Anyone remember Melee?

[Plane Sailing]

I never liked melee or wizard, but I still have and enjoy

Ogre (the original!)
Warp War (diceless combat!)
Black Hole (watch out for those missiles!)
G.E.V. (whoosh!)
Chitin (yummy!)
Holy War (can we kill god before he wakes up?)

I also have:
Invasion of the Air Eaters (B-movie, but never quite made the grade)
Dimension Demons (production quality was way down by this time)

And played once:
The one fighting over arctic oil, where weapons are used against the terrain holding units rather than the units themselves
The one that takes place on the moon or mars, small unit combat and mental aliens
The one with Roboboppers




The idea of microgames - wargames that could be set up and played in half an hour, normally having a clever wrinkle in them somewhere, was genius. I miss them.

 

[Wombat]

I knew of Melee (and its expansions)

The only Steve Jackson games I played were Ogre & GEV.

 

[Henrix]

Pocket games were fun, and I liked Melee when it was new. It's in a drawer right behind me, actually Together with Hot Spot, Intruder and Chitin!

Some of SJG's major successes grew out of them (Illuminati, Car Wars, Ogre/GEV, etc), it was like it was a testing ground for new games.

Does anyone else than Cheapass Games make small games like those these days?

 

[Qlippoth]

Melee and Death Test were my "gateway games" to RPGs; a friend from school got me into those, and it was only a matter of time (maybe 2 months) before I started on "the D&D." He was lucky enough to have an older sister whose boyfriend was "into wargaming;" and Tim spread the bug to me.

 

[The Shaman]

The one fighting over arctic oil, where weapons are used against the terrain holding units rather than the units themselves.

YES! I forgot about that one! You could nuke the ice to sink the units into the sea.

I was thinking about an Ogre/GEV roleplaying conversion using d20 Future a month of so ago...if I only had the time...

 

[Agback]

Yep. I still have it and Wizard, the maps and counters, and some of the solo adventures. I also have Advanced Melee, Adv. Wizard and the... GM book for that, the name of which I forget right now.

In the Labyrinth. I have two copies each of Advanced Mêlée, Advanced Wizard, and it. The Fantasy Trip was my main game from about 1983 until when I took up Justice, Inc. in 1984.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The one with Roboboppers.

Rivets - one of my favorite quick to play games ever. The battle robots were made by Ocnor (Ronco spelled backwards). I wish that somebody would bring it back.

The Auld Grump

 

[MonsterMash]

Rivets - one of my favorite quick to play games ever. The battle robots were made by Ocnor (Ronco spelled backwards). I wish that somebody would bring it back.

The Auld Grump

I wonder who owns the rights to those other games? Obviously SJG picked up Ogre and GEV, but all those other fun games going missing is a pity.

 

[Storminator]

ONe of the first games I ever loved. I can quote the entire weapons and armor table from memory (I got tired of rewriting it, so it's an Excel sheet now...). All I have left is the map and the counters, tho I have counters from most of the adventures too. I still have Wizard and DeathTest.

Bobby Jackson (Reaper sculptor) and I have a standing Melee game every GenCon or Origins we both attend. One of these days we're going to use Reaper's hex terrain and some of the giants from their mini line. Maybe this year...

PS

 

[hero4hire]

oh yeah! Me and my friend Piet had plenty of fun nights playing it.