Dark Tower (game)

For other uses, see The Dark Tower (disambiguation).

Dark Tower

Designers	Roger Burten Alan Coleman Vincent Erato
Illustrators	Bob Pepper
Publishers	Milton Bradley
Publication	1981 (1981)
Players	1–4
Playing time	90'
Age range	10+
Related games
Dragonmaster Return to Dark Tower

Dark Tower is a 1981 electronic board game, by Milton Bradley Company, for one to four players. The object of the game is to amass an army, collect the three keys to the Tower, and defeat the evil within. Advertising for the game included a television commercial featuring Orson Welles.

A sequel, Return to Dark Tower, was developed by Restoration Games and released in 2022.

Components

The game includes:

• 1 electronic center unit (the eponymous Dark Tower, powered by two "D"-size (LR20) batteries)
• 1 circular cardboard game board, divided into four "kingdom" quadrants
  • 16 plastic buildings for the game board (bazaar, ruin, sanctuary, tomb)
  • Plastic structural pieces to hold the game board together
• 4 plastic warrior pawns
• 1 plastic dragon pawn
• 4 cardboard Pegasus tokens
• Additional game items, including
  • 12 plastic key pieces (gold, silver, brass)
  • 5 plastic flags (Arisilon, Brynthia, Durnin, Zenon, and the Dark Tower)
• 4 cardboard peg boards used to keep track of a player's number of troops, gold and food
  • 42 red plastic Battleship-type score pegs

The Tower itself consists of a small membrane keyboard beneath a "display" (a piece of tinted plastic). Behind the display cover is a carousel containing a number of film cels, which, when backlit by one of three lights mounted underneath, display the appropriate picture on the display cover. The display cover also conceals a digital LED display for representing numbers up to 99. As the Tower rotates and illuminates the appropriate cells during gameplay, it also emits sounds for the events represented by each cell.

The sixteen buildings are divided into four sets (distinguished by color) of four buildings each: ruin, bazaar, tomb, and sanctuary. The twelve keys are divided by color into four gold keys, four silver keys, and four brass keys. Each flag corresponds to one of the four kingdoms (Arisilon, Brynthia, Durnin, and Zenon) and the Dark Tower itself. During the initial assembly of the game, the buildings are placed into the labeled spaces on the board, and stickers are peeled off a sheet and placed on the keys and flags.

Dark Tower kingdoms

Name	Field	Device
Arisilon	Red	Yellow lion
Brynthia	Blue	Pale yellow griffin
Durnin	Yellow	Double-headed falcon
Zenon	Green	White unicorn
Dark Tower	Deep Red	Black dragon

The artwork for the game, including the cels in the Tower, was drawn by Bob Pepper.

The circular game board is divided into four quadrants, each corresponding to one of the four kingdoms, with the Dark Tower in the center. Each kingdom quadrant is divided into spaces, four of which are labeled for a building; the innermost (closest to the center) space is labeled as the Dark Tower, and the outermost ring of spaces includes a space for the citadel for that kingdom, which is where the kingdom's flag is placed and where the player pawn starts.

Gameplay

Dark Tower keypad

Yes Buy	Repeat	No End
Haggle	Bazaar	Clear
Tomb Ruin	Move	Sanctuary Citadel
Dark Tower	Frontier	Inventory

To start, each player receives a cardboard score chart and ten pegs; they use six of the pegs to track their party, starting with 10 warriors, 30 gold, and 25 food rations. The four extra pegs are used to keep track of the extra items (scout, beast, healer, or sword) once they are acquired; keys are placed directly in the appropriate score chart slots as they are acquired. The player selects a pawn and places it in the citadel of their "home" kingdom.

Each player takes turns rotating the Tower to face them and then moving their chosen hero about the board anticlockwise, moving up to one space per turn, as a player may choose to remain in the same space during their turn. More than one player may occupy the same space simultaneously. The quarter of the board in front of a player is their kingdom. Each kingdom quadrant is separated by a "frontier" space; when moving into a new kingdom from the frontier, players may choose to move into any space adjacent to the frontier.

After the player moves their token one space, they then press a button on the Tower that corresponds to the type of space (e.g., Sanctuary, Tomb, Bazaar, Frontier, free/unoccupied space and ultimately onto the Dark Tower space). The Tower then resolves what happens to the player by showing the appropriate cel and reporting whatever occurs. For instance, if the Tower decides that the player has encountered Brigands, it will illuminate the Brigands cel, simultaneously displaying the number of brigands encountered. The Tower resolves the battle by alternately counting off the remaining numbers of friendly troops and Brigands down to a win or loss. Once all events have resolved, the Tower is rotated to the next player and their turn begins.

Turn resolution and signals

Event Space		Safe	Battle	Harms	Treasure
Empty	Possible	Yes	Yes	Yes	Maybe (after winning battle)
	Sound	short beep	battle horn	Refer to harms table	beeping
	Cel	—	Brigands Warriors		Refer to treasure table
Tomb/Ruin	Possible	Yes (when empty)	Yes	No	Yes
	Sound	creaking door shuts	battle horn	—	beeping
	Cel	—	Brigands Warriors		Instant award, refer to treasure table
Sanctuary/Citadel	Possible	Yes	No	No	No
	Sound	high-pitched trill when need identified	—	—	—
	Cel	—
Bazaar	Possible	Yes	No	No	No
	Sound	snake-charmer's music	—	—	—
	Cel	Refer to Bazaar table
Frontier	Possible	Yes	No	No	No
	Sound	triumphant (or sad) music	—	—	—
	Cel	Key missing

Potential harms

Harm	Sound	Cel	Description
Lost	sad music	Lost (Scout)	The player has become lost; they lose a turn and move their token back to the last occupied space. If the player has a scout, the scout cel is illuminated instead and the player remains in the space.
Plague	death march	Plague (Healer)	The player loses two warriors to the plague, unless they own a healer. In that case, the healer cel is illuminated and the player gains two warriors.
Dragon	high-pitched screech	Dragon	The player loses 1⁄4 of their gold and warriors to the attacking dragon, unless they own the dragonsword. In that case, the player slays a dragon and is awarded the gold and warriors which that dragon has already taken. The dragonslayer moves the dragon token to an empty space (no buildings, citadels, or Frontiers) and no players may enter that space until the dragon attacks again.
Cursed	negative music	Cursed	The player loses a turn, moving back to the last occupied space, and loses 1⁄4 of their gold and warriors to the player who used a wizard to curse them.

Potential treasures

Name	Sound	Cel	Description
Gold	beeping	Gold	The number displayed is the total number of bags of gold the player now has. However, the player may not carry more gold than 6× the number of warriors, unless the player owns a beast, which can carry 50 bags of gold by itself.
Key	beep	Key (brass / silver / gold)	Keys are always awarded in the order brass, silver, and gold. Only one key can be found in each foreign kingdom.
Pegasus	lilting music	Pegasus	The Pegasus token can be used to fly to any space within the current kingdom, or from one kingdom to the next, and is surrendered upon use. When flying to another kingdom, the player must already have the key from the originating kingdom.
Dragonsword	beep	Sword	When the player possesses the dragonsword, they will slay the dragon if it attacks.
Wizard	beep	Wizard	The player chooses another player and applies a curse (see harms table).

Bazaar items and signals

Name / Cel	Description
Warrior	Digital display indicates the number of warrior(s) being purchased.
Food	Digital display indicates the number of food ration(s) being purchased.
Beast	One beast may be purchased per player per game.
Scout	One scout may be purchased per player per game. The scout is not surrendered if the player becomes lost.
Healer	One healer may be purchased per player per game. The healer is not surrendered if the player's party becomes stricken with plague.
Bazaar Closed	Each press of the Haggle button gives approximately even chance (50/50) of lowering the price by one bag of gold. However, pressing the Haggle button repeatedly may result in the merchant becoming angry and refusing to sell any goods, indicated by a Bazaar Closed cel.

Each kingdom, besides a player's own, contains one of three keys—bronze, silver and gold, acquired in that order—needed to unlock the Tower. The location of the key within that kingdom is randomly determined by the Tower. Each player will therefore need to travel around the board, through each of the other three kingdoms, until the player has all three keys; players are free to move through spaces in other kingdoms except for the foreign citadel. At this point, the player returns to their kingdom, buys reinforcements for a maximum complement of warriors, and then attempts to unlock the Tower with a key code. Once cracked, this brings them to the final battle to defeat the Tower, which contains a predetermined number of defenders inside. The first player to beat the Tower wins the game; losing the battle requires building up another army.

Litigation

Dark Tower was the subject of trade secret litigation in 1985. Two independent game developers, Robert Burten and Allen Coleman, submitted a game to Milton Bradley titled "Triumph" that involved an electronic tower as the centerpiece. Milton Bradley rejected the game, but proceeded to release Dark Tower some time later. The inventors sued for misappropriation of trade secrets and won a jury verdict for over $700,000. The trial judge, however, vacated the jury's judgement. Despite finding that Milton Bradley had likely "plagiarized the plaintiffs' idea without so much as a by-your-leave", the judge proceeded to issue a directed verdict for the defendant because Burton and Coleman had signed a contract waiving any contractual relationship (which arguably included any duty of confidentiality). The First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding evidence that Milton Bradley entered an implied agreement to keep the game confidential and reinstated the damage award.

Reception

Games magazine included Dark Tower in their "Top 100 Games of 1981", noting especially how the "tower itself swivels so that each player alone views what happens to his own band of warriors".

In a retrospective review of Dark Tower in Black Gate, Scott Taylor said "as I remembered Dark Tower, and its card game predecessor Dragonmaster, I couldn't help but get incredibly nostalgic. There was something truly unique about those games, something almost spiritual, and I can credit this most certainly with the artist who brought them to us, Bob Pepper."

Reviews

• Family Games: The 100 Best

Legacy

Several web-based versions of the game have been developed over the years; an app called Droid Tower developed by Muse of Water was available for Android; and a similar app by MacCrafters is available for iOS.

Sequel

Main article: Return to Dark Tower

Return to Dark Tower was launched on Kickstarter on January 14, 2020, by Restoration Games as a cooperative game for 1–4 players. Designed by Isaac Childres and Rob Daviau, the creators of Gloomhaven and Pandemic Legacy respectively, the game features a motorized rotating tower guided by an app.

See also

• Enchanted Palace (1994–1995)

External links

• Dark Tower at BoardGameGeek
• Original TV commercial with Orson Welles on YouTube
• Dark Tower review with photos, at gamepile.com
• Dark Tower for Android
• Dark Tower for iOS
• Multi player Dark Tower for PC
• Single Player Dark Tower for PC