Tabletop Simulator

Tabletop Simulator

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Dark Tower
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Type: Game
Game Category: Board Games, Strategy Games
Complexity: High Complexity
Number of Players: 1, 2, 3, 4
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Publié le
Mis à jour le
264.271 KB
26 févr. 2017 à 10h56
5 mars 2023 à 14h55
25 notes de changement ( voir )

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Dark Tower

Description
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.
Discussions populaires Tout voir (6)
29
8 mai 2022 à 11h33
Bug Reports
Gazoxtahagen
7
9 sept. 2020 à 7h37
Where to DL
Baconater
2
17 janv. 2023 à 8h01
I owned this game in 1981...
Slaintemaith
113 commentaires
RifRafJonesy 21 mars à 11h10 
I bought the IRL game when it came out. Took ALL of my Christmas money to get it. Way back then it was $40-$50, a lot for a teenager to spend back then. Loved the game. Sadly it broke after about 30 years. Looking forward to giving this mod a go!
Scythesickle 2 févr. à 5h44 
@gazoxtahagen This game is already one of the best representations I've seen of the game, but your suggesteion of making it a monument to the original, built on those mechanisms that were rediscovered recently, better emulating the tower experience would be truly great. If you enjoy the work I think it would be worthwhile, so many of the simulations out there get so much wrong. I don't think the original game was the pinnacle of design but it WAS better and deserves a well done simulation of the experience. I think seeing the tower windows light up in a picture in picture sort of display could also simulate players looking closely at the tower waiting to see what will happen on their turn, or maybe an optional autozoom fixed camera in game? Is that possible?

All your feature ideas sound great, looking forward to it.
Gazoxtahagen  [créateur] 30 janv. à 5h21 
Speaking of Pegasus management in the game, I'm starting to question if this is something I should have done… or, as a preservationalist, a decision I had the right to make. There's a part of me that wants to strip out all of the TTS hooks and make the Tower as close to emulating the original as possible. This would probably involve rebuilding the Tower from the ground up, but there are a lot of things I would do differently in the current version of TTS, specifically with the UI API where graphic overlays and sounds don't have to be contained in separate AssetBundles. And getting rid of the interaction with the TTS seats would allow the Tower code to be stored in the object itself, so it could stand apart from the game. Then we could get some proper hotseat support, and I could write the variable storage to mirror the ROM and introduce saved game support. All of which is to say that we're coming up on the 7th anniversary of this mod, and I think the best days are still ahead!
Gazoxtahagen  [créateur] 30 janv. à 5h20 
Yeah, the only difference in this TTS version is that the Tower keeps track of Pegasus ownership, so you must interact with it on your inventory card so that it will be removed from your inventory and can be given as a reward again.
I did this mainly because it was technologically impossible to keep track of Pegasus ownership in the board game; having done a deep dive into the actual ROM chip and code, I can verify that you'd be hard-pressed to find a place in memory to store it, even as a four-digit binary. WIth TTS it's possible, so I wanted to eliminate a personal annoyance of mine: being award a Pegasus as loot when you already have one.
twentyquestion 29 janv. à 17h23 
Ok so it’s the same as the manual describes,I thought maybe because its TTS it was a different method.Thanks
Gazoxtahagen  [créateur] 29 janv. à 15h35 
According to the rule book:
"... if you have already collected the magic key in the kingdom you presently occupy, you may fly to a territory with a building on it in another kingdom, press the FRONTIER button on the same turn and wait until your next turn to press the appropriate building button." This version should work the same way... hit FRONTIER first, end your turn, and then on the next turn you're allowed to engage the building.
twentyquestion 28 janv. à 12h34 
How do you use the pegasus to go to a building in the kingdom to the right after you obtain the proper key?
Kingbobman 31 mars 2023 à 9h58 
Everything about this table is perfect, and as a long-time player of the physical DARK TOWER I appreciate you patching all the bugs with the Clear button.
Scythesickle 17 févr. 2023 à 14h18 
Your algorithm updates make this sublime. Thank you for this :)
templars83 22 oct. 2022 à 23h26 
I remember wanting this so much but geesh, it's a random crap game though the work you put in here is appreciated.