Sugoroku Adventure: The Tower of Druaga (lost board game based arcade game; 2000)

The game's logo from Namco's site.

Status: Lost

Sugoroku Adventure: Tower of Druaga (aka ドルアーガの塔すごろくアドベンチャー / Double Six Adventure: Tower of Druaga) is a boardgame-based arcade game released only in Japan in the year 2000 by Namco. The game features characters from Tower of Druaga, along with characters from the Walküre no Bōken (Valkyrie Adventure) series. The game itself can reward the player with tokens that could be exchanged for prizes, much like with tickets in western arcades. Recently, there have been several gameplay videos using screen capturing software directly off of the machine. Despite having many videos of its gameplay online, there is no emulated version as of this writing.

Gameplay

The player takes control of Gilgamesh and his allies; Ki, Valkyrie, Sandra, and Quarkman. The size of the party depends on how many credits the player puts into the machine; a maximum of 5 characters can be in the player's party at the cost of 5 tokens. The goal of the game is to get to the top of the tower in order to defeat the demon known as Druaga to earn as many credits as possible. However, like with most board games, there's always a chance that the wrong roll will make the player land on a space that has a negative effect. Such effects include losing a certain amount of credits, losing a party member, or certain spaces that will commence a battle. Battles play out similarly to a turn-based RPG; the player selects a hero and has them attack the enemy while they wait for their turn. Once a party member has been slain, they will not be able to return until the game has ended. If Gilgamesh is killed, the entire game will end regardless if any other party member is still alive. The player can cash out the tokens they've received at any point in the game, but defeating the bosses (especially Druaga) will reward a large number of credits upon being defeated.

Availability

Despite not having any ROM dumps or ways to emulate it, it appears to be a fairly common game in Japanese arcades. It appears that there haven't been any ROM boards for sale despite it being fairly common.