RE: Cheap commercial games

From: bwebb@nauvax.ucc.nau.edu (Bill Webb)

Date: Sat, 09 Apr 1994 22:11:13 +0000

About simple, inexpensive commercial PBM games, Hmmm... Galactic Prisoners
is fairly interesting.  You run around in an All-terrain-vehicle the size
of a small factory and mine ore, explore wild terrains, etc...  I haven't
played in about 4 years so I'm sure the game is drastically different now.
Its an open-ended game, and its been running sine 1985, so its very developed.
The Gamemaster, Ed is really good, and a nice person.  As I recall, you can
play up to 8 ATVs at $3.00 per turn, per ATV.  Once you are established and
have a lot of population on you ATV (you start with 100, and you can grow
up to 200, I think)         ^^^^ -> your
.. you can start a colony and they can mine stuff as well.

If you like economic/political games then this is a good choice.  The war
gaming in it is really weak (ie lame.)  You can read the rules in about 20
minutes and you will have figured about 50% of the game.  Its really simple
to learn, but difficult to master.  Unfortunately, I imagine that all there
is to learn about the game, has been learned.  Unless Ed has created new
areas for play, with new aliens and challenges, I would call it a Dead-Game
as far as learning new mysteries.  That doesn't mean it isn't fun, just that
anything great you do will most likely have been done before. Thats why I
quit playing.  (Legends isn't like that, as each new module has many new
mysteries and challenges... thats why I'm playing Legends.  But Legends isn't
inexpensive to play, and it is fairly complex to even get a single population
based position turn put together correctly.  Legends II is rumored to be more
"player-friendly"... we'll see.)

--- Bill

"No morality, only an overwhelming capacity for evil.
 Oh! He's rejoicing now, hidden away, savoring the memory of his crime."

References

Cheap commercial games
jw@maple.circa.ufl.edu
Sat, 09 Apr 1994 16:23:56 +0000