“aaaaaand breath…”. Much better now, thanks! 
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@Marx , look at it this way: If this was NEW game, not a new iteration of a beloved classic, would you want it? Sounds like you had a lot of problems with it.
You have your memories of the original, and those are good, and they are safe. Even if you miss out, you’re not gonna lose 'em. A new version could tarnish them, though, by really underlining the problems. Learned that with old TV shows I used to love as a kid.
Plus, $160 for a game you KNOW has severe problems? Yeesh.
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You don’t need it. It’s exactly as you’re remembering it and if you don’t have kids to introduce it to (or adults to chase nostalgia with), there’s really no compelling reason to have it. I DO think it’s great that it’s back—it still has a lot to offer kids and remains fairly unique as an experience (even if that’s largely thanks to being vintage design at the point). But the pricing is obscene (and in my opinion, predatory), the box is ridiculous, there was zero effort spent on improving or updating the game, the new artwork is inferior…
Save the money for something else. I had a few rounds of fun and promptly sold my copy on to the next guy chasing his childhood. Skip that, it’s not worth it.
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I don’t have a lot of nostalgia for HQ but I know people who do. They aren’t buying this new thing.
You aren’t (current age - 33) any more and game design has got better.
Do you know other people who have the same nostalgia feels about it that you do? If not, when will you get to play it? If you do, let them chuck in some of the money.
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Even back in the day - 1989/90 - the only really novel thing was the mini dungeon furniture and perhaps getting some new minis for our AD&D combat encounters. Nowadays so many games offer more for less, definitely.
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I must admit I went through the same nostalgia hesitation. As so many others have said. You don’t really need it, unless you want to introduce children/teenagers to it, or a solid group that are into it. And yes, it is way too expensive for what it is. For that price I would have expected Advanced thrown in as well. That’s a KS price for a game that is over 30 years old.
I was going to say that if you wanted to remind yourself of the basic gameplay (but with hilarious 1991 graphics) then there’s a DOS pc game of Heroquest which is abandonware.
But then I saw there’s actually several modern recreations, including on TTS?
I consider buying a copy of original Heroquest occasionally for nostalgia value (and probably would buy Advanced Heroquest if it wasn’t more expensive than a new house) but part of the nostalgia for me is the models, and the new version figures and art just don’t hit the same spot.
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Head over to BGG and read the user comments of users that rated the game a 5: HeroQuest | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
I find comments on 5 ratings always quite helpful when I want to keep myself from buying a game. These people are not hating on a game, 5 is usually general disappointment and much more likely to dissuade me from buying something.
Next take the main categories Heroquest is listed under into the Advanced Search: those would be Adventure, Exploration and Fighting (plus Fantasy if you want to stay close) and find newer games with better rankings that you maybe already own. Play those instead.
Nostalgia has its place somewhere in our minds. But dragging it into the here and now often takes away the rose tinted glasses. Have you ever tried some food / snack you loved at as a child only to find out it tastes awful? My partner tried this last year with a type of ice cream he had no idea was available to buy here today… we bought it once. And never again.
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So coming to the end of my no buy month. How did I do, massive spoiler by posting this here…
WIN
- No coffee bough this month, largely thanks to the ‘cheap but decent’ coffee bar staying shut in my work building
- Delaying buying an 18XX or two has given me time to reflect and conclude I don’t need to own any as anyone who I’ll play them with will own them for me.
FAIL
- A second copy of Race for the Galaxy to house the two good first arc expansions
- Bear Raid
- MicroMacro: Full House
- Imperium:Legends
A local gaming buddy was selling them. My wife expressed an interest in the first and she likes finding stuff on a page, Has the added bonus of highlighting cases suited for the children (five and nine, so I’m not quite ready to discuss some topic with them yet).
The second is a hit with the local gaming crowd, cannot parse the rules from the rulebook and so is up for sale already. Plenty of local copies about.
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- Summoner Wars starter set for the extra factions. This is an obvious purchase
- Carcassonne: Amazonas - this one is a trade. Just want to give it a try as I love Carcassonne. I doubt this one will stay
- Airlines: Europe - route building but the shares are more area majority than actual shares
- Risk: Europe - this I’ve been curious on for a while. I heard that this one is more “Euro-y”.
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Just to chime in with everyone else, you should definitely pass on this. I remember being slightly interested when this was first announced, as I also have childhood memories playing this with one of my oldest friends. But the price tag immediately turned me away, and honestly so did the added plastic. I thought the original cardboard furniture was pretty dang neat.
I already have a number of dungeon crawl style games, from Imperial Assault to Legend of Drizzt and, I know you have games like this as well. In my case, they don’t get played enough as it is, so I don’t need to add yet another game to that pile. How about you? Especially considering the gameplay for HQ is just not that good. I mean, roll and move? In this day and age? I have even read that the books were just reprinted as-is and did not even incorporate the corrections and errata that were created for the original. It is just a cash grab by Hasbro, preying on that nostalgia you are feeling.
While I do love the thought of sending Elfis Presley through that dungeon one more time, it is just not worth it at that price, and with the knowledge that I already own games that can give me similar experiences with better game mechanics.
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Thank you everyone. I will take it out of my Reserve pile when I get to work on Tuesday.
I think I’ll keep the Welcome to Redview expansion for Chronicles of Crime in there for a bit longer. But yeah, my fond memories of Hero Quest are mostly of having the time to play Hero Quest.
My partner and I just finished our first playthrough of Sleeping Gods, so we’re going to move on to the next in my line of big chunky RPG-style co-ops, and I think I’ll enjoy those far more. And, hey, maybe I can snag a used copy of HQ in a few years for far less… and after a few of the expansions release (I remember two new Quests, which were neat for trying new and interesting things).
So, thank you everyone. It is appreciated!
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Alas, I am weak!
Despite my resolve to not purchase more games, I just did!
One is an expansion, which might be sorta exempt from my pledge to buy fewer games, as it is not, in and of itself, a game. Undaunted: Reinforcements got on my radar once I learned it has (and is primarily according to reviews) a solo mode included that works for every new scenario in the expansion, but also for those in Normandy and North Africa. I have Normandy, but it has not hit the table yet. A solo mode will likely make that happen sooner.
The other two games were on my holiday wish list: Brian Boru and The King is Dead 2nd ed. Both sound fascinating and rather easy to teach, which is something I am trying to keep in mind these days.
I should be punished for my transgression. I know! I should be forced to buy yet more games to compound my guilt over breaking my resolution! That’d surely teach me!
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Just sell some of your old games 
These days that makes me feel better about buying games.
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Another bit of a catch-up here. The last three months have been more staid than earlier segments.
Expansions:
- Keyflower: Merchants and Farmers. Just realized this is my second favorite game and these are ones that aren’t always in print. Snagged a Farmers from GameNerdz and had to go via UK for Merchants but the price was ok.
- Concordia Solitaria: I suppose I could have just bought the app but cardboard never loses compatibility. It’s still the season of Solo so this seemed worthwhile.
Small:
- Fantasy Realms: Seemed worth a shot for the small $ and volume required. 53 cards!
- Tiny Epic Galaxies: Found a good price and have always been curious. The bar for small is so low.
Big:
- Polis: This was recommended by a BGG/BGA recommender bot and caught my eye. It’s more Euro than War, but once you’ve grokked the Euro side of the puzzle the politic/war part really pops. I got a few games in with @Pillbox on BGA through it was very hard to parse in that format. High hopes for future table sessions. It struck me like Nations, but with war. And I do love Nations.
- Furnace: Just came back into stock! I don’t know what it is about this, but literally 3 minutes into Matt Lees’s review I was pausing and searching, feeling THIS IS MY GAME. It’s on order hold now, we’ll see how it goes down. It may fire Res Arcana?
- Stephenson’s Rocket: @LaLunaVerde keeps singing its praises and I have a feeling it’s buy now or wait 10 years, so this is a hail mary purchase to see what happens. I’d passed it up in the past due to its low rating, but after puttering on an algorithm that controls for age and number of votes, it’s modern, normalized rating is much higher.
And it doesn’t count:
- Paleo: This doesn’t hit the budget or the spreadsheet. Bought this on sale as a date night activity. We’ll see how it goes down and likely sell it on once done. Seems like it’s team Friday, and Friday was a pretty good solo game.
I have a bit of a backlog on my One-In-Two-Out policy, but Lords of Waterdeep and Blue Moon City are edging toward the door. That’ll be a start.
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If it was not for the distance, I would be taking Lords of Waterdeep off your hands, I have played that game on the app until the cows come home, and the only time I played it on tabletop loved it to bits.
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Well, if that isn’t justification for a trip to NZ I don’t know what is.
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I read this as your date night was buying boardgames!
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Ha! I don’t have that kind of date. I took her into a board game store once and she got the jeeblies.
Playing is increasingly comfortable for her as long as no one sees
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I brought home Tales from the Loop (the boardgame) yesterday and spent most of last night and this morning trudging through the muck that is its rulebook. Near as I can tell it’s pretty much all there and accounted for, but the layout is bizarre and in their quest for brevity they seem to have ruthlessly cut the budget on visual examples. Thankfully it’s not an overly complex game and there’s a reasonable playthrough up from Colin at One-Stop Co-Op Shop, so I’ve already gotten started with the suggested first scenario.
Aside from the rulebook it’s a pretty well put together package. They seem to have put a lot of thought into keeping fiddle to a minimum and while there are oodles of tokens, only a select few are in play during a given scenario and most are clearly denoted as safe to return to the box. The box itself is only the size of Jumbo edition Container (marking only the second time I’ve seen these specific dimensions), and with 9 replayable scenarios, it’s packed with content. It has 9 miniatures (for the cool robits) but all the characters are standees sporting their quirky artwork. Really well thought out and put together, with a cherry on top via fantastic cardboard and a useful insert.
Which makes the rulebook all the more maddening. The BGG forums are riddled with discussions about how to play the damn thing—with the hacking sequences representing a particular sore spot—and even the one notable, non-prototype playthrough from One-Stop seems to be riddled with small errors making it tough to use as a reference.
That said, I completed a reasonably smooth-if-slow day (round) in my first game and am loving how it’s developing. Hopefully this was just a rough hurdle toward something great.
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