Buried Gems of the Ameritrash Rehabilitation Movement

VonTush wrote: I've gotta say, hidden/overlooked/underappreciated AT games are harder to come by I think. Especially since I've mentioned a few in the ERP thread that would be more at home here like Cube Quest.

Depends on what is meant by hidden/overlooked/underappreciated. Long before many FAT:ties perceived boardgames beyond the standard family fare, there were all kinds of odd boardgames published. A few years ago, I did a full-fledged review of an obscure but innovative bughunt-style game called Last Frontier: the Vesuvius Incident, and it ended up getting a fancy new edition published through Kickstarter a year ago. I've got a bunch of other games like that, true-blue Ameritrash with rich themes and mechanics that didn't get run through the Euro-copier machine of the last 20 years. But these games are often difficult to obtain now, having been out of print since the '80s or '90s.

Just for a random example, take Asteroid. Published by GDW around 1980 or so, Asteroid was soon lost to obscurity for nearly sharing an identical name with an extremely popular arcade game that came out just months earlier. Actually, a second edition was published in 1983, and a third edition was published in Japan in 1985, so apparently Asteroids did okay back in the day.

Asteroid was actually one of the best boardgame implementations of a classic D&D dungeon crawl, though themed instead for a near-future space setting featuring heroic astronauts and murderous robots. One player sets up the asteroid station (dungeon), with hidden robots, computer terminals, collapsed passages, some loot, and the nefarious computer "brain" that controls the robots. The other players control a motley crew of heroes who are trying to sabotage the computer brain and divert the course of the asteroid station before it crashes into Earth, potentially killing millions of innocent people.

The game balance favors the heroes in Asteroid, but can be re-balanced by adding in some evil clone soldiers from the variant scenario. The components were very nice by 1980 standards, but modern gamers would be disappointed at using cardboard chits instead of miniatures that can painted. Aside from some complexity involving demolition charges and also Sasha the Wonder Dog, the rules are solid and easy to learn, allowing for shootouts, melee, computer hacking, and blowing things up. However, the setup time is at least 20 minutes even for experienced players, and depending on the degree of hidden movement allowed for the bad guys, play length can clock in around 3 hours. That never bothered old school AT gamers, but modern folks like to wrap things up within 2 hours so they can rush into a different game. Attention spans have been dropping for many years now, and the Euro games name-checked in the ERP thread played a part in that decline.

EDIT: I have probably been thinking about Asteroid lately because of an oddball comment in the movie thread where Barnes compared Barney to Old B.O.B. from the Black Hole movie. At least two of the three types of robots in Asteroid seem to be directly based on the robots from the Black Hole. The other one copied is the ominous Maximillian bot, with five of them in Asteroid.

Trade Winds. (Parker Brothers, 1960)

Proto-hobby game pirate game. Using a hand of crew cards you saila round the board attacking other ships, raiding their harbour or heading to Treasure Island (in all it's vacuform splendor) to plunder its booty. No dice rolling for movement or combat as you crew cards do all the heavy lifting.

Fun, furious and plays under an hour with two.

Nostra City (Hazgaard Games)

You play as a made man in the mob and your goal is to sway the jury to let the Godfather walk away from his list of "alleged" crimes.

You will try to build up your Turfs by cashing in on yours and other players rackets (drugs, prostitution and gambling) You're all on the same side after all. During cash out if you choose not to pay another player, they can then draw Vendetta cards. Vendetta cards provide players a means to f with other players or secretly turn them into a snitch for the FBI.

At the end of the game cash secretly given to the jury is revealed, if there are more innocent symbols revealed the Godfather is innocent and the person with the most vps wins. If the verdict it guilty all players lose, unless they are a snitch, in the event two players are snitches the one with the most vps wins.

Total Rumble(Gen X Games)
Hot potato styled wrestling card game. I reviewed it a couple of years ago with low marks but since then it has become a game night favourite. Chairs, tables, ladders and KOs.

I eventually made a life-sized strap to present to the Champion. Fun fun fun.

Yeah, there are the Dwarf Star games, Ares Mag games...etc. And I think those deserve a mention. Citadel of Blood looks pretty awesome and one I should figure out how to play. An Ares mag game which is a dungeon crawl and the dungeon is formed on 5/8" chits. So not having a dungeon where each hero/enemy is mapped out in an exact location is interesting.

Asteroid sounds pretty fun. How does it compare to Starship Troopers from AH? There's the obvious scale difference, but mapping/hidden elements sounds similar. I traded the copy I had off because it's been ages since I've played a 2-player game.

The attention span thing is an interesting topic though. My gut agrees to an extent. But then I start wondering if shorter games were just filling a hole in the market. In other words are people's attention spans getting shorter or are people with already short attention spans coming into the hobby?

wadenels wrote: If the basic mechanics of Risk are your thing, then Risk: Godstorm is seriously fun. It's the one game that I'm happiest I bought despite the reviews. I wonder if it got panned because people wanted Risk Refined. Godstorm ain't that. But it's damn fun.

Aside from setting, is there much difference between Godstorm and 2210?

Stonecutter wrote:

wadenels wrote: If the basic mechanics of Risk are your thing, then Risk: Godstorm is seriously fun. It's the one game that I'm happiest I bought despite the reviews. I wonder if it got panned because people wanted Risk Refined. Godstorm ain't that. But it's damn fun.

Aside from setting, is there much difference between Godstorm and 2210?

Leaders are different. Godstorm has the Underworld instead of the Moon. When your troops die they go to the Underworld (which is like a mini Risk map) but you can resurrect them by controlling key points like Altars and Crypts. The Gods (leaders) have abilities that affect the main board as well as the Underworld. The Gods can also get into their own Godswar battle when they meet. Gods, however, aren't units and don't participate in normal battle.

The God Cards can be completely nuts and make the game swing wildly. There's one that sinks an entire continent, killing every troop on it and removing it from the game.

I've been trying to get Thunder Road for a decent price for a long time now. I've been hitting thrift stores when I pass them by, occasionally checking out eBay and Craiglist and such, but still no luck. I have no idea why that game is as expensive as it is online.

Where does Twilight Imperium 2e fall into all of this? It's definitely part of the beginning of the FFG school of design, but it's not nearly as hybridized as TI3. It's mostly a smash mouth space battle with a tech tree, simple economy, and some cards that have effects. It's a solid galactic conquest game without being as overwrought and complex as TI3, which I've always thought was more convoluted than epic. I never would have taken a second look at TI2 if Pete hadn't championed for it some time ago, but I'm glad I did.

Also, while I don't think it's particularly hard to find or buried, Omega Virus is a classic you human scum.

VonTush wrote: Yeah, there are the Dwarf Star games, Ares Mag games...etc. And I think those deserve a mention. Citadel of Blood looks pretty awesome and one I should figure out how to play. An Ares mag game which is a dungeon crawl and the dungeon is formed on 5/8" chits. So not having a dungeon where each hero/enemy is mapped out in an exact location is interesting.

Asteroid sounds pretty fun. How does it compare to Starship Troopers from AH? There's the obvious scale difference, but mapping/hidden elements sounds similar. I traded the copy I had off because it's been ages since I've played a 2-player game.

The attention span thing is an interesting topic though. My gut agrees to an extent. But then I start wondering if shorter games were just filling a hole in the market. In other words are people's attention spans getting shorter or are people with already short attention spans coming into the hobby?

Oh yeah, Ares magazine games. I stumbled across those just as a local gaming store was clearing that stock out. I ended up trading away the issue with a decent space war game that was based on an old Poul Anderson book involving a space crusade. The one that I kept featured a haunted house boardgame with a very cool-looking map. I will give that a write-up later in this thread.

Asteroid is a very different game from Starship Troopers, even with regard to hidden movement. In Starship Troopers, the bug player needs to map out his complex on hex paper in advance, and until the game is over, revelation of location is strictly honor system. In the standard rules for Asteroid, the "computer" player lays out the 8 map sections as desired, but the good guys know the exact layout of those maps. Then the computer player populates the maps with face-down chits that could represent robots, collapsed passages, etc. The tokens placed in the corridors and ventilation ducts are drawn from two random pools, so even the computer player doesn't know the exact location of all of his pieces until the start of the game. At a higher level of difficulty in play, the computer player only reveals map sections as they are discovered, and keeps track of the location of his pieces on paper until they are encountered.

You are probably right about the attention span. Most of the shortening happened before players got into the hobby, but then mindless short games like Through the Desert only encouraged the short attention.

I've only played Vampire: Prince of the City once, but I liked it and would definitely play again. Anyone have more experience with it?

Mad Dog wrote: I've only played Vampire: Prince of the City once, but I liked it and would definitely play again. Anyone have more experience with it?

Yes. Sometime in the coming months, I will write a series of blogposts here at F:AT about my attempt to design Vampire: Prince of the City. It's been almost eight years since I signed a non-disclosure agreement with White Wolf, so I think I am finally free to talk about it. And yes, I have played the version that got published a few times and thought it was a good game.

I want to second the suggestions of Room 25 and Monsters Menace America.

If you are a fan of Cube or the Running Man movies, then this satisfies a craving. It's one of the few "recent" boardgames I have purchased after the great purge. It's cheap, and packs a nice game experience inside the small box size. Plus, its getting an expansion very soon.

Monsters Menace America only real flaw is the end game. Otherwise, its a great fun Kaiju romp. It's the one game that could actually benefit from FFG fiddling with the rules and would welcome their intercession. They cant make the end game any worse at least.

Forbidden Bridge is one that is very stupid, simple, yet more fun than it has any right to be. Don't pay over $40 for a complete copy.

Even more fun than Forbidden Bridge is Tornado Rex. This one is hard to come by though and pricey as fuck sometimes. These are the two great ameritrash games of the mid nineties by the big names.

On the import side, is the european only release of Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Adventure boardgame. Basically a heroquest clone, but more refined (initiative mechanism was a welcome addition) and has an actual D&D theme instead of MB & GW's contrived attempt at ripping D&D off. It's gained a bit more popularity in the past couple years, but you can still find copies in excellent condition on the UK Ebay for $30 shipped. Expect to pay about $100 for the entire set which includes the two expansions though. I played this with David Megarry, the designer of Dungeon! *stoop over to pick up the name I just dropped* at the FFG event center a couple years ago. He seemed to rather enjoy it quite a bit.

I feel Okko is underrated as all hell. Great ching chong ching DOAM. I find it's always best to end things on a racist note. :3