Hero Quest

Hero Quest isn’t a good game. There i said it. It has a lot of flaws, the game mechanics are weird, and in some respects the game is also a bit limited. However i still love the game – why?

Well this game was my the first boardgame that i actually found cool. Back when i got it i hated ALL board games. To me, board games was something you played when you were forced by your parents on boring camping trips. Hero Quest changed that.

The fact that it had cool looking plastic figures was nice, but what really made it stand out was that it gave me the chance to do level design. Yes the board was static, but i could design, imagine, and think about what was in each room on the board, and that opened up the game in ways i could not have imagined. At that time i was already very interested in roleplaying games. I was very young, so our roleplaying was mainly something we made up (after having watched some D&D players in a tv show), and rolled some dice. Hero Quest provided  a very visual outlet for me, and my friends, to design.

After Hero Quest board games became interesting for me. I moved on. First i got hold of the “sequel” to Hero Quest known as Warhammer Quest. This was a bit less static than Hero Quest, and every time i get the chance i play it again. It provides a more campaign feel and your characters can move from adventure to adventure.

But Hero Quest still stands as a great experience to me. It helped me understand the value of the board games (and cool plastic figures). I probably spend more time painting the figures than i did playing the game, and i guess that is another on of the games nice features. The game lets you play it as is, or it lets you add your own visual style to it.  So even though Hero Quest has its faults, i hope to be able to play it once more sometime. Sadly i lost my Hero Quest game in a move at one point. Perhaps i should invest in a new one.