Lost Treasure (board game)
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| Electronic Deep-Sea Diving Game | |
|---|---|
| Publishers | Parker Brothers |
| Players | 2-4 |
| Setup time | 5–10 minutes |
| Playing time | 1 hour+ |
| Chance | Medium (dice rolling) |
| Skills | Strategy |
Lost Treasure is a board game published in 1982 by Parker Brothers. Billed as an electronic deep-sea diving game, Lost Treasure centers on the search for sunken treasure chests full of gold and silver.
Lost Treasure is a guessing game that centers on a handheld electronic device known as the Digital Dive Control Center. The game came at a transformational moment in the industry, when the home video game console was starting to dominate sales. Parker Brothers made aggressive moves into that market by developing game cartridges for the Atari 2600 and Intellivision systems, featuring characters from Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, as well as James Bond, Strawberry Shortcake, Popeye, and The Hulk.[1]
Board
The Lost Treasure board is designed to emulate a nautical chart of the islands spanning two bodies of water: Temptation Bay and the Sea of Opportunity. Within each archipelago, there are two ports where found treasure can be sold for cash.
| Archipelago | Ports |
|---|---|
| The Mariner Islands | Fortunes Point, Pirate Landing |
| The Discovery Islands | Divers Landing, Recovery Point |
| The Windfall Islands | Sterling Point, Ingotsport |
| The Adventure Islands | Atlantis, Prosperity |
A 24x24 grid is superimposed onto the board. The grid is organized into 64 sectors which each measure 3x3.
Equipment
Boats – Each player is represented on the board by a red, yellow, white, or green boat piece.
Dice – The boats are moved one square at a time in any direction, according to the number rolled with the dice.
Buoys – There are 4 gold and 4 silver buoys which are used as guides to help the player narrow the search grid.
Treasure Chests – There are 16 treasure chests filled with either gold or silver.
Money – There are three denominations of money: $50,000 (green), $100,000 (gold), and $500,000 (blue).
Electronic Dive Control Center – The game is played by pressing the buttons on the device, which is powered by a 9-volt battery. The device automatically resets at the beginning of each game, assigning treasure locations at random. It emits a variety of chip music sounds to signal events during game play.
The device has two sets of indicators and three sets of buttons:
- On the left is a row of 6 red LEDs which indicate a variety of things throughout the game such as the amount of air in a scuba tank, the depth of a dive, and the monetary value of a treasure chest, which ranges from a minimum value of $100,000 to a maximum of $350,000.[2]
- A compass rose is studded with 5 LEDs which illuminate to give directions to the players.
- A vertical row of 4 buttons are used as prefaces for typing in location guesses. Gold and silver each have 2 buttons apiece: N–S and E–W.
- A 9-button grid is used to type specific coordinate guesses during the game.
- A 4-button panel on the right serves a variety of functions. The “Air” button is used to fill up the scuba tanks for a dive. The “Up” button allows a diver to return to the surface. The “$ Value” button reveals the monetary value of a treasure chest. The “Clear” button allows a player to void a data entry mistake during game play.