The coolest game to ever hit the planet first appeared some 38 years ago, featuring an electronic tower that lit up, played music, and somehow ran an epic fantasy adventure game with its state-of-the-art technological wizardry. That game was Dark Tower. We want to bring you that same sense of awe and wonder, pushing the boundaries of what a board game can actually do. After 3 years of painstaking work by a team of two dozen designers, engineers, and artists, we are thrilled to present to you a game with echoes of that long-gone wonder but ultimately unlike any game you’ve ever experienced.
Return to Dark Tower is a cooperative game for 1 to 4 heroes who undertake epic quests, fight fearsome foes, and test their mettle against the looming darkness of the titular tower. Designed by Rob Daviau and Isaac Childres — designers of the two highest rated games of all time on Board Game Geek — along with Noah Cohen, Brian Neff, and Justin D. Jacobson, the streamlined rules offer players difficult choices about when to advance their objective, gather resources, deal with threats, or level up.
Each player controls a unique hero with their own starting inventory and special abilities. Along the way you gain helpful items, powerful virtues, and trusty companions to help you achieve your goal: Find a way into the Tower and defeat a powerful adversary.
Figuring out the best way to utilize all of these assets is the key to victory. The game actively works to stop you, responding to your decisions and taking advantage of your missteps. Foes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, will stalk your hero and assault your buildings.
Our innovative combat system leverages the power of the processor. Within the app, select virtual “cards” from each foe’s unique deck, revealing the potential consequences of the fight. Then, use your hero’s advantages to modify those results. Will you mitigate losses across the board, or focus on one to gain valuable resources for your effort.
Looming over the board, the Tower itself is the greatest menace you’ll face. Each turn, you drop a skull in, representing the threat of corruption. You decide where emerging skulls are placed, making those buildings less useful. At times the Tower itself springs to life, releasing trapped skulls in a single wave or revealing glyphs that sap your will.
The path to victory is fraught with peril. Battles and events can give your hero corruption. If you don’t cleanse skulls from the buildings to keep them in check, the supply quickly dwindles.
Tarry too long and face the risk of having all of the seals of the Tower break. Corruption, skulls, and time: Any one of these pitfalls can spell defeat.
Return to Dark Tower constantly presents new challenges. The adversary within the tower, the plan to access the tower, and the suite of foes you will face can mix and match in thousands of combinations. Play the same array over again or try something completely new.
For complete information on how to play, you can download the draft rulebook:
Or check out this live playthrough we’ll be doing on the Dice Tower:
We’ve also arranged for a how-to-play video by Rodney Smith of Watch It Played! at the time of release.
Created by a world-class team of designers and engineers led by Tim Burrell-Saward, an expert in technology-augmented games, the Tower itself is a game component without equal. From its very foundation, it’s been devised to play an integral role in the game. Using a collection of magical-yet-reliable technologies, it generates game moments that simply wouldn’t be possible without it. The Tower literally and figuratively dominates the table, drawing upon all of these powers to foil you. You will grow to curse its name.
The game itself is rich and satisfying. But we have a few additional items in this campaign to upgrade your play experience even further.
For those of you new to Kickstarter, an “add-on” is something that’s not included with a regular pledge. If you’re interested in getting the neoprene board or any other add-on we might add to the campaign, it’s really simple. You have two options:
The Alliances expansion offers new rules and components to add further depth and variety to the game. It includes two new heroes, who can be used in any game. The Archwright fortifies buildings to protect the kingdoms; the Haunted Recluse dabbles in forbidden lore to powerful effect. Influence is a new resource that can be used to form alliances with powerful guilds or to thwart the capricious whims of the nobles. It also features new treasures and allies with more intricate abilities for experienced gamers.
The Dark Horde box contains stunning sculpts by Punga Miniatures of all the foes in the game. These figures bring the foes to life. (Keep checking back here as we unlock new foes and show off new sculpts.)
The Coffers box replaces the cardboard resource tokens from the game and the Alliances expansion with top-quality, heat-transfer plastic tokens that have a great feel and durability.
This 50mm diameter and 5mm thick metal coin signifies the active player. If you signed up for notification before the campaign launched, you will receive this for free if you back the kickstarter and get at least one copy of the game.
Seriously, folks. This mat is huge and heavy. It’s about 80% larger area than the game board. This makes the spaces larger as well of course, which can be a boon if you’re playing with the miniature foes from Dark Horde. A real specialty item for those who want to play an epic game on an epic stage.
Check out this rendered example of a gold foil art print:
Part of the fun of Kickstarter is achieving new heights and unlocking those sweet stretch goals. We’ve already packed a ton of content into the game, but we’ll manage to find a way to get even more goodies in there. So let’s break those seals!
At PAX Unplugged, we were able to run a number of tabletop media folks through the game. These opinions were freely given and provided without compensation. Here’s what they had to say:
We know you’ll love Return to Dark Tower. But you might be wondering why you should back now. There are four main reasons:
If this is your first Kickstarter, welcome! It’s easier than it looks, and being a part of the community can be a lot of fun! You can download this PDF file to learn the ins-and-outs of being a backer:
We are once again using Quartermaster Logistics to oversee the fulfillment process. They have an extremely efficient system, quality packaging, tracking information, and their customer service is second to none. We have key fulfillment partners within each shipping region and will freight the games directly to them, so there will be no surprise charges, such as customs fees or VAT, to the US, EU, Canada, Australia, and China.
Please use the chart below to calculate your shipping fees. Due to an error in setting up the Kickstarter page, some countries are charged at the time of pledge, while others will be charged in the pledge manager after the campaign. You will also be charged additional shipping if you order add-ons or multiple copies and at similar rates.
We cannot ship to PO Boxes or to the following countries: Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Cuba, Iran, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine.
We are also thrilled to be using BackerKit again. They are a “pledge manager”, a third-party service that lets us manage our orders and fulfillment. This service starts after the Kickstarter campaign is over. You’ll be able to add items to your pledge at that time. If you are unsure about what items you want to get during the Kickstarter campaign, you can back at the “Map to BackerKit” level. This will qualify you as a backer for any backer-related goodies and will give you access to the pledge manager to fill out your order later.
RETAILERS
We have a special pledge tier for verified brick-and-mortar stores: For Bazaar Proprietors Only. You pledge only $50 during the campaign. In the pledge manager, you will finalize your order. However, you will not have to pay the remaining balance due until the games are ready to ship. Please click here for detailed information and terms.
Restoration Games was founded in 2016 by Justin D. Jacobson and Rob Daviau on a shared love of all those great board games they played when they were kids. We are dedicated to restoring these games to their rightful glory, bringing the fun we had to a new generation of gamers.
SPREAD THE WORD
A Kickstarter campaign is only as strong as its backers. You will help push this project to be the best it can be. We greatly appreciate anything you can do to let people know about this campaign, whether it’s posting to your social media accounts, sending emails to your friends, or letting a co-worker know about us.
If you haven’t joined the game’s facebook group, go do it. We’ve got a great group of fans, talking about the game, and it’s a good place to go to ask questions.
Another fun way to spread the word is adopting a social media avatar. Tag yourself:
This is our third Kickstarter, and they just keep getting bigger. So, while we’ve learned from each one we’ve done, the challenges keep getting bigger as well. Notably, the tower itself is a complicated component with mechanical and electrical components. Fortunately, we’ve enlisted Tim Burrell-Saward and Andrew Sung, both with significant experience on these types of projects, to assist us in overseeing the manufacturing process. We’ve also built additional time into the delivery date to give us a buffer to deal with any potential issues that might arise.