HeroQuest (Retro Board Game Review)

Review by Paeter Frandsen

The year is 1990. I'm a 7th grader in junior high and it's Christmas. Like most years, I have my heart set on a particular toy. And like most years, my parents were faithful in putting that toy under the tree for me. But this year, my parents also included a board game they thought I might like, one I had never heard of but immediately took a strong interest in. Little did my parents know that this game would launch an entirely new hobby for me, and also be the board game I spent the largest number of collected hours playing in my entire life. The game, of course, was HeroQuest.

Published in 1989 by Milton Bradley in cooperation with Games Workshop, HeroQuest was an attempt at taking the classic Dungeons and Dragons paper-and-pencil RPG experience and distilling it into a board game that could be played in just a couple of hours.

In HeroQuest, 1-4 players take on the roles of classic fantasy heroes, including a Barbarian, an Elf, a Dwarf, and a Wizard. Each game played requires that all 4 characters be involved, so if there are fewer than four hero players, more than one hero must be controlled by a single player. (In most games I have played, a single player controls all four heroes, which I would recommend for players who already have experience with tactical board games.) Each player keeps a small character sheet in front of them, which includes their equipment, items, and character stats.

Stats are very basic in the game, including Attack Dice, Defense Dice, Body Points, and Mind Points. The number of attack and defense dice used changes depending on the equipment being used by a character, while body points decrease or increase as characters take damage or regain health. Mind points keep track of mental health or mental ability, but do not play a role in the game very often.

During each game, called a "quest," heroes are represented by miniatures exploring a game board, which is progressively revealed as they move across it. While the game board always consists of the same rooms and corridors, the placement of doors and walled-off sections changes from quest to quest, resulting in a near-endless number of dungeon layouts. The contents of corridors and rooms are revealed only as players discover them, making exploration a key element of the experience.

On a hero player's turn, he may roll 2 six-sided dice to determine the maximum number of spaces he may move during that turn and then move his character within those limitations. Before or after moving, he may also perform one action, including attacking, casting a spell, searching, or disarming a trap.

Players attack by rolling the included custom "combat dice." These six-sided dice have three sides with a skull icon, two sides with a white shield icon, and one side with a black shield icon. Every skull rolled equals one hit that will cause damage if unblocked. After one player rolls to attack, the other player involved rolls to defend. Heroes block hits with white shields and enemies block hits with black shields.

The Wizard and Elf each have access to a number of spells they may cast. Each spell may be cast only once per quest. These spells can do damage, heal body points, or in some way improve or inhibit the abilities of heroes and monsters. Spells (and ranged attacks) may be performed on any figure within unbroken line of sight.

Hero players may search for treasure, traps, or secret doors. If a hero searches for treasure, he will usually draw a card from the treasure deck, which contains a combination of good and bad cards. Gold and potions may be found, but wandering monsters and hazards also lurk in the deck. Searching for traps reveals any traps in the room or hallway being searched. Revealed traps may then be disarmed. Trap spaces that are moved into without being disarmed are sprung and unleash their effects on the unsuspecting hero.

The placement of objects and enemy figures is handled by "Zargon," or as experienced players might casually call him, the "game master." The Zargon player fulfills the same role as a traditional game master in a paper-and-pencil RPG. He reveals elements on the game board as the hero players discover them, and also handles all combat rolls and tactical decisions for all enemy figures. The game is balanced in such a way that the heroes have something of an advantage. HeroQuest is not intended to be a competitive game. The role of Zargon is to make the game challenging and fun, but not necessarily to "win" the game.

Zargon makes use of a quest book, which contains a completed map of the current quest, with symbols and icons indicating where objects and enemies should be placed once the heroes have entered the appropriate location on the board. The quest book also includes notes about where hidden traps are located, where special items can be found, or special circumstances, such as monsters that are more powerful than normal.

Each quest has a unique objective, which usually involves finding and killing a big bad monster, but may also involve rescuing someone who has been captured, or simply finding a way out of the dungeon. Once this objective has been completed, the game is over and the hero players win. If all of the hero players die, they lose.

Between quests, heroes regain all of their body points and may purchase new equipment to better prepare themselves for the next quest. All character advancement is represented solely by finding and using better equipment, which may seem strange to classic RPG fans. However, I find this to be thematically more realistic than a character suddenly becoming more powerful simply because he's lived life a little more and gained some "experience."

Each quest lasts about 2 hours, sometimes more. The basic game comes with 14 quests, a hefty amount of play time. Plus, numerous fan sites include new quests that add countless hours of gameplay.

I began playing HeroQuest in junior high and continued playing it throughout high school, college, and beyond, adding numerous homebrewed rules to grant the game more complexity and challenge. In the US, only two expansions were released, while overseas four more were published, but even without any of these official expansions, there are a number of fan-made expansions available for free online that add tremendous replay value to the game. Milton Bradley also released the instruction manuals for all expansions for online download a number of years ago, so if you want, you may print out quest maps for all published quests and purchase your own miniatures and props to represent them.

Although I played HeroQuest for many years, sometime around 2004 the formula began to wear thin and no amount of house ruling seemed enough to keep the magic alive. In 2005 I began playing Fantasy Flight Games' Descent: Journeys In The Dark, which in many ways was structurally similar to HeroQuest, but with better components and more complex tactical rules. Descent was an amazing gaming experience that for years only became better as new expansions were added, including an epic campaign mode which, like HeroQuest, allowed hero characters to keep their equipment and continue advancing their capabilities. But sometime around 2010, the rules of Descent began to feel cumbersome and the process of playing became a grind. I began to look for another way to scratch my strongly-developed itch for dungeon crawling.

So today, I'm looking at HeroQuest with new eyes. Stripping away all of the house-ruling I had grown used to, I ask myself how this classic game holds up to the scrutiny of my now veteran gamer eyeballs.

In a nutshell, it holds up very well for its originally intended audience. HeroQuest was designed for players age 10 and older, and that still sounds about right. HeroQuest is a great game for pre-teens and teenagers, and may even work for players a little younger. (I'm hoping that my six year old will be ready to play HeroQuest in its standard format in about two more years. Based on how he does with the simplified rules I use with him now, I think he will be.)

The game does have some weaknesses that seasoned gamers will notice, however. Zargon's role can be fairly passive at times. He can only act on his turn if there are monsters on the board. Otherwise, he does nothing and waits for the heroes to either enter a new area, or possibly find a wandering monster while searching for treasure.

Skilled hero players will also find themselves in a rut very soon, as they learn to systematically search each room and corridor for traps, treasure, and secret doors. Exploration quickly becomes repetitive and boring for smarter and more tactically-minded hero players. In this way, intelligent play is rewarded with a more boring experience for all.

If you're a seasoned adult gamer looking for a dungeon crawl you can play with a younger gamer, HeroQuest is a great choice that will be fun for you both. It also has the coveted value of being a game that can grow more complex for advanced players through the use of established fan variants. It's also a game that's easy to house-rule yourself, but the numerous great house-ruling options online do the work for you and eliminate most of the game's problems.

Over the summer I began looking for new ways to add tactical options to HeroQuest. My goal was to do so without taking away from the streamlined nature of the game, which a number of house rules for HeroQuest (including my old house rules) tend to do. I've run five different games using my new house rules, and so far the reactions from all of those playing has been very positive.

In these rules modifications, I've added new hero abilities for each hero and one unique monster ability for every monster. I've also incorporated a modified "threat token" system, inspired by Descent, which gives Zargon more tactical options and eliminates the repetitious pattern of exploration that hero players can fall into when using the classic rules. I've also created HeroQuest stats for every monster released for Descent 1st edition and the base set of Descent 2nd edition. I've also posted all of my variant rules for HeroQuest at BoardGameGeek, for anyone interested in trying them out.

HeroQuest, like the classic RPGs it is inspired by, may have some potential to provoke thought or conversation about spiritual matters. However, this potential is entirely in the hands of the players, and especially those of a Zargon player who creates his own stories and quests to be played. On its own, the game does not lend itself to any deep thought, but is simply a fun tactical fantasy game.

Although the game is out of print, I wouldn't bother writing this review if it wasn't possible to get your hands on this game for a reasonable amount of money. The average game of this nature will cost you between $60-$100 today, and that's about what you can expect to pay for a used copy. Some used copies will be missing components or miniatures, but most of these items can be easily substituted for with the miniatures available at your local game store or from other games of a similar type that you may already own.

There is also something of a reprint in the works. Gamezone Minatures, a company in Spain, has the license for publishing it in that country and plans to release a 25th Anniversary edition of HeroQuest in 2014. You can check out their Kickstarter page for all the details. The reprint rights are limited to Spain, but Gamezone will be publishing an English version of the game that will be available from online retailers that ship to the United States. (Of course, plan to pay a pretty penny in shipping costs!)

If the miniatures produced by Gamezone Miniatures are an indication of component quality, this version of HeroQuest may even be better looking than Fantasy Flight's Descent! It has been stated that the game will not be an exact replica in terms of adventure content and, by implication, rules. However, it will retain the "essence" of the original game. This seems to be supported by their choice to use the same name and present it as a "25th Anniversary" edition.

The 25th Anniversary edition aims to ship out to Kickstarter supporters and online retailers in Spain in December of 2014. While the images shared of the new version look fantastic so far, the release window and rules changes add up to both a wait and a risk for those looking to experience HeroQuest for the first time this way.

Regardless of how this new version turns out, the original version of the game is well worth seeking out for those who want a "D&D Lite" experience and are looking for a rule set that is simple, yet contains plenty of potential for tactical complexity. Given the two natures of this game (played straight from the box versus played with established variants), I'm giving it two scores.

Recommended for Ages 10+

Original Game Rating-
Quality: 8.0/10
Relevance: 5.0/10

"Potential" Game Rating-
Quality: 10/10
Relevance: 7.0/10