing from it.
Keeping up with the crimes also adds pressure that sometimes gets in the way of enjoying the more exciting parts of the game. Ignoring them is rarely an option, but spending actions on them doesn’t always feel satisfying either. The result is a game packed with mechanisms that demand attention, and it’s easy to slip on one of them and suddenly find yourself close to losing.
There’s no denying Super Squad High has variety. With multiple characters, powers, villains, schemes, and motives, you’re unlikely to see the same combination twice. It’s not necessarily a “play it twice in a night” sort of game, but it does have a lot of longevity — fans of big, modular puzzles will find plenty to dig into here.
Overall, Super Squad High is a fun and cleverly themed game, but we don’t think it’s quite the right fit for us. The core loop is enjoyable, yet at two players the difficulty felt a little too steep, making wins rarer than we’d like. While we could homebrew adjustments, we generally expect a game to feel balanced at all advertised player counts straight out of the box.
That said, the theme is fantastic, and the designer has done a brilliant job weaving it through every part of the experience. If you play with a larger group, Super Squad High is absolutely worth a try — there’s a lot to enjoy here.
Rob 6.6 - Jess 7.0
💡 Love thematic games with fun meeple? Check out our review of Kingdomino!
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