Drakborgen is a board game that was first published in 1985. It is a family-type board game (as opposed to a gamer-type game) but has fairly complicated rules in comparison with other games on that market. The object is to play a hero who enters an old castle looking for treasure; the place is ridddled with traps and monsters and if you don’t get out before sundown, you lose. A bit like role playing without the actual role playing - no subtilities of character or moral dilemmas, just good old monster hacking and trasure hunting. It was exported as Dungeon Quest, and as far as I know the rules are just the same.

Johan and I played it a couple of times last weekend. Neither of us ever survived to get out of the castle - it is a difficult game! We had lots of fun playing it, though. I’ve seen some reviews of it claiming that it’s all luck, and maybe it seems so to a die-hard strategy gamer… but I am pretty sure that there are useful strategies to employ to get through the castle alive. Here are some pictures of the various event cards.

There is a new edition as well, Drakborgen: The Legend from 2002, but I don’t know anything about that. The 1985 version I’d recommend without hesitation, though.