I hope I die before Arnold Hen­

dricks does. When he arrives in Hell,

he'll find I've reserved a special
corner fo r him; nastiest devils, sharp­
est pitchforks and a tailormade triple­
weight suit of thermal underwear.
arraratn frincE
Why? Because this sadist who
styles himself a game designer has re­
duced this once great, swashbuckling
gamer to a shambling wreck!

Twenty-three games of this bloody

thing and I've only managed to win
SIX! I've died of snake-bite, goblin
swords, plague, booby-trapped
treasure chests, altercations w ith the
royal guard, kidnapping by astral
spectres and even the headman's axe
— due to a poorly timed remark
about the local priestess. How was I
to know they consider fat holy?

BARBARIAN PRINCE fits into

every category of game ever de­
signed. First, it's a solitaire game, and
we all know about those, right?
Wrong! It's also a boardgame that
comes w ith a miniature figurine. It's
a fantasy role playing game that uses
both the random table approach and
the linked paragraph method of pro­
viding action. The only thing it's
missing is a cord to plug it in.
Clearly, such an ambitious under­
taking should collapse of its own
weight, especially when it's all
crammed into a mini-game format,
right? Wrong again.

The game's story line is pretty

standard. You are the Barbarian
Prince. Your father, the King, has
been murdered. You are on the run
from the usurper's guards. To win
back the throne, you must hire an
army. You have only seventy days
(turns) to gain 500 gold pieces as
pay, or lose the throne forever.

Game: BARBARIAN PRINCE

Publisher: Heritage (Dwarf Star!
14001 Distribution Way
Dallas, TX 75234
Designer: Arnold Hendricks
Reviewer: B ill Watkins
Solitaire Fantasy Role Playing
game. Package includes one 12x14
inch mapboard mounted on thin
cardboard, one 25mm figurine, one T\£Yl CvF^li
24 page rules book, one 48 page
event booklet, tw o sheets of tables
and control tracks. Price: $5.00.

32
 Each day, you choose from a list of
actions: travel to a new hex, stay in
the present hex and rest (recover
from wounds, improve hunting), or
search for a hidden cache (food,
treasure, etc.). If you are in a town,
temple or castle hex, you can try
other actions, such as: hire charac­
ters, search fo r information, ask for
an audience w ith the local lord, or
make an offering at the temple. Each
day you must attend to such mun­
dane matters as obtaining food and
shelter for yourself, your followers
and your mounts.
Movement is kept track o f on the
map. Terrain includes mountains,
hills, forest, swamp, farmland and
open countryside. Man-made fea­
tures include towns, castles, temples
and ruins. The miniature figurine is
used only to mark the party's present
location on the map.
A t first glance, I thought the map
was just a throw-in. W rong. It's very
easy to get lost. The tougher the ter­
rain the easier it is to get lost. You
must plan your moves across the map
very carefully. Many's the time I've
found myself stumbling around the
map, bumping into trees and wonder­
ing whether starvation would get me
before the goblins did. Unlike other
role-playing games, the map is the
key.
Event occurence is handled quite
well. A roll of tw o dice against a ter­
rain table determines whether an
event occurs. The more difficult the
terrain, the less likely it is there w ill be
an event. Most events begin w ith you
meeting other characters. If the char­
acters will most likely be hostile, you
will usually have a choice of three
actions: talk, evade or fight. First,
there is a die roll to determine how
many characters of the particular
type you meet. Then you must deter­
mine which of the three optional ap­
proaches you will use, followed by a
second die roll to determine the initial
results of your choice. W ith six or
more possibilities under each option,
you have a pretty good range of out­
comes. For example, if you choose
the talk option, you m ight make
friends, gain useful information or
even end up fighting. Under the flight
option, you determine whether one
side surprises the other and how
badly. This initial-outcome roll then
directs you to a rules paragraph that
tells you how to carry out the action.
You might also meet basically
neutral characters, such as a farmer
or a wizard. You choose an ap­
proach: peaceful or a raid. A wizard
might join your party — or he might
fry your toes for you.
The combination o f paragraphs
and random tables leads to an almost
unbelievable profusion of story lines.
No tw o of my twenty-three games re­
motely resembled each other. Even
better, the results o f the tables and
paragraphs have always been believ­
able. Too bad. I can't use random­
ness as an excuse either!
The combat system is quite simple,
but works very well. Each character
gets one swing per combat round.
There is no real weapons differentia­
tion. That's built into the each char­
acter's combat factor. For combat re­
sults, each character makes a two-die
roll. The result is modified by the dif­
ference in combat factors between
characters, and the wound status of
each. The modified die-roll result tells
whether the swing connected, and
how many wounds resulted.
My first reaction to the combat
system was that the results couldn't
be realistic. A two-die roll w ith only
minor modifications would be too
random. It isn't. I've fought over fifty
combats w ith this system. The results
have been consistently realistic.
Better fighters win consistently,
except when significantly outnum ­
bered. It isn't perfectly predetermined
— that would be a bore. There is just
enough uncertainty built in to make it
exciting.
Gaining gold and treasure to hit the
500 gold piece target isn't easy. You
gain information and set o ff on a
mini-quest. If you get to the correct
hex in one piece, you may not be able
to find the object immediately. If you
do find the location of the cache,
other thieves may already have
grabbed it. It could be booby trap­
ped, or worse, it might prove w orth­
less.
Getting the gold isn't enough
either. It's amazing how easily you
can fritter away a heavy pouch
through nothing more than buying
food and shelter. Or you can get your
pocket picked. Or your companions
might believe your condition of un­
consciousness after combat is per­
manent, and disappear w ith your
gold. Not an easy life.
Ah yes, your companions. The
game contains a good selection of
non-player characters, from warriors
to guides to porters to slavegirls.
Some you can hire, given the correct
circumstances. Some you purchase
in the local slave market. Mounts of
various types can also be obtained.
A t this point, you are probably
thinking this is a long, complicated
game. It isn't. Granted, the game can
go seventy turns and any given turn
can contain a number of events, or
sizeable combats. I had only tw o
games go more than an evening's
play. Most ended in less than tw o
hours — unfortunately! Events don't
happen that often, and most turns go
rather quickly. You spend a lot of
time wandering around in circles
cursing your compass.
In BARBARIAN PRINCE, the de­
cision point doesn't come until the
game is finished. You just can't
knock o ff early and say, " I w o n ." No
way. In one game, I found a relic that
would automatically w in me the
game. A ll I had to do was to get
across a certain river w ith the relic,
and the river was only one hex away.
Easy. I was about to w rite the game
up when this little voice intruded:
that's not fair, play it out. A t which
point I was hacked to pieces by a
bunch of bandits. The game isn't
over until it's over.
In short, the success o f the game
stems from tw o basic items: the sub­
systems work quickly and smoothly,
and the adventure doesn't repeat
itself very easily. The events repeat
quite often, but always in a different
context.
There are problems. The map
w o n 't lie flat unless you drop a bould­
er on it. You can't buy or steal
mounts as a conscious activity. The
rules tell you to proceed w ith play
after only a cursory look — the
gaming equivalent o f telling Custer he
doesn't need to scout. An index
would have been a real godsend.
There are some holes in the rules, and
the King's English takes a terrible
mugging. Minor irritants, all.
There are some more important
problems that could have been solved
rather easily. One is the limited use­
fulness of the Prince's w it and wiles
rating. Its use is far too limited. There
are many common actions that
should be affected by it, but aren't.
Another example is the ease with
which you can get lost. You can
easily spend one third of your time
lost. Granted, that makes the game
move faster, but it strikes a jarring
note — particularly when you realize
that the existence of a tow n or castle
in a hex does not affect your ability to
stay on the right track.
Finding caches is also a little too
easy. I can see it when the cache is
33
one you've hidden. Unfortunately,
the same search rule applies to
caches previously hidden by others.
Non-player character loya lty
yielded particularly unrealistic results.
You can lose the loyalty of your fol­
lowers through various dumb ac­
tions. However, there are some
serious quirks. In one game, I rescued
the rightful Baron of Huldra castle.
We made it to the castle. According
to the event description, if I helped
the rightful Baron regain his throne,
he would pledge his army to me and I
would automatically win. There were
tw o ways to regain the throne:
through an audience at which I would
unmask the usurper, or through kill­
ing the usurper, and his six guards in
combat. I tried the audience route
first. No luck. It did not appear the
Baron and I alone could defeat the
usurper and his six guards.
Then I realized I was in a castle and
could seek to hire followers. IVJy first
die roll would have allowed me to hire
only porters and a local guide — mini­
mal combat skills, certainly no match
for highly trained guards. I was about
to quit when something occurred to
me. I immediately hired 100 porters
and turned them loose on the
usurper, while the Baron and I en­
joyed a light snack. Granted, the
porters weren't very good fighters,
and a lot of them died; but at four­
teen to one odds, it didn't really
bother me. That's the one time I felt
the logic slip badly. W hy should I be
able to hire porters in the usurper's
castle and be able to make them
fight, immediately? Seemed a bit
strange.
I know you can't expect everything
in a $5.00 mini-game, but these items
would have been relatively easy to
solve, and would have added quite a
bit to the flow o f the game.
By the way, the method which I
used with the porters would not have
been possible in the first edition rules.
That's one of the few differences I
found between the original rules and
the second edition.
You w o n 't be neutral about this
game. If you're one of the lucky ones
who finds a way to beat the system,
you'll probably be joining the group
that will be voting Mr. Hendricks an
award — assuming you can figure a
single category to fit the game into.
The rest of us will be inviting Mr.
Hendricks to a necktie party — as­
suming that, unlike the Prince, we
don't all starve to death while trying
to find a tall tree.
34
INTRUDER is basically a solitaire
game which simulates the response
by crew members of a deep-space
station to an attack by one or more
extraterrestrial aliens. The game
system revolves around random
m ovem ent o f several hidden
counters, one or more of which are
intruders. The player manipulates
nine crewmen equally-divided into
"com m and” , "science", and "engin­
eering" personnel. By combining the
different crewmen's abilities, he can
attempt to subdue and capture, or, if
necessary, kill, the intruders. This is
an area-movement game, with the
crew expending movement points to
enter compartments, air locks and
airshafts, or to pick and construct
weapons.
The game map provides a top-view
layout of the Deep Space Station
"Prom etheus". The Prometheus is a
three-armed structure, w ith various
compartments which interlock and
open on common corridors that meet
at a central command module. Com­
partments include living quarters,
storage, laboratories, etc. The map
also contains charts that keep track
of the intruder's life stages and
powers, the space station's self-
destruct system and weapons con­
struction.
Fifteen counters represent blasters,
sleep-dart pistols, flame throwers,
gas canisters and electric prods that
the crewmen can use against the
intruder. Some of these weapons are
initially placed in the "arms room ",
where the crew can retrieve them;
flame throwers and electric prods
have to be manufactured. The game
is won by capturing or killing all in­
truders.
Play is arranged by game turns
composed of a main routine com­
prising intruder and crew movement
phases, intruder metamorphosis
phase and the "self-destruct" se­
quence. There is also a first-and-
second-interaction sub-routine, dur­
ing which combat or intruder and
crew "actions" take place. The
crew's opportunity to kill or capture
the intruder occurs during these " in ­
teraction" phases. A t that time, all
face down counters in the same com­
partment occupied by one or more
crewmen are revealed. If the intruder
is revealed, then its likeliness to at­
tack and its powers are determined
using the "life stage" and "pow ers"
charts. One crewman may attem pt a
"self-defense attack" before the in­
truder pounces.
In the course of play, the intruder
can go through a six stage metamor­
phosis. In its early stages, the in­
truder is less likely to attack, and
easier to capture and hold. In the
other life stages, the intruder clones
and acquires more powers and abili­
ties. These powers can render the in­
truder immune to shock, cold and
other forms of attack, or make it
faster and stronger. The introduction
of additional and more powerful in­
truder clones significantly affects the
numerical odds, especially since in its
final stage of development it is possi­
ble for there to be five intruders pos­
sessing awesome powers, against no
more than eight crewmen with wea­
ponry that is, at this point, largely
ineffective. If the intruder does not
attack, or if its attack fails, then any
other crewmen in the same compart­
ment may conduct an "a ctio n ",
which is usually an attem pt to subdue
or kill the intruder.
Should things get out of hand, the
player can always initiate the self-
destruction sequence in order to blow
up the station and escape in the shut­
tles. Unfortunately, there is a chance
that the intruder has stowed away
aboard the shuttle. A nasty surprise!
There are periodic "p a n ic" interludes
whenever a crewman or intruder is
killed, which force the remaining
members to regroup in the command
module to rethink strategy.
The game is rated as fairly easy. As
such it could offer much to the begin­
ning gamer: posing tactical problems
such as securing logistical areas of
the station, and avoiding contact
with the face down counters until
needed weapons are manufactured
and/or obtained.
Game: INTRUDER
Publisher: Task Force Games
1110 N, Fillmore
Amarillo, TX 79107
Designer: Dennis Sustare
Reviewer: Mark Hebert