![]() They’re listed as designers because they were the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to Dark Tower being shelved. Erato, who worked at Milton Bradley and was the lead designer on Dark Tower, had passed away by the time Restoration began work on the project, while Burten and Coleman weren’t actually employees of Milton Bradley. In the case of Dark Tower, BGG listed three designers: Roger Burten, Alan Coleman, and Vincent Erato. , a massive site with a database that includes distinct entries for over 130,000 board games, has detailed information on designers, illustrators, and more, but the older a game is, the greater the chance that some of that information will be missing. In the case of Dark Tower, however, it wasn’t entirely clear who the actual designers were. Reaching the designer can be straightforward for some games, such as Downforce, a reimplementation of Top Race, designed by Wolfgang Kramer, one of the most acclaimed designers in board-game history who is still active and releasing new games. ![]() The first obstacle for Restoration Games was figuring out who, if anyone, still owned any rights to the Dark Tower game, a key legal and philosophical point for the folks running it. After the 1981 holiday season, the company ceased production of Dark Tower, consigning it to the status of a “ grail game” for collectors.ĭark Tower! I had this as a hand me-down as a kid, but it never turned on, even with new batteries, though I always wanted to play it. Two inventors who had presented the publisher with an idea for a game design that included an electronic tower at the center of the game board sued Milton Bradley for misappropriation of trade secrets, winning $737,058.10 - nearly doubling the company’s investment in the game while also reducing the potential royalties from future sales. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, the game wouldn’t get the chance to recoup that investment. Milton Bradley worked on the game for nearly two years, and the Times claimed that the development cost upward of $750,000 (well over $2 million in 2022 dollars), which set the bar for profitability quite high. George Ditomassi, Milton Bradley’s senior vice-president for sales at the time, told the New York Times, “We wanted a game that would cater to a market that already existed - Dungeons and Dragons,” but that the company was aiming one tier lower, at “people who had heard about D & D but who didn’t want to be Dungeons and Dragons freaks.” Coming in at $60, or about $180 in today’s dollars, it was the most expensive tabletop game to date, and Milton Bradley backed it with a marketing campaign that included a TV commercial featuring Orson Welles. Suzanne Sheldon, a former Dice Tower podcast host who now handles marketing for Restoration Games, puts it this way: “If you say the name Dark Tower in a crowded room, there’s a chance people will perk up.”ĭark Tower was a revolutionary game for its time, enough so that the market may not have been quite ready for it. Scarcity worked its magic (full, used copies sell for $200-plus) while the legend of the game itself grows - and the few people who did play it as kids have become grown-ups with disposable income and a strong inclination to put it toward nostalgic ends. Milton Bradley, the game’s original publisher, sold it for just one season before a lawsuit and slow sales led them to pull it from shelves. Personally Rob and I were a little too old to remember Fireball Island, and HeroQuest was just a hair after our time, but Dark Tower was the sweet spot.”ĭark Tower has indeed taken on legendary status in the 41 years since its release, despite a disappointing launch. The big three for us were HeroQuest, Dark Tower, and Fireball Island. “We had a suggestion box on the site, and we’d get some we’ve never heard of. “We had a whole list of games we wanted to do,” says Jacobson. ![]() When Daviau and Justin Jacobson started Restoration Games - a company that specializes in, as the name suggests, restoring out-of-print board games - Dark Tower was near the top of their list. The most complicated turn is your first one? Check.” “If I’d given a talk five years ago about what not to do in a game,” says game designer and Restoration Games co-founder Rob Daviau, “ Return to Dark Tower checks every box.
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