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Dark Tower

Here it is… this is the big one! Follow your scout, feed your beast, and crank up the 1812 Overture! My Tabletop Simulator mod for February 2017 is none other than Milton Bradley’s 1981 sued-out-existence classic, DARK TOWER!

(And all I had to do was teach myself Lua, Blender, and Unity animations and asset bundling… no sweat!)

Although the manual has mostly been transcribed into the notebook (edited for changes), Hasbro hosts one here: https://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/Dark_Tower.PDF

Wherever I could, I’ve re-mastered the graphics on the Tower and on the board, and I’ve cleaned up any noise on the sounds. The Dark Tower itself isn’t a perfect re-creation, but I tried to make slight changes to the shape of it to make virtual play a little easier… the keypad is now convex instead of concave, for example. Please try to pick up the Dark Tower only from the bottom flared base; the AssetBundles are connected to it with Joints, which I’ve found to be unpredictable when going from B-to-A rather than A-to-B. The Tower is a OBJ mesh with five Unity AssetBundles joined to it: one sound block, one display core, two LCDs (which I plan on releasing separately in the Workshop for others to use), and one “blink screen” that goes over the LCDs and simulates them blinking. The keypad itself has GUI buttons just below the surface.

There are some changes between the actual board game and this Tabletop Simulator version (these are also written in the notebook):

* In the DARK TOWER board game, the players are P1, P2, P3, and P4. In this TTS version, the players are determined by filled seats, and are represented by R (Red), B (Blue), Y (Yellow), and G (green); the colors of the seats correspond to the colors of the kingdom crests. This allows for drop-in/drop-out play. Because there is no need to select the number of players at the beginning of the game, the level selection phase is followed by a selection of which player should go first (R1, B1, Y1, or G1).

* The scorecards are now interactive. Hovering over WARRIORS, GOLD, or FOOD on your scorecard will display the value in a popup. The other inventory items will light up when acquired, and darken when spent. Scorecards of vacant and vacated seats will darken, and will light up again when the seat is occupied.

* The PEGASUS token is now a button on the scorecard. To spend your PEGASUS token, press the PEGASUS button on your scorecard at the beginning of your turn. The Tower will display the PEGASUS, and will wait for confirmation. Press the YES/BUY button to spend your PEGASUS; its light will darken on your scorecard. If you change your mind, press the NO/END button.

* Because the Tower in TTS knows if a player currently possesses a PEGASUS token, it will not award that player a PEGASUS as treasure if they already possess one.

* In the DARK TOWER board game, if a player received a WIZARD as treasure and CURSED another player, and then pressed the CLEAR button to cancel the move as illegal, the CURSE would still be in effect. In this TTS version, the CURSE is lifted.

* In the DARK TOWER board game, if a PEGASUS token is spent on a CLEARED illegal move, the rules state that the player must return to the previous space, but the rules never state whether or not the player gets their PEGASUS token back. In this TTS version, they do not. Also in TTS, the player's pawn will be returned to the previous space automatically.

* In this TTS version of DARK TOWER, if a MOVE results in being LOST, the player's pawn will be returned to the previous space automatically.

* In this TTS version of DARK TOWER, if a FRONTIER is attempted with a KEY MISSING, the player's pawn will be returned to the previous space automatically.

* In this TTS version of DARK TOWER, if the HAGGLE button is pressed any time other than during a BAZAAR negotiation, it will toggle the buildings and game pawns between their authentic board game colors and the seat colors.

* In this version of the TTS version of DARK TOWER, a player pressing the CLEAR button at the beginning of their turn will toggle blindfold mode. "Blindfold mode" restricts players from seeing each other's displays, in the spirit of the original game. Turning this off will allow all players' displays to be seen my all other players. Players should be aware that the Riddle of the Keys is the same for all players, and a player may want to turn blindfold mode at least when attempting to solve the riddle.

I tried to playtest this as thoroughly as I could, but if you find any bugs, I’ll be watching this space.

I definitely have a new-found appreciation for the code of the original Dark Tower, which is surprisingly sophisticated for the time (the programmer is believed to be Vince Erato, inventor of another keypad toy, the Big Trak). There’s a lot to juggle… food reserves, gold encumbrance, keeping a short history for the Repeat button, a robust inventory, and rogue invalid button presses.