Tag Archives: Star Wars

Retro Gaming The 70s & 80s: TSR Minigames

              

Alternatively known as “microgames,” “pocket games” or “minigames,” a number of companies created a fad in games in small packages in the late 1970s through early 1980s. These compact games came in a variety of historic, sci-fi and fantasy themes. Rulebooks, maps, cardboard chips and dice were usually packaged in hardshell cases or even simple zip-lock plastic bags. A very few of these games, like the post-apocalyptic Road Warrior-esque Car Wars from Steve Jackson Games, would see a long life fueled by supplements and expansions. More commonly, these minigames were stand-alones of vastly varying quality which faded into obscurity in a few short years.

TSR, the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, entered the minigame market late with a total of eight games released in the first couple years of the 1980s. This was a big growth period for TSR as they continued to diversify beyond their core D&D products into other boardgames, role-playing games, toys, computer and video games, and even an animated TV show. Already investing a ton of our time and money in TSR products, my brother and I snapped four of their minigames:

  • Attack Force was a simple Star Wars rip-off with one player’s force of small star fighters attempting to find the weakness in the other player’s monstrous space station to destroy it. As a fan of Luke’s attack on the Deathstar, I gave TSR a pass on the lack of originality for the chance to do some space battling myself.
  • They’ve Invaded Pleasantville was also a two-player game, this time set in a rural village where the townspeople try to fend off alien invaders infiltrating the local populace. Each player used identical chips representing such local folk like the minister, sheriff, plumber, checkout girl and others. The trick of the game was the alien invader bluffing their way toward taking over the bodies of the locals while the town player sought to uncover who was really an alien.
  • Revolt on Antares was a much better sci-fi-themed game and offered play for 2 to 4 players. The game presented a Risk-like map of a fictional world where six ruling “houses” with names like Andros, Dougal and Serpentine fought to rule the planet through three different scenarios. Each house had its own personality and strengths, adding a lot of variety and replay value. The ability to recruit new troops, move across varied terrain and use seven special alien weapons or devices made this little gem seem a lot more like a real wargame.
  • Vampyre was two games in one set in the realm of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” The first campaign-map-style game took 2 to 6 players in the roles of Stoker’s hero characters questing to find and destroy the coffin safe-havens of Count Dracula hidden throughout Transylvania. Turning the map over, a detailed floorplan of Castle Dracula allowed another game to be played as the characters sought to track down the Count himself and destroy him.

As a kid, I loved these games as a break from the longer hours spent bent over the table with my D&D campaigns. Each minigame offered its own varied mechanic, but rules were simple and limited to just a few pages for each game. The booklets, game maps and cardboard playing chips contained some wonderfully intricate small-scale artwork, much of it by popular fantasy artists of the day. While I don’t recall the exact cost of each game, I remember them being under $10 apiece and quite a deal for the hours of play we wrung out of each.

These four TSR games still sit in a closet packed full of my childhood puzzles and boardgames in the house where I grew up. At the time, there was an outsized amount of fun in each little mingame package. Today, there’s still a lot of memory in each, too.

Collector’s Note: Many of the TSR minigames can be found frequently on eBay selling in the $10-30 range. Steve Jackson Games makes much of their Car Wars and other microgames back catalog available for digital purchase online.

New Game Weekend: Star Wars X-Wing

One of the big instant hits to come out of last year’s huge GenCon gaming convention was the new Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game from Fantasy Flight Games. I finally got a chance to play it a few times in the past couple weeks with members of the Metropolitan Wargamers club in Brooklyn. Then, my brother brought me a starter set of the game over this past Easter holiday weekend. As both a lover of all things Star Wars and well-designed games, I’m hooked.

SWXW is the one of the latest fan favorites to appeal to both experienced and new gamers wanting some gaming right out of a box full of easy rules, well-designed components and beautiful pre-painted miniatures. The starter set offers two Tie Fighters and a X-Wing model, rules, movement templates and dials, cards, specialized dice and scenario markers for about $30-40. A few beginner scenarios are also included with the starter set, allowing two players a pretty solid and varied intro to the basics of the game.

In a nutshell, SWXW is a dogfight game where ships chase and fire at their opponents while maneuvering to avoid their own destruction on a typically 3′ x 3′ playing area. Play starts with each player pre-assigning movement to each of their models with a special movement dial. The dials are particular to each class of ship and allow for combinations of straight and turning moves. Since movement is planned in secret from your opponent, guessing which way the enemy will move and how you should react is key to the strategy of the game.

After ships move, firing lasers and other specialized secondary weapons occurs using special dice. Modifying “focus” or “target lock” actions increase the ability to hit enemy ships while “evade” actions increases a ship’s ability to avoid damage. Ships take damage to their hulls or shields, and destroyed ships are removed from the table. The game moves fast, and a basic game can be accomplished in well under an hour.

While the starter set allows for some fun intro games, players will soon want to grow their fleets and options. Like the Star Wars Universe itself, SWXW soon proves to be as expansive as players (and their bank accounts) allow. Single ship expansion sets of Tie Fighters, Tie Advanced Fighters (pictured below, right), Tie Interceptors, X-Wings, Y-Wings (pictured at right) and A-Wings retail for about $15 each (cheaper online). With these, players gain greater choice in fielding larger Rebel and Imperial fleets.

Each ship expansion comes with specific cards indicating pilots, astromech droids, secondary weapons and other special abilities which may be used in combination with that model or, in some cases, other ship types. So, an X-Wing can be fielded with Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles or Biggs Darklighter at the helm and R2-D2 or some other astromech droid along for the ride. You can assign Darth Vader to the controls of a Tie Advanced ship and then assign addition weapons and abilities to the ship. The latest expansion wave offers two large-sized ships — the Millenium Falcon and the Slave I — which are certain to be a huge hit with fans anxious to pit Han Solo against Boba Fett in an intergalactic duel.

Players wishing to get into SWXW will do well by themselves to get a couple of the basic sets plus some expansion ship packs. Once you’re quickly beyond the beginner stage, games are typically fielded with 100 points of ships on a side. Points are assigned according to ship class, pilot expertise and other add ons, allowing for lots of replay value and experimentation with combinations of forces. While the game is still new to me, I can see this one coming out of the box and onto the galaxy of my gaming table pretty frequently in the months ahead.