Alchemist's Bench: Cardboard Castles

By Nathan Stout

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After playing HeroQuest many times, the game play can become monotonous if you don't do something to liven it up a bit. If you feel your gaming experience is dragging, try something new.

Here I have made a custom level with a custom map. This battle is set in a lavish castle setting. It adds a fresh and exciting twist to the game and it's cheap to make. It also gives the characters a really large space in which to battle, unlike the small dungeon rooms on the game board.

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It is basically several pieces of cardboard that have been drawn on so give the appearance of the floor and walls of a castle/dungeon. You really don't have to make a floor if you don't want to, just place the HeroQuest game board below the walls. Although all this looks huge and difficult to do, it's very easy. Here you can see that it's just the cardboard pieces being held up by whatever is handy (including a cup and a stapler).

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If you take a closer look, you will notice that I have drawn one inch squares all over the cardboard floor (using a ruler) then I used a marker to make it look like the dungeon squares on the main HeroQuest game board. After that I used a pen to make marks and cracks on the squares. Here you can see the squares, marks, and cracks close up...

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These types of custom levels are good to place in the middle of a long quest campaign. The best part about making a custom level like this is that you can reuse the pieces again and again for different levels.

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As you can see in the picture above, I have some irregular spaces in front of the castle door. These are fine as long as you make them all big enough for a piece to sit on. Just consider each irregular space equals the size of the regular spaces.

I will bring you some more of these custom level props in the future as well as custom quests, tips on painting minis and comparisons between minis from different games. If you have created a custom level, submit it so we can start a custom level area.