The Dark Tower board game
The year was 1981, and there was nothing in the world I wanted more than a copy of Milton Bradley’s Dark Tower game. I don’t think there has been anything else I wanted that badly, before, or since, and that Christmas my parents came through! (My parents ALWAYS came through for Christmas!!)
It was a great adventure game. It had a computerized, electronic tower that sat in the center of a round board, which represented four kingdoms. You had to move your pawn through the four kingdoms and then face the dragon in the center of the board. The Dark Tower computer ran the battles and random events.
Unfortunately, Milton Bradley was struck with a lawsuit by a couple of guys who pitched the game to the company in the 70’s, and were rejected. MB then went on to produce the game anyway, and as part of the settlement, MB agreed to pull all games from the shelves and stop making them after that first year - so the game was never made again. I played with my copy until something broke inside the tower, and I think it eventually got thrown out.
About a year ago I was struck by nostalgia, and once again (badly) wanted to get my hands on a copy of the game. I shopped around a bit and discovered that yes, there were copies of the game still out there, and that they were selling on ebay for upwards of $300.00 apiece to collectors. Too expensive for a bit of nostalgia, so I sadly moved on to other concerns.
That was why I was so ecstatic today, to find out that someone recreated the Dark Tower game as a Flash game! Check it out - it’s a classic piece of board game history!!
