Born of the mainstream success of D&D and the electronic board game boom in the early 80s, Mattel’s Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth is a classic through and through. Released in 1980, players have to navigate an invisible maze that changes every time you play. Sound cues let you know when you’ve hit a wall, allowing you to place little plastic markers to map your progress. The goal is to get the treasure before the dragon catches you. Simple, and also terrifying to a young Stu who wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of being chased by anything, let alone a gigantic dragon.

The game actually holds up well 30-odd years later. As an object, I love the forbidding black castle, filled with red squares bearing menacing thumbnail illustrations (I had no idea back then that the illustrations where just meaningless flavor – they seemed to hold some kind of hidden meaning, which added to the D&D mystique). The metal miniatures are good for the standards of the day, too.

The real star for me, though, is the dragon on the box art (the technical illustrations in the manual have a distinct charm, too). Have you ever seen such a magnificent dragon before? Or, at least one that was so Very Late Seventies? I would frame that and put it on my wall. Or wear it on a ringer tee. Alas, no one knows the artist who did it. Also, it might just be me, but it also strongly reminds me of the album covers for Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light, 1 and 2, by drone metal outfit Earth. There’s something in artist Stacey Rozich’s dark folksy work that takes me back to this board game, and vice versa. I’d play an RPG based on her stuff, for sure.