On Thursday, Renton’s Dungeons and Dragons, in what’s gotta be the company’s biggest “duh” business move in years, announced a new board game to be released this August.
“Castle Ravenloft” isn’t the first board game from D&D’s owners, Wizards of the Coast, but it is the company’s first to target the new-wave board game audience of the past decade (think German board games like Catan and Pandemic). D&D reps compared their new game to the latter in their announcement yesterday, describing the game as a “fast-paced,” hour-long take on the D&D formula. Gather around the board with up to five friends in cooperative, strategic groups to take on a common foe.
“Every turn [of the game], things will get worse,” D&D’s Mike Mearls said on Thursday. “It’s going to be really tense and really claustrophobic.”
The board game renaissance hasn’t changed most people’s Cloak and Dagger stereotypes about D&D, but a board game like this might do the trick. Good on you for trying, Wizards.
A note: This game was announced at the weekend-long D&D Experience event in Fort Wayne, IN. I like D&D as much as the next dork, but am I the only person who thinks the combination of “D&D Experience” and “Fort Wayne, IN” sounds like the worst weekend ever?
