LEGEND OF ZAGOR BOARDGAME
Ian Livingstone
Reviewed by Mark Lain
Produced by
Parker Games in 1993, this formed part of a multi-format release that included
a gamebook, four novels, and this high concept game. Not strictly a boardgame
in that it has no board to speak of, this game consists of three 3D dungeon
areas moulded in plastic (one grey, one red, one black) which are linked
together by white model plastic bridges. The first two areas have various floor
tiles and rooms scattered about them, whilst the final section (in black)
consists of a dragon’s lair (complete with grille presumably covering something
that turns out to actually be a speaker), four floor tiles, and Zagor’s throne
room. The throne itself is a large skull structure with horns and teeth in
which Zagor reposes. To move from area two (the red one) to the black one (the
Crypt of Zagor aka the throne room) you pass over a model bridge with a jawbone
cavern entrance which acts as the way in to the crypt. The crypt also contains
figures of a dragon and of Zagor himself. Up to four players can play, each
selecting a pre-defined character to match those in the gamebook (ie dwarf,
wizard, warrior, barbarian), each of which has a mini figure to move around the
dungeon sections. Also included is a mini of a shopkeeper and a bunch of minis
depicting the various denizens of the dungeon (ogres, trolls, skeletons,
hellhorns, etc).
Immediately
on opening the (massive) box that houses all this stuff, it becomes apparent
that this is visually pretty special. The minis are beautifully rendered with a
lot of detail, with the Flame Dragon and Zagor being particularly impressive,
in part due to the sheer size of them. In fact, Zagor is so big he doesn’t
actually fit in his throne so you have to put him to one side, have him stand
awkwardly behind the dragon, or lay him horizontally across his throne. The
dragon and the shopkeeper have handy pips that hold them in place once the game
is set up, as do all the various structural parts (bridge sections, jawbone doorway,
skull throne, etc). Even the dungeon section floors and walls are really well
moulded with plenty of detail down to each tile having something unique about
it be it the paving design, grilles, etc. No expense has been spared in
designing and creating this game and it really does look very classy and high quality. Were you to
paint all the figures and the dungeon floor sections too, you would have
something truly impressive and the box sides do show the minis painted up to
give you an idea of the potential of the game’s parts. With all this elaborate
detail, setting the game up can take a bit of time: each section has a set of
colour-coded tiles that are laid face down one per tile square, each room has a
card floor design tile (each one shaped to fit a particular room which can be
something of a jigsaw exercise to get them all in the right places), and each
monster mini gets put in a room (the more deadly foes such as the chaos
champions and the hellhorn being put in section two). Character generation is
not required as each of the four PCs has a nicely rendered character sheet with
a picture of the character’s face on it (matching those on the game box).
Character set up is dead simple. Each of you starts with 1 Strength (Strength
being the equivalent of Skill here), 6 Stamina, 20 gold pieces, and no
equipment. The only real differences between the four characters are how much
each particular piece of equipment costs (eg: fighters pay less for weapons,
wizard pays less for the magic ring). Before the game begins, each player can
spend their 20 gps (or part of them) buying equipment: weapons and armour to
increase Strength and/or special items to affect gameplay such as torches,
elven boots, magic arrows, a magic ring, healing potions, etc. Each player also
gets a spell. Anyone with the magic ring can carry two spells at any one time,
otherwise you can only ever carry one at a time. There is a large deck of spell
cards which include healing spells, combat/defence spells, spells that allow
transportation, gold creation spells, spells that help you steal stuff or pass
through walls, etc ie the usual selection of beneficial, risky, and downright
wacky magic to nuance the game.
Once each
player has kitted themselves out, the game can finally begin. The fact that it
easily takes half an hour to set all this up makes you hope for a lengthy
playing experience, which you may or may not actually get, but more on this
later for now we can no longer avoid the subject of this game’s main gimmick –
the much-vaunted 40K electronic voice unit which the box and the TV advert that
plugged this game made the primary focus. The voice unit sits in the chunky
black plastic crypt section and as soon as you insert 4 AA-sized batteries in
it, it starts shouting at you. “Who dares challenge me?” it yells in a voice
not unlike Tregard’s from Knightmare
(although it isn’t Hugo Myatt’s voice, incidentally) and you reply by pressing
buttons in the crypt that correspond to the character’s being used: “Dwarf”,
“Barbarian”, “Warrior”, “Wizard” Zagor responds after you press each button. As
this is a game for anything from one to four players, you only press the
buttons that represent the character’s that are actually being used, otherwise
it all gets in a mess pretty quickly. Once everyone has checked-in Zagor will
randomly decide who starts: “Dwarf begin” or whatever. Play then proceeds with
each player taking their turn to turn over the tile they are starting on. The
tile will have something on it and the game plays out with players moving
around the sections, turning over the tiles they land on, and dealing with
whatever is on them: some are bad, some are good, and some can be good or bad
depending on dice rolls. Level one is the only area where equipment can be
found on tiles (11 out of 26 level one tiles are useful gear, which is pretty
forgiving), although you are limited to how many of each thing you can carry so
some stuff gets left behind for others to benefit from. This adds an element of
chance when creating your character: do you blow all your cash buying
everything that will shoot your Strength straight up to the maximum of 8 from
the outset or do you take the chance that you might find something useful for
free and gradually build up your Strength? The only areas in section one that
involve combats are the rooms which you can avoid initially if you start weak
or you can also go on a killing spree if you start out strong. Killing room
inhabitants is the core of the game as a kill rewards you with a treasure
chest. Each treasure chest shaves 1 Strength and 1 Stamina off Zagor in the end
fight and you need to get as many as you can carry (six normally, or eight if you have
a mule) otherwise the Zagor fight is unwinnable. Why? Because combat in this
game is not standard FF combat. This game came out in the mid-90s post-HeroQuest era when combat had been
dumbed-down to avoid it supposedly detracting from the playability of games of
this type so combat here is simply a matter of rolling a D10 and comparing the
result to the defending thing’s Strength: equal to or higher and 1 Stamina is
lost, lower and the attack misses. When you read the rule book it states that
Zagor has Strength 12 Stamina 12. It does not take a mathematical genius to
work out then that, with no treasure chests, it is not possible to wound Zagor
when the highest roll you can get is a 10 and he has Strength 12. With two
treasure chests you can only hit him on rolling a 10 so getting the full six or
eight chests is pretty essential and even with six you still only have 40%
chance of hitting him. Mules are expensive to buy but you can find one (and
only one) in level two. Realistically, you would want a mule so that you can
carry eight chests but this does also involve either forking out a lot of gold
for a mule or being lucky enough to find the only one that is roaming free in
the dungeon. Plus, getting eight chests requires you to win eight combats with
monsters which brings us to man-on-monster battles. When you enter a room you
press a particular combat button on Zagor dependant on whether you are in
section one or two: “Who dares do battle with me?” shouts Zagor and the
fighting player replies by pressing the relevant character button. Zagor will
then randomise the Strength and Stamina of the monster and combat begins. The
player rolls the D10 to attack as above and Zagor shouts out random numbers to
represent the monster’s dice rolls. Most level one monsters only have Strength
2 or 3 and Stamina 1 or 2 whilst second level monsters are hardly much
stronger. This might seem rather easy until it becomes apparent that Zagor
tends to shout out high numbers more than low ones so you quickly become
grateful for creatures with Staminas of 1 or 2. Indeed, the combats in this
game are distinctly unbalanced and fights can leave you pretty close to death
after a short time. Granted, there are many ways to heal your character and
using spells can make fights easier (or recruiting a hireling to do the fighting
for you) but you do get the feeling that Zagor is rather harsh on you. Then
comes the rub: Zagor will keep track of how many fights each character gets
into, the braver you are the more likely he is to reward you with equipment or
Stamina bonuses, conversely avoid fights and Zagor will start to pick on you
and penalise you in various ways. This really is very neat and Zagor
effectively acts as a GM as well as playing the gamebook author role whereby a
player who fights gets more items than a player who avoids confrontations. Add
to this the need to get treasure chests and it becomes evident just how
essential being psychotic is in this game. Should you die you just regenerate
and start again at your original starting square with a fresh character bereft of
equipment and everyone has to wait whilst you work out how best to spend your
20 starting gps again. Incidentally, there are several ways of finding more
money too so that has to be taken into consideration when planning your
spending strategy and there is a Store where you can go and buy more stuff
throughout the game.
And that’s
pretty much it: you move your piece, turn over a tile (or fight in a room),
collect treasure chests and other handy kit, then decide when you want to head
for the crypt for the big showdown. The first player to enter the crypt has to
contend with the Flame Dragon which has a +2 bonus to Strength and Stamina on
top of whatever numbers Zagor shouts out. Therefore it is possible for the
dragon to be fairly weak if you are in luck. Once the dragon is dead it’s dead
and no-one else then has to deal with it. Should the dragon kill a player
however, any treasure chests he/she has (and you would assume they would have
some otherwise why the hell would they be attempting the final challenge?)
become the property of Zagor and are out of the game. In other words, the
number of available chests will decrease as players fall foul of the dragon.
Similarly, if Zagor kills a hero, the same happens which means that, in theory,
there can come a point where there aren’t enough chests left in the game for
anyone to be able to defeat Zagor so he gets a sort of default victory.
Additionally, you cannot use any magic spells, magical items, or certain other
things such as hirelings in the crypt which makes the end game even tougher.
This is strategically counter-intuitive as you would be likely to try to amass
this sort of equipment specifically to make the end easier, but it does also
mean that by using them up you can get through the first two sections much more
easily and with a minimal amount of risk or Stamina loss. When you approach the
crypt is entirely your decision incidentally and the peril and anticipation
really does ramp up as each player tries to tackle Zagor. Not only is he very
strong compared to everything else you fight in this game (even with his stats
reduced by treasure chests) but he will also randomly attack you with spells
that the 40K chip will decide to use. The sound that precedes Zagor announcing
that he is either unleashing a fireball or thunderbolt spell at a combatant
quickly becomes something you don’t want to hear and he is not unknown to use
two or three in successive combat rounds!
Which brings
us to the subject of sound effects. Not only does Zagor control combat and arbitrarily
reward and penalise players, but the chip also generates suitably atmospheric
sound effects. Lightning randomly crackles at times and Zagor will occasionally
burst into maniacal laughter to unnerve you. When combat is happening, the chip
starts by making the sound of approaching footsteps followed by the clang as
weapons clash with each other. Kill a monster and you will hear it emit a
gut-wrenching scream followed by it crashing to the floor. It has to be said
that this all really does add to the experience and, whilst it might seem a bit
corny now, in 1993 this was very hi-tech stuff and quite revolutionary. However
you perceive it (and the crackling tinny voice can get irritating after a
while, especially if you are getting victimised by Zagor for being a coward)
this concept is undeniably fun and, with the random moments in particular, each
game does become unique and there is a constant element of anticipation as you
play.
In terms of
actual dungeon design and structure, the levels idea is generally very
effective. Section one contains, as I have said, a lot of free items, and
encounters are equally divided between three helpful NPCs and three bad NPCs.
There is the prerequisite trap (but only one), a couple of potentially handy
secret passages (unless they end up next to each other of course, which is
perfectly possible as tiles are laid out randomly each time you play), a
teleport tile, a guard (which can be good or bad as you must bribe him or
fight), three random tiles (Zagor decides the effect which can befall any
character, not necessarily the one who turned the tile over), and the neat pool
of gold (roll to get a certain amount of gold – the pool stays where it is
until someone is unfortunate enough to roll a zero and dries it up thus then ruining
it for everyone for the rest of the game). Section two is predictably more
challenging with two random tiles, two more secret passages, and another
teleport tile. The proportion of good to bad NPC encounters changes for the
worse however with just three helpful NPCs compared to five bad ones for you to
contend with. There is another pit trap too. In spite of the overall increased
difficulty of section two, the two arguably best tiles that work in your favour
are also found here: the fountain of life (restores Stamina to maximum) and the
very handy mule. Finally, the crypt contains only four tiles that are explored
once the dragon has been despatched. As the elven boots (which allow you to
move up to three spaces rather than the standard one or two) cannot be used in
the crypt you have to statistically explore at least two of these crypt tiles,
all of which are potentially bad news in some way. Two tiles are 100% bad and
there to reduce your stats purely to make the Zagor fight even harder. The
remaining two tiles are a 50/50 situation with a fireball and an encounter with
a mummy that either reduces your Stamina by 2 (ie a third at “best”) or that
can be avoided completely if you had the foresight to buy a torch. Clearly then,
every aspect of the crypt be it the four tiles, the dragon, or the ultra-strong
Zagor fight, is very challenging and, again, suggests a lack of difficulty
balance after the first two sections which are, overall, not too tough to
negotiate. Of course, this could also be interpreted as clever game design to
catch out the unwary who assume that because they have made short work of the
first two sections, they can naturally expect an easy ride in the crypt too,
only to end up dying horribly just as they thought victory was in sight.
Interestingly, with the general exception of equipment tiles, most of the floor
tiles remain where they are throughout the game. Obviously this means that the
perilous crypt section will always be perilous (the four tiles all stay there
for the whole game) and that players need to remember where good and bad tiles
are located so as to frequently reap the benefits of the good ones without
constantly falling foul of the bad ones. There is a spell, incidentally, that
allows you to switch tiles around to add a bit of jeopardy to the proceedings,
and if you have a torch you can peek at tiles before deciding to stand on them.
Particularly daring players will want to keep visiting the Random tiles to try
to gain something from Zagor and/or hope Zagor will stitch another player up.
All this adds several layers to play: risk, memory, and interaction between
players as one player’s actions can directly impact another player, sometimes
for good and sometimes for bad. Add this to the randomised nature of fights and
Zagor’s habit of interfering with players’ fates, and a lot of luck comes into
play.
Overall, the
amount of luck involved in this game is probably a bit excessive but the sheer
amusement gained from hearing Zagor’s voice and the anticipation of who is
going to be rewarded or penalised makes the game more of a fun experience than
simply a game of pure chance and at no point do you start to get fed up or
start to wish it was over as the one thing that you take from playing this game
more than anything else is a sense of enjoyment and this game makes up for any
of its lacking points through the sheer fun of it all. In fact, other than the
reliance on luck and Zagor’s tendency to use loaded dice in combats, most of
the game’s shortcomings are in the implementation rather than the mechanics.
Yes, the whole thing is very random but that is the idea as Zagor governs the
whole game and you are after all playing against him ie the 40K chip DM substitute.
The most striking issue I have is with the minis. As nice as these components
are, the actual creature representations are meaningless and the minis
effectively do nothing other than to act as over-elaborate markers showing
whether a particular room has a living or already killed monster in it – if
they are standing up they are alive, if they are lying down they are dead and
the room is not worth entering as you cannot get a treasure chest from it
anymore. The creature minis never move and are no indication of what you are
fighting. Furthermore, you never get to find out what you are fighting as Zagor
doesn’t bother telling you meaning that, whilst the minis clearly are specific
creatures, the box shows exactly what they are and names them, and even the
level one and level two rooms have differently powered types in them dependent
on the level the room is in, all this is ultimately pointless as you are just
fighting an unnamed something with randomly-generated stats. This is a pity as
something really effective could have been made of this to go hand-in-hand with
the undeniable quality of the figure mouldings. Granted, the minis of the four
player characters do move around the board and do represent whichever character
class you are playing but the monster minis are definitely more interesting and
give a level of expectation that never quite gets satisfied once you start
fighting them. The larger structural elements (Zagor’s skull throne, the
bridge, the jawbone doorway) all look great but, again, serve no purpose within
the game as such other than to create mood and atmosphere. You could say the
same for the random lightning and insane laughing noises that the chip
generates but you do get more atmosphere and a sense of foreboding from their
being there than if they were not. The cynical would probably argue that the
miniatures are better utilised elsewhere and that part of this game’s long-term
use is in supplying parts for other RPG-type games and there is certainly an
element of truth in this. Indeed, if this game used its very well-made parts to
the benefit of a more immersive experience you would be less likely to plunder
it for spares and that might explain why finding complete ones can be tricky.
The subject
of actually acquiring this game is worth mentioning in itself as, on first
release, this game did not sell well, in part due to it coming once the HeroQuest fad was on its last legs and
in some larger part due to it costing the prohibitive amount of £49.99 which
was a lot for a boardgame in the early-90s. Yes, the production values and the
technology justify the price tag but actually selling this concept to punters
evidently wasn’t easy in spite of there being a TV advertising campaign to try
to shift units. Understandably, as sales were not good originally, there are
not that many of these about on the second hand market. Add to this the fact
that there could be parts missing (minis in particular, not that you really
need them and any being missing won’t make any difference to gameplay and can
just be substituted with pretty much anything to act as a marker) or broken
(the tabs that hold the bridge together are especially fragile and prone to
being snapped), or even worse the voice chip no longer working which renders
the game unplayable and completely useless, then overall finding a complete and
functioning example will pose a challenge and demand a high price. If you can
get this game in complete and working condition for less than about £75 now,
you are doing well. If you can’t get one or can’t get access to one, then you
are definitely missing out on a huge amount of fun.
And that’s
the key to this game. Do not take it too seriously and play for the
entertainment value alone. The mechanics and system are simple and the game is
very rules-light, a refreshing change to the often intense and overly-complex
games of this type. It is very easy to learn how to play and you can get on
with it pretty quickly once the set-up of characters and their opening buying
spree is over with. A playing session is roughly an hour to 90 minutes which is
fairly brief as these games go and there is ample replay potential, not just in
the completely random nature of both the layout and Zagor’s whims, but also in
the way that the rule book provides two shorter scenarios which involve hunting
out specific items/people represented by numbered treasure chest cards. These
scenarios can be used both as training playthroughs to familiarise yourself
with how the game works and as shorter quick-fire games if time is limited or
you can’t face the very hard Zagor showdown and just want to play an item hunt.
The three different endgames effectively give you three different games which
is a nice touch that helps avoid the feeling that there is probably very little
game here in real terms and it is definitely not aimed at anyone looking for a
serious RPG or strategy game session as this is as slam-bang as it gets, but
therein lies the appeal of it. The materials are definitely over-produced and
wildly over-engineered but it looks great and is a winner for sheer novelty
value.
The gamebook
version was based on this boardgame and not the other way around, as with WOFM. This approach seriously hampered
the book which feels like little more than a boardgame in text format. The
book is also ridiculously difficult to the point of being almost unplayable.
The boardgame version is neither hard nor dull. Many aspects of the boardgame
version were carried over into the book, although thankfully the sequence of
end fights is far easier in the boardgame version and most of the unfair encounters
from the book are far simpler here or were additions when the book was put
together and are absent from the boardgame. Similarly, the hopelessness of
playing as either the dwarf or the wizard are absent from the boardgame and
all four characters have equal and balanced chances of winning, unlike in the
book. All in all, the boardgame is a simpler but far better-executed version
of the same thing.
Legend of Zagor is a visual feast in terms of its
presentation: the technology, the dungeon sections, the figures, and the art on
the tile and spell cards are all top notch. The whole package is wildly over
the top and unquestionably kitsch by today’s standards, but that’s all part of
the pleasure of it. The box could easily have been half the size and still
housed everything nicely but that would lose the literal physical impact as
well as getting to see Martin McKenna’s impressive cover art far larger than we
usually get in a gamebook and what’s not to like about the box art? To play
requires no knowledge of FF as such and this game is far less involved and
potentially complicated than the WOFM boardgame meaning the uninitiated
can just dive straight in and play with as much chance of winning as a seasoned
FF player. The way that the valiant are rewarded and cowards are punished adds
a bit of tension and motivation, whilst the generally fast-paced play means it
maintains the interest throughout. If the game in its presented form is too
simple for peoples’ tastes then there is no reason why house rules cannot be
used to add a bit of nuance and increase the RPG-style logic such as the dwarf
not being able to use the elven boots due to the dwarf-elf antagonism thing, or
using combat adjustors for weapons/armour, or even increasing the stats of
fighter types and reducing the stats of the wizard (as per the book version, in
fact). You could even add a time factor where, after a certain amount of play
time had elapsed, the dungeon regenerates and tiles are returned/reorganised in
different places or creatures in rooms get replaced by new ones, or even go as
far as setting a time limit to get as many items/treasure chests as possible
before all players are forced to head for the crypt and try to defeat Zagor.
Alternatively, you could just use the dungeon sections and the minis for your
own RPG scenario based on the far more complex and unreasonably difficult book
version.
Overall, the
thing that you take from this game is that it is light and pacey fun that is
not to be taken too seriously. It is hugely enjoyable, the voice chip ranges
from the ominous to the hilarious, and the final analysis is pretty
challenging, even if Zagor does seem to be cheating at times with his dice rolls.
If you can get it, do so, as this is a great antidote to the usual fantasy
boardgame fare. Purists will moan about the dilution of the FF system but they
can always play the book instead (assuming they really hate themselves that much and want to put themselves through it) if they don’t understand that these games can be simple fun at times. This is
certainly not a game you could play as regularly as the WOFM boardgame as the novelty could wear off but it is definitely
worth playing for a lighter session and there is way more than £49.99’s-worth
of parts and technology in this huge box.