Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game
Exploring TSR's original electronic dungeon crawl board game from 1980
Welcome to Skeleton Code Machine, a weekly publication that explores tabletop game mechanisms. Spark your creativity as a game designer or enthusiast, and think differently about how games work. Check out Dungeon Dice and 8 Kinds of Fun to get started!
This is the third part of a three-part series on TSR board games from the 1980s. Don’t miss Part 1 - Dungeon! and Part 2 - Fantasy Forest.
Previously we looked at Dungeon! and Fantasy Forest, classic games from TSR and published in the 1980s.1 While we can learn quite a bit from both games, they are still rather typical tabletop board games.
The final game of this series is something quite different. Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game (Sengir, 1980) is an electronic board game!
Computer Labyrinth Game
Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game was released in a golden age of tabletop roleplaying games and video games. No doubt Mattel wanted to develop a product that combined both trends. The television ad prominently features the electronic sounds from the game, combined with a classic D&D fantasy description narrated by an “old wizard” voice:
Open your mind to [the] new Dungeons & Dragons computer game from Mattel Electronics. It will lead your imagination down a dungeon labyrinth wherein lies the dragon’s treasure. Steal his treasure, but make no false moves! For in Dungeons & Dragons a dead end is… a dead end!
The game is about 10.5 x 10.5 inches square and about 2.5 inches tall, shaped sort of like a castle with ramparts around the edges. The board consists of an 8x8 grid of red, touch-sensitive squares and an additional 8 squares that are used to configure the game and test the sounds. It’s powered by a single 9V battery.
There’s a drawer/tray built-in to the bottom to store the orange wall pieces and the four metal miniatures: Player 1, Player 2, Treasure, and Dragon. There are also small green pieces to mark the starting Secret Room locations.2
A game based on sound
There is no screen or display on the game. All player feedback is via sounds played by the game. Players move until they hear the BEEP of bumping into a wall. Sounds play to indicate if the current player is Player 1 or Player 2. When the dragon wakes, a little song is played. There are sounds and songs for illegal moves, defeat, dragon attacks, finding the treasure, and winning the game.
User preset1 has posted a Mattel D&D Labyrinth Sound FX track on SoundCloud with sample of each one.
Playing the game
Mechanically, the game for 1 or 2 players is fairly simple:
Choose secret rooms: Players start anywhere on the 8x8 grid of red, touch-sensitive squares. This starting square is called your Secret Room.
Create the maze: The game selects a random Treasure Room on the grid, and places up to 50 walls or doors on the grid between the squares. The location of these walls and doors are unknown to the player(s).
Find the treasure: On a players turn, they move orthogonally up to 8 squares, pressing their miniature onto each grid that they cross until they hear the “wall” beep sound. Unable to cross walls, they move back to where they were before they bumped into the (then invisible) wall, adding an orange plastic wall marker.
Wake the dragon: This continues until they wake the sleeping dragon by coming within 3 squares of the hidden Treasure Room. The dragon then wakes and will pursue the closest player by 1 square each turn. It is invisible and can fly, so it ignores walls.
Avoid dragon attacks: If the dragon is in the same space as a player, it attacks. This sends the player back to their starting Secret Room and reduces their future movement allowance by 2 moves per turn until they are knocked out of the game.
Steal the treasure: The player who finds the treasure needs to carry it back to their Secret Room to win. It’s heavy and reduces maximum movement to 4 spaces per turn.
BGG gives Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game a complexity rating of 1.70 out of 5.00 (N=37). While there are strategies that can be used to increase the chance of winning, it is still largely just luck. To me, it feels a bit like Hunt the Wumpus combined with Minesweeper and painted with a Dungeons & Dragons theme.
That said, it does a few things that are interesting and can provide inspiration for modern game designs.
Mid-game trigger
One thing I appreciate about the game is that finding the treasure is not enough to win. You need to find the treasure and carry it back to your secret room, presumably escaping the dungeon with it in your possession.
A simpler game might have just ended when you reached your goal. This small change creates some important Layer 2: Baked-In Thematic Elements:
You need to get in, find the treasure, and get back out to be safe.
The treasure is “heavy” and slows your movement (max. 4 spaces).
The dragon is in hot pursuit and makes undefendable attacks.
I appreciate how this creates two “phases” or “halves” to the game. In the early game you can explore freely, bumping into walls, and mapping as much of the dungeon as possible. In the late game, however, it is a race to get out with the dragon following closely behind. Blindly bumping into walls suddenly becomes a huge problem.
There are quite a few games that use this “two halves” approach. Betrayal at House on the Hill (Glassco, et al., 2004) switches gears when the haunt is triggered, revealing one player as a traitor and creating new goals. Big Trouble in Little China: The Game (Ludvigsen & Polonsky, 2018) starts in Chinatown but then switches to second half where the board is flipped and a final showdown with Lo Pan begins.
I think the idea of a mid-game trigger that fundamentally changes the rules is an interesting one.
Co-op vs. PvP
While Dungeons & Dragons has always been a cooperative game, all three of the TSR games in this series include player vs. player (PvP) rules.
In two-player games of Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game, each player has a Strength Factor that is secretly tracked by the game. They begin equal, but are reduced by movement. The game will sometimes “renew” their strength back to its starting value, but players don’t know when this happens.
A player can attempt to steal the treasure from another player by moving into the same square. The winner is determined by the highest Strength Factor and gains the treasure.
I wonder if the idea that board games were competitive activities was so ingrained in the 1980s that a cooperative design wasn’t considered. It could also be the case that a cooperative game would have been too complex for the technology available.
Either way, it’s a good lesson that not every roleplaying game needs to be cooperative and there is room for some PvP action.
The end of the series
This is the final game of the TSR retro-game series! If you missed them, check out Part 1 - Dungeon! and Part 2 - Fantasy Forest. I hope you enjoyed it and picked up some ideas for your next game design or TTRPG campaign. The games may be old, but every game can teach us something.
Next week is MECH WEEK! I also have a very big announcement for fans of Skeleton Code Machine. I think you are going to really like it.
Conclusion
Some things to think about:
Restrictions breed creativity: There’s a quote attributed to Henri Matisse that “Much of the beauty that arises in art comes from the struggle an artist wages with his limited medium.”3 That is true when it comes to limiting a TTRPG to just one page, and I think it’s true with this game as well. The technological limitations (e.g. no screens or displays) produced something unique.
Mid-game triggers: My biggest take-away from this game is how the dragon waking up (triggered by player proximity to the treasure) fundamentally changes the game. I’m left wondering how I can work a mid-game change like that into future designs.
Take that: In modern gaming, “take that” mechanisms are sometimes considered undesirable. This could be related to a general dislike for the three-player problem and kingmaking. In this case, however, I like how it really only shows up in the late game. It keeps the second player engaged and with a chance to win.
What do you think? Have you played any games with a mid-game trigger that significantly changes the game? How do you feel about PvP in games that are otherwise similar to co-op TTRPGs?
— E.P. 💀
P.S. Love solo games? The new EP Solo Bundle has five great games, including the ENNIE-nominated Exclusion Zone Botanist. Maps included!
Skeleton Code Machine is a production of Exeunt Press. All previous posts are in the Archive on the web. If you want to see what else is happening at Exeunt Press, check out the Exeunt Omnes newsletter.
For those unfamiliar with TSR, it was the original publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Originally called Tactical Studies Rules, it was later renamed TSR Hobbies. Eventually purchased by Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) in 1997, and by 2000 they had dropped the TSR name/branding from Dungeons & Dragons products.
My copy of the game is missing two of the three small green pieces.
I was unable to verify that Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954) ever actually said this, but I’m including it anyway. You can view some of his art online at The Met.
Thanks to Wyrd Science Magazine for pointing out that you can play this game online: https://dndlabyrinth.com/
Nice write-up! I would point out that you already have a game with a mid-game trigger: Eleventh Beast! Not until the player rolls a location that already has a Rumor Token does the Beast actually enter the game. There, though, the player is racing around the map to ward off the second phase of the game, as opposed to most games (I'd expect) where the player wants to trigger the second phase to get closer to finishing and winning.