Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing; the temptation to own something synonymous with your youth can be enormous—this is precisely where HeroQuest comes in, stage left.
Full disclosure here—I never owned HeroQuest, but that ‘not owning’ bit bugged the hell out of me. Of course, nowadays, it’s easy enough to dip a toe into the second-hand market and purchase a copy from eBay, but finding one that hasn’t been battered to death by years of use is a quest in itself.
I once managed to get my hands on a copy of Dark Future that cost a kidney and my first-born, only to find it filled with broken cars and missing weapons. So, imagine my delight in 2021, when it was announced that HeroQuest was digging itself out of its nostalgic grave—in search of fresh meat to feed upon. Yes, it was inevitable I was going to order it, and, as expected I still paid waaaaay too much for the core game and all the expansions (because I need all the expansions regardless if I’m actually ever going to use them)—but to me, it was worth it just to scratch a nostalgic itch that has been bothering me since 1989.
I guess it’s a good time to introduce the test subjects for this thick slice of gaming nostalgia. My eldest, Zack, is a chip off the old block, a board game ‘junkie’ who enjoys playing just about everything from Nemesis to Gloomhaven and Unmatched to Root. He’s used to complicated games with rules that make your brain hurt and enough dice and counters to make a kleptomaniac leap with joy. While my youngest, Neve, is just like my wife, she only enjoys games that are quick and easy to follow, nothing too heavy; for them it’s all about the fun-factor—which is exactly what HeroQuest is, or at least I hope.
Before we venture a little deeper into this much-loved dungeon romp, I would ask you to spare a moment of thought to my poor wife, who has endured my board game obsession for many years now—and whose heart must fill with dread every time a delivery driver with an oversized Kickstarter box turns up on our doorstep. But, as I say to her with a fixed Cheshire cat-like grin on my face, these games will only increase in value; not that I’m ever planning on selling them while I still draw breath.
However, if I were to shuffle off this mortal coil it would leave my precious games at the mercy of my wife’s eBay account. Fortunately, that’s where my children come in. If I can stir those same warm feelings in them that I had playing these games as a youngster, then I know my collection will be (relatively) safe.
I was still at work when the sizable HeroQuest box turned up on our doorstep unannounced. Quite honestly, I was expecting a barrage of text messages from Zack pleading if he could open up the box, and perhaps one from my wife telling me she was going to kill me and pack my cold corpse inside it when I got home. Fortunately, all I received from her was a photo message with the words ‘THIS arrived.” Impressively, Zack contained his excitement long enough for us to unbox it together. As expected, Neve was nonplussed—board games frequently enter this house, and unless it’s a Friends themed game, then it’s not going to rank highly on her barometer of interest.
Within a few minutes of stepping though the front door, I was immediately accosted by Zack and frogmarched towards the still-sealed box sat in the front room. As I carefully sliced open the package, Zack’s immediate reaction was one of utter joy; his eyes lit up at the sheer number of tile sheets, dice, monsters, doors, chests, and furniture—it was a delight to behold.
His second reaction was one of concern as he stared at my rapidly reddening face and trembling hands as I struggled to remove a single figure from a plastic tray that refused to yield without a fight. It felt like every figure was a skill check that needed a natural ‘20’ to pass without breaking something. We decided to leave it until Sunday when my wife would be away and we could unbox everything properly and commandeer the dining room table.
Sunday —or HeroQuest Day, as we had been calling it all week- came around quickly. As Neve sat watching another Friends episode, Zack tore through all the boxes, almost instantly placing all the campaigns for the core game and expansions in front of me. I admired his enthusiasm, but I prefer to deal with one thing at a time and felt it was best to focus on the core box for now.
The expansions were quickly placed back into their boxes and filed away for another day. Zack then set about popping the tiles out of their sheets and setting up the board—although the figures were left for now, neither of us fancied attempting to remove them from their trays. What we really needed next was a volunteer to read the rules—I looked at Zack—Zack looked at me. I sighed as resigned myself to opening the rulebook.
Now, I’m okay with rule reading though it can sometimes leave me screaming in frustration before I admit defeat and sheepishly search online for help. Fortunately, HeroQuest’s rules take the pain out of explaining—simple is an understatement, it makes Nemesis seem like the glossary for War and Peace.
Within fifteen minutes of reading and five minutes of setting-up, both Zack and I were ready to jump into our first quest. Coincidentally, Neve had just finished watching her episode of Friends and wandered in to see what we were doing. Zack, sensing an opportunity to involve her, immediately gave her the Dwarven character (he had already bagged the Barbarian for himself).
One of the best things about HeroQuest is how quickly a newbie like Neve can pick it up, while still offering someone like Zack enough to keep them entertained. I know HeroQuest isn’t really the kind of game Neve enjoys, and I don’t think she enjoyed it as much as Mysterium, but she seemed curious enough to want to play. To her credit, she lasted one campaign before growing bored and heading off to play with her Lego Central Perk and Friends Apartments.
In case you’ve missed the HeroQuest phenomenon the first time around it’s a simple enough conceit, explore a dungeon in search of ‘X’, kill numerous ‘Y’ enemies and ideally get out alive. Additional rules include secret door searching, room searching, trap searching and trap disarming— but beyond that, the game pretty much follows a rinse and repeat format.
The reward system is straightforward enough too. If you’re lucky you can find useful items as you explore from room to room, or you can spend your hard earned coin on a small selection of items to toughen up your hero just in time for their next adventure, and it was this part of the game probably gave Zack the most enjoyment, and he revelled in his Barbarian turning from an armour-shy warrior into a fully-tricked out tank.
The biggest laughs came via the plethora of hidden traps scattered throughout each adventure. As I was playing the role of Zargon, I had, perhaps unwisely, decided to modify the rules a little so certain monsters were forced to make a roll for moving through these traps. Hearing Zack almost cry in laughter as my army of zombies fell one-by-one to their deaths (having originally died once before being reanimated and furnished with a sword and target shield) was priceless.
The game follows a formulaic process of moving via dice rolls combined with the choice to fight monsters, or search for traps/secret doors/treasures. That in itself is perfectly fine, but after the third campaign on the trot I was slowly beginning to fatigue—Zack on the other hand seemed keen to press on. We did one more quest before I threw in the Zargon-sized towel and began packing everything away.
As we carefully placed all the components back in the box we chatted about our game time and what we thought of HeroQuest. We both really enjoyed how easy it was to learn, and how fast we could get into it. Zack’s one word review was ‘Cool!’ which, as I understand, is high praise indeed from Generation Z.
Inevitably, our conversation turned to what we didn’t like and, if we had to be critical of the game, both of us felt it fell a little flat the moment the dungeon had been cleared of enemies. We found the final act of escaping was a bit redundant—often we preferred to simply end the adventure the moment the ‘X’ was found or the ‘Y’ was defeated. We also both agreed that the game could have done with a few more surprises; narrative cards that could deepen the gameplay and bring a level of unexpectedness to each adventure—but these are minor gripes in what was an otherwise perfect game to play on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I hope that’s where the expansions will come to the fore, filling in the narrative void and taking the game to the next level.
So, three decades on, I’m glad I finally got to scratch my HeroQuest itch. Even though both my kids are probably a little too young to appreciate the concept of nostalgia, I’m hopeful that with games like HeroQuest, they’ll look back on these days with the same fondness I had and still continue to have. As for the future, I wonder if I can just make out the faint groans of Advanced HeroQuest rising from the nostalgic grave…
The new edition of HeroQuest and its expansions are available now from Avalon Hill
Andi Ewington’s new book The Hero Interviews is out now, follow him on BlueSky
This feature originally appeared in Wyrd Science Vol.1, Issue 4 (April '23)