Dungeon!
Wizards of the Coast recently reprinted the old Dungeon! boardgame (for it's... fifth?... incarnation). And now they've put up an interview with the designer, David Megarry.
An Interview with David R. Megarry
Well, I think we played it three or four times but then the prototype went to Gary Gygax in Lake Geneva. I invented Dungeon! in October, 1972 and visited Gary (with David Arneson) in December, 1972. Gary liked the game a lot and was willing to try to peddle it to [Don] Lowry [of Guidon Games, the original publisher of Chainmail]. I left the prototype with him at that point. I had not made a copy of anything, so this was a very trusting activity. Ultimately I got the board back and the cards but the hand drawn rule booklet was lost.
It's nice to see the story from the other side of my dad's porch.
I still have a copy of the original Dungeon at home. I doubt all the pieces are still there, but I don’t know for sure. I should pull it out and give it the once over soon. ^_^
Yay! He lives!
I wish we still had our ’75 copy. I wasn’t nearly as happy with the ’80 version I had for a while (larger cards and a slightly smaller board—you had to just have draw piles off board for when you needed the cards).