A strange little side quest
One reason role-playing games keeps producing good game ideas around Exit the Castle is that its history is full of strange turns. By 1987, fantasy role-playing had become a major computer-game direction, with Zelda, licensed Dungeons & Dragons games and other story-led adventures expanding the form. A second detail makes the picture even better: Boxing was part of the ancient Olympic Games by 688 BC, long before gloves, weight classes, or timed rounds existed in anything like their modern form. That history is one reason familiar mechanics can still feel new when they are recombined well.
