Five years ago the church I worked for at the time had a big garage sale, and one of the items was the basic HeroQuest set with an expansion pack (something Skeleton King). They were asking $10 for it. I knew enough about the game's value on Ebay that I gave them $20 and I still got a good deal. Saved it for the day when the grandkids might want to play it.
A year ago when I first introduced it, HeroQuest was a hit even when Ollie and Evie had to include little sister Lucy (age 4 at the time). A year later, I noticed a huge uptick in the older kids' understanding of the rules and an astonishing memory for details in their previous games. Evie for example regularly reminded her brother that because he had a staff he could attack monsters on the diagonal. Clever girl.
This time to make it more interesting I replaced the players' tokens with mins from my fantasy collection, which was a big hit. We played the third level in the basic set, the lair of Ulag the Ork, with Ollie playing his wizard and Evie her Elf (they both like spells). We ran the Barbarian and the Dwarf as NPCs. It was a near run thing, thanks in part to Ollie favouring Leroy Jenkins tactics and thinking his wizard could also be an assaulter. Before the final boss fight I let them recharge their spells and "found" them a healing spell in a chest to top them up. Ulag never had a chance.
It was absolutely fascinating to see them be so engrossed by a totally material game, with physical tokens, when they are so accustomed to playing video games. The kids went home demanding another game in the near future. We might also try a very basic game of a fantasy game like Dragon Rampant, because I think they're ready for it. I hope that decades from now, days like this one will give them happy memories and maybe some play ideas with their own kids.
