"Intruder" by Task Force Games.
What's happening is I'm starting to rough up some new game materials. Part of the process will be playing through some solitaire games because I think that's what I'm planning to design, that is, a solitaire game or two.
First up is "Intruder" from Task Force Games. I did a single play recently, but I've probably played this 7 or 8 times before over the course of a few years. Once or twice was played as a cooperative effort. In my humble opinion, it's an oldie but goodie, warts and all.
To clarify, I'm not reviewing the game here or providing any detailed background on it. You can google that stuff. What I am doing is sort of logging my general impressions of the game, so here goes:
Intruder came out in 1980, long before Aliens or anything remotely resembling a franchise. Back when it was just Alien. In the game, the ship is called the "Prometheus" and there's an alternate scenario in this game that involves marines returning to the Prometheus knowing it's completely overrun with "intruders." Again, this came out in '80, a full 6 years before Aliens. But no one agrees with me when I try to convince them that this game influenced the course of the Alien story.
For me, one of the most striking characteristics of this game is that's it's pretty easy to win, making it distinct from most solitaire games of this type that are usually difficult games in order to keep players engaged and enhance replayability. That said, I like winning. Most people do, if they're honest, and so for me that's actually a positive. In playing this, you usually win unless you get on a horrible roll streak or are completely out of touch with how to approach the situation.
This particular recent play in brief:
Engineers wasted a couple turns making useless prods. We did manage to cage and stow away a number of the roaming lab animals in the Lab. Science officers did some Inventorying leaving us with two blips left. We ganged up on them, cornered them and one of the COs took out the xeno (Stage 3, fast, strong, and immune to cold and vaccum) with a blaster. A good time was had by all. And no Panics.
Won with the +7 score.
The only real issues with the game as originally presented are the disorganized rulebook, the glowing orange Intruder counters and the compartments are just too small for all the counter shuffling required.
The rules are all there (sometimes only implicilty, though) and it's pretty simple so a thorough reading and play through solves the rulebook issue for the most part. (except "Cages go in the Lab!")
I have a method of using other pieces for the face down counters so I don't use the glowing neon intruder counters on the Prometheus map.
But honestly, they could have used the same size map, kept all the charts there and still increased the areas of the compartments.
And the Prometheus map itself should have been darker overall for several obvious reasons.
As for the game being too easy to win, the rules are simple enough that you'll have no problem making the game harder without disrupting the "system" such as it is. For example; start out the xenos at stage 4 or 5. Or make everything Fast or...
Also, I know there's at least one newer improved version of this game out there and that's great.
I still like this one, though.
Mostly because I like actually winning a game once in a while!