| Title | Wham! Here come the Awful Green Things from Outer Space. |
| Author | Bruce Geryk |
| Posted in | Features |
| When | October 14, 2013 |
I tend not to be jealous of people who are good at things that I'm not. I figure that's just the way it goes. I mean, I'm good at some things, too. However, I make a special exception for artists..
Read the full articleYou can do this replay if you promise that Warp War is coming soon and you mention Battlefleet Mars and SPIs otherspspace epics. ;)
Although I'm not sure I could play it anymore in this era of quick, strategically compelling eurogames, I do have a fondness in my heart for Awful Green Things. The random weapon system is, of course, genius and should be found in more games. The ability to attack through doors I remember making things interesting as well. And don't forget the alternate victory condition where you can self-destruct the ship and survive on an escape pod, at which point you went through a choose-your-own-adventure-and-roll-on-some-charts epilogue (I think that was in the deluxe edition).
I really want to hear more about SEft(?). The other Tom Wham game I played a lot was called Mertwyg's Maze, which I believe was one of those Dragon games that was later released in a fancier edition. Like many games from back then (Car Wars, Dungeon), it was really fun to start playing and rarely fun to actually finish. In fact, I think the end of Mertwyg's Maze always seemed broken to me for some reason, but I can't recall why. But the basic idea of adventuring across a realm with each special location being a little mini-boardgame with its own special rules was really pretty great. And it had the best Wham art ever. The Rabid Dog card can still make me giggle.
Fantastic, I was hoping this one would show up. I've played this game so many times, still have my little VCR cassette game box shelved away somewhere, haven't played in years but I bet it would come back to me pretty quick. Man, if you throw Starfarers of Catan out next I'll be in boardgame geek heaven, but I'm not sure anybody but me loves that game.
Oh man, Search for the Emperor's Treasure. I'm glad I didn't have access to Excel as a teenager, because I may have figured out that min/max glitch of parking on one spot. As it was, I was like Bruce...played many games of it & never figured that it was optimum to stay in one place. Was Awful Green Things ever in a Dragon magazine? It sounds familiar, but maybe it was already a boardgame when I was avidly collecting monthly paper periodicals.
Looking forward to the story.
It was published in The Dragon in issue #28, yes. According to Boardgamegeek, there was an "Outside the Znutar" expansion published in The Dragon #40, but I don't remember this. Apparently it is included in the Steve Jackson Games version. I only have the old TSR first printing with the wraparound box.
I find it really interesting to examine the mechanics from that period of gaming, because while there are so many good ideas, the execution is often pedestrian, even crude. I have no doubt that someone could design an interesting remake of Wreck of the Pandora, with some way of solving the problems that made that game so fiddly and variable in its outcomes. All the story elements are there.
Search for the Emperor's Treasure was a classic "move your guy, draw a card, fight or die" game that I'm almost certain wouldn't stand up to extended play anymore. But I loved it, because it was the perfect combination of presentation and age-appropriate mechanics. You can find out more about it at Tom Wham's page: http://www.tomwham.com/search....
So much of the enjoyment of these games comes from the presentation, that people often want to experience that to its fullest even though the mechanics aren't so compelling. See the link in the following post to the jumbo 3D Emperor's Treasure convention edition.
I look forward to hearing more about the Znutar's adventures.
Correction:
"The odd assortment of weapons introduces just enough incongruity to make [it] stand out as a novel game element"
This entry was a surprise! I remember playing this as well as many other TSR gems (especially the Dragon embedded games) many a weekend. I even bought AGTfOS (wow…) from SJ Games when it was re-released but have not played it since I was a little boy. Think I will need to introduce my brood to this gem. Nice game-necromancy Mr. Geryk!
