The Keep
1983
Designed by James D. Griffin
Published by Mayfair Games, Mayfair Games
A tie-in to the horror film of the same name. One player controls the evil demon, Molasar, while the others have twelve turns to find the Hilt, the only weapon that can destroy him. It can be hidden in one of six rooms near the heart of a labyrinth. There are intriguing elements to the game; Molasar starts with twelve servants but actually has to "eat" one per turn, reducing his options in terms of blocking the searchers. Combat is handled by the attacked searcher nominating another searcher to play a combat card, which is compared against Molasar's; the loser is forced to "retreat" by the difference in values. If the searcher wins, they pick up a bonus (non-combat) card. All the searchers have (minor) special powers and Molasar has a number of one-off special cards he can play in trying to delay them. You can think of it, almost, as a very early, much simpler version of Lord of the Rings - except that in this one, one of the players gets to be Sauron!
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Game data sourced from BoardGameGeek, used under their API terms.
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