Deathmaze

Deathmaze is a board game published by Simulations Publications in January 1980, and designed by Greg Costikyan and Redmond A. Simonsen. It falls into the general category of dungeon crawls, more specifically, dungeon games in which players enter a dungeon, massacre the dungeon dwellers and steal their treasures.

Game mechanics

Deathmaze differed from other games of the genre by offering play without requiring either a Game Master (to design the dungeon and play the monsters within during combat) or numbered paragraphs (as offered by similar games in the genre such as Flying Buffalo's Buffalo Castle expansion for its Tunnels & Trolls, or Metagaming's Death Test for The Fantasy Trip). In Deathmaze, the players randomly drew counters representing rooms and corridors one at a time as they progressed through the dungeon, slowly building up the dungeon counter by counter.[1]

A tongue in cheek introduction offered the viewpoint of the dungeon dwellers on the invasion of humans into their homes.[2]

There is an expanded set of rules published in Moves Magazine #51 (June-July, 1980) entitled "Roll up for the mystery tour".[3]

The same game system was reprised in Citadel of Blood, with the addition of character races, dungeon levels and different "colors" of magic depending upon phases of the moon. This edition consolidated the basic and the expansion rules and took as a premise the game world of Swords & Sorcery.[4]

Reception

Eric Goldberg reviewed Deathmaze in Ares Magazine #1, rating it a 6 out of 9.[5] Goldberg commented that "if one ignores the premise, Deathmaze will hold the attention of the purchaser as well as any of the recent releases."[5]

Bruce Campbell reviewed Deathmaze in The Space Gamer No. 29.[6] Campbell commented that "Deathmaze is a good game for two specific purposes. Beginning fantasy gamers will appreciate the simple structure. After a few games, they can begin to add their own monsters or treasures and later advance to dungeon design and increased role-playing, while retaining the combat system and basic game concepts. Gamers with some experience will not find anything new in this game. However, it may provide a challenge when your usual playing partners are unavailable, since it is ideally designed for solitaire play."[6]

Reviews

References
  1. Costikyan, Greg (1980). Deathmaze Rules. Simulations Publications, Incorporated.
  2. Costikyan, Greg (1980). Deathmaze Introduction. Simulations Publications, Incorporated.
  3. "Deathmaze". Boardgame Geek. Retrieved June 16, 2018.
  4. "Citadel of Blood". Simulation Publications. 1981.
  5. Goldberg, Eric (March 1980). "A Galaxy of Games". Ares Magazine. Simulations Publications, Inc. (1): 33.
  6. Campbell, Bruce (July 1980). "Capsule Reviews". The Space Gamer. Steve Jackson Games (29): 24.
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