Alchemist's Bench History: Dark Tower

Dark Tower was a 1981 release from Milton Bradley Electronics. It features a circular cardboard gameboard with three-dimensional plastic landmarks, divided into four countries which are in turn subdivided into irregularly-shaped movement spaces.

At the board's center stands a plastic tower (about 9.5 inches or 24 cms in height, plus flag) which contains a game computer and mechanized projection system. The tower arbitrates the results of battles, the distribution of artifacts, and other game events. The tower is on a swivel base so that it can be rotated to face each player on his or her turn. Small images and a two-digit numeric readout are displayed on the Tower's face. These, in combination with sound effects, allow the Tower to communicate with the players. Player input is via a 12-button membrane touchpad.

Although Dark Tower qualifies as a "fantasy boardgame" and executes its motif well, it is not an adventure boardgame in the HeroQuest mold. Rather, each player races the others in a "quest" around the circular board. The quest consists of trying to locate a key in each of the foreign countries, then return to his or her own country and proceed to the inner part of the board and attack the Tower itself. The players can apply Curses and place obstacles to slow each other down, but they never enter combat against each other. All battles are fought against the monstrous "Brigands."

The scenery mentioned above -- a Tomb, a Ruin, a Sanctuary and a Citadel in each country -- is badly out of scale with the hero pawns that accompany the game. The scenic pieces are similar in style and effect to the landmarks found on the board in most editions of The Game of Life. The buildings in each country, along with their matched hero, are all molded in common colors, so that there is a beige county, a gold one, a brown one and a dark gray one.

The hero pawns are nicely sculpted by boardgame standards, though they are much less detailed or dynamic than those found in HeroQuest and the games that followed it. The Dark Tower pawns are smallish by HeroQuest scale. Each of the four is a completely different design, reflecting four different periods in European history.

There is also a Dragon pawn included. This is used as an obstacle that the players can put in each others' paths.