The History of Heroquest.

Ahh, friday. The day when everyone gets to loosen up their ties and shoelaces, all in expectation of the wondrous weekend. Everyone loves the weekend in the words of Loverboy. The lounging, the lack of schedules, the pandemonium that occurs, and Heroquest.

Ahh, Heroquest. Let me explain this game to everyone.

It all started around 3 or 4 years ago in lexington Kentucky, the homeland of Heroquest. It had been a cold, cold winter and spring was wanting to break out of winter's icy grasp. Jack Frost was willing to let up on all of us, but only if he could have one last blast of winter weather before he left. This blast came in the form of a monstrous ice storm which dumped three to four inches of said ice over the entire bluegrass. Any of you readers would know of what i speak, nod your head at your computer screen in confirmation.  Trees and power lines were falling daily, roads were un-navigable, and power was removed from thousands of homes. In Firebrook, there was only two or three streets that had power, and mine was one. Across the neighborhood, Dan Marino's house (not the football player, but the Mormon EMT driver) did not. 

Despite the lack of power, my mormon friend and his cronies were sure to find ways to entertain themselves as they always did. During the 2 week period where they had no power, this desire for entertainment manifested itself in the form of Heroquest, an 80's boardgame that is like a mall madness version of dungeons and dragons. Now here, there is a small aside that i must state. I realize that this is very dorky and nerdy, but i promise that it is worth your time to continue to read. If you are saying on the inside of your head, "Oh Pish Posh! Why should I, a nobel prize winning all american athlete, continue to read about silly board games?"

You should.

Anyways, they taught themselves how to play the game and they actually beat every single mission that they could! With the power still out and the game complete, they did what any other group of mildly bored, ethically sound group of high schoolers does: they started making their own rules and missions. Dan was givn the coveted title of Zargon, the dungeon master (DM) and everyone else was able to create their own specific character. My good friend Thomas was Nigel the hollister Elf. He was wearing trendy clothes and rode on a plaid cloud. 

Oh, the dorky revelry. It was so awesome.

Time continued on, the ice melted away. but the heroquesting continued. More people were joined to the fold (aka me) and the game grew in size and in hilarity. Rules were removed and ludicrous situations were commonplace. Once, a hero kicked coals into the eyes of multiple orcs, successfully burning out the eyeballs of each orc, and then successfully killing the orcs (somehow). 

Ohh, those were the days. The classic days of Heroquest, with all of the original pieces and all of the original players. These were the times that really shaped the way that i saw the game and how i played the game. Yet alas, all good things must come to an end. The end of high school came upon our merry little group of board game adventurers, and the group was disbanded. Sigh...

College! The excitement of living in a dorm with hundreds of other smelly, hormone driven twenty somethings! I came to college and enjoyed the first semester of my schooling at Taylor University greatly. School was fun and all, but the one thing that i talked about regularly was this ridiculous game that i played in high school called Heroquest. I could see the sparkle in other's eyes as I explained it to the excited listeners. Everyone would say, "why don't you bring the game up! We need to play this!" I wish that I could've brought it up, yet i didn't own it! With that, i really lost hope...

Until January! It was J-term and my birthday happened to fall within J-term. Unbeknownst to me, my good friend Steven Stevens bought Heroquest on E-Bay and had it shipped to Taylor. Now the fun could really begin! With that, hilarity and pandemonium has occured in Samuel Morris hall, but i can't really explain it and do it justice. I would recommend that you come and see for yourself... Midnight on Saturday nights... Come enjoy! :-)