Earlier this year, Hero diver 2‘s hold on gaming culture was unparalleled. For at least a month, every corner of social media was filled with memes created or inspired by absurd gameplay from Arrowhead Games’ hit. And that’s no coincidence, comedy play was built into the very bones of the game, all the way down to the tabletop role-playing game that inspired it: Drakar and Demoneror as it is better known in the English speaking world: Dragon banana — a Swedish version of Dungeons & Dragons that you can play now.
First reported by PCGamer earlier this yearArrowhead Games CEO and creative director Johan Pilestedt said his game design leans toward comedy due to his experience with tabletop games, “where the players manage to turn everything into a farce.” Monday in an interview with the New York TimesPilestedt specified that they were his children’s games Drakar and Demoner that influenced the collaborative, long-form narrative approach Hell divers 2 would become known for.
Drakar and Demoner (which directly translates to Dragons and Demons) was first published in 1982 by Target Games. As the then eight-year-old Dungeons & Dragons began to grow in popularity, the barrier between the English-language game and the Swedish-speaking player base offered Target Games the opportunity to create their own fantasy tabletop RPG using the Basic Role-Playing System, the brainchild of Call of Cthulu publisher Chaosium.
Since its initial conception, the game has gone through six editions and almost as many publishers, most recently landing at Free League – the Swedish tabletop publisher known for games like The Lord of the Rings role-playing game, Mork Borg, The electrical state, And Alien: the role-playing game among others. In 2022, in celebration of the game’s 40th anniversary, Free League held a Kickstarter for an English-language edition of Drakar and Demoner‘s, which raised more than $700,000. The complete history of Drakar and Demoner is a long one that can be read in a book by Orvar Säfström and Jimmy Wilhelmsson…although unfortunately it is only available in Swedish.
Dragon bananaaccording to Free League’s site, aims to cultivate a playing style it calls “role playing of merriment and chaos.” The game’s imaginative design prioritizes minimal pre-session preparation with big, absurd swings during play. Players choose professions – which unlike D&D classes only affect starting stats and don’t limit progression to predetermined skill paths – and species, including standard fantasy dwarves and elves, as well as more choices like the iconic mallards, also known like duck people. The game’s central mechanic uses a familiar skill-based d20 system, but instead of rolling high to succeed like in D&D, players want to roll low. If you are interested Dragon bananaspecific mechanics, real player Jasmine Bhullar (Dimension 20, DesiQuest, Acquisitions Incorporated) has made a video explaining how Dragon banana comparable to D&D and what, in her opinion, it is doing better.
While it’s not quite the same game Helldiver 2′s development team played almost 40 years ago the impact of Dragon banana (or rather Drakar and Demoner) cannot be denied. Every time you see one Herodiver meme, remember you have a Swedish table game to thank.