"For an age, the tower lay in ruins. Unbeknownst to the people of the realm, a great evil stirred in its bowels. It started with strange sightings: a flock of crows flying in circles until they dropped from the sky, the lake frozen solid in the height of summer. In time, they could not deny that which they most feared.

The evil had not been vanquished. The darkness would soon fall again. The tower will rise."

Following on from the success of their Fireball Island Kickstarter earlier this year, Restoration Games have released a teaser trailer for their revamp of the 80s classic board game Dark Tower.

The original game saw players battle, trade and quest in order to defeat the dark tower before their friends. It became a huge success, mainly due to its innovative internal computer system;

The new game, Return to Dark Tower, is being developed by Rob Daviau (Betrayal at the House on the Hill, Pandemic Legacy: Season 1) and Issac Childres (Gloomhaven), so expectations are already high long ahead of its release in 2020.

Daviau and Childres—along with Jacobson and Restoration’s Tinker-in-Chief, J.R. Honeycutt—have been working behind the scenes for months to develop the core game mechanics. The game strives to provide players with interesting choices about which quests to pursue, how to best use resources to keep the growing evil in check, and when to make that final decision to assault the tower. Jacobson revealed that, while the game is still early in development, one of the reasons for the announcement’s timing was to allow them to do significant playtesting without fear of the story leaking.

Much like the dark tower itself, specific details of the game are currently shrouded in mystery.  However, it does appear that unlike it's predecessor, Return to Dark Tower will be co-operative rather than competitive.  Daviau states that "the real threat is that imposing tower. It will take all of the players working together to defeat it.”

This release has peaked my interest.  I'm always a fan of a re-vamp, and Daviau and Childres are first picks on my fantasy board game team.

The title and the teaser release statement both suggest that this will not be a replica game, but rather a new iteration of an old classic - taking a legacy and giving it a modern twist. The Kickstarter won't roll out until 2019, but in the meantime, fans can keep an eye out for updates on the Restoration Games website.

Are you going to be keeping an eye on this?