ClackyJ, A 47 Danger, and myself played through the arcade game Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom this weekend. Arcade game? I know.

It’s your standard side scrolling hack n’ slash fare, except all dungeoneny and dragony! Wait… don’t remember a dungeon of any kind. I’ve been scammed! I guess the giant dragon makes up for the loss.

Anyway, D&D is like any of the thousands of Final Fight clones out there with one notable difference: Inventory! Yes, much like the pen and paper D&D, there is loot to be had. Loot will appear when vanquishing a foe, finding a chest, or simply stumbling across it while walking from left to right. This feature of the game makes it feel like a game of Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. In what way, you ask? Well in LoZ:FS, the importance of tasks looks a little like this:

1. Acquire loot.
2. Make sure no one else acquires loot.
3. Make fellow players lose loot.
4. Acquire fellow players’ recently lost loot.
5. Try to get fellow players killed.
6. Work together to move the game forward.

The gameplay in D&D is surprisingly similar.

There’s lots of fun stuff to do like set fellow players on fire, make fellow players open trapped chests, and cast “sticks to snakes” as much as possible. There’s a certain satisfaction derived from casting sticks to snakes over and over while fighting a giant red dragon. (FYI, sticks to snakes is exactly what it sounds like, and is worthless).

To sum up: D&D:ToD is fun for reasons the creators of the game probably didn’t intend. Those reasons are: to screw your friends.