Anyone remember Melee?

[Eremite]

I remember playing Sticks and Stones (cavemen, mastodons etc...), Ogre and Annihiliator (space marines attackiung a robot-guarded spaceship). All great fun and gotten rid of a looooooooong time ago.

 

[Psimancer]

Does anyone remember Melee?

Ah, good times. I still have them lying around; Melee, Advanced Melee, Wizard, Advanced Wizard, In the Labrynth and a whole heap of the MicroQuest games - Grail Quest, Death Test 2, Treasure of the Silver Dragon, Treasure of Unicorn Gold, Master of Amulets and Orb Quest.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

My gaming group actually played a multi-year campaign, many years ago, using The Fantasy Trip rules.

 

[KnowTheToe]

Yep, I have Melee & Wizard. I am going to sell them this year.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

Chitin was my very first wargame, period. I saw an ad for it in... Analog, I think.

I saw that add too! I thought, maybe by analogy between "microgame" and "microcomputer", that what you got for your $3.95 was a computer that played the game. Even at the age of 9 this seemed too good to be true - I didn't understand the concept of wargames at all, but I sure did want whatever it was!

 

[JimAde]

Yep, I have Melee & Wizard. I am going to sell them this year.

Sounds like you have a built-in audience on this thread.

 

[Garnfellow]

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.

Let's see if I remember this right. Metagaming Concepts Inc, which was owned by Howard Thompson, is/was the last entity to own the rights. I have heard that Steve Jackson once tried to buy the rights to the game, but was quoted such an outrageous price that at that point he went on to write GURPS.

A few years back some fans inquired about getting the rights to TFT themselves, but I think Howard Thompson had gone all Howard Hughes and was very difficult to make contact with.

Even though TFT has been out of print -- what, 25 years? -- there are plenty of Fantasy Trip fanatics left. I used to subscribe to a nice mailing list (http://tft.brainiac.com/). And The Fanstay Trip: A World Wide Web Resource (http://www.reese.org/tft/) is a pretty good place to check out, as well.

 

[Garnfellow]

Cidri Octopi!

Among my all-time favorite monsters from In the Labyrinth were the octopi, a race of intelligent, weapon-wielding . . . octopuses. One set of SJG's Cardboard Heros even had a bunch of nice octopi figures.

I did a 3e conversion of these Cidri Octopi (http://home.gwi.net/~rdorman/frilond/rul/dm/octopus.htm), but have yet to find a good opportunity to throw them at my D&D players yet.

 

[Sleepy Voiced]

Check out http://maverick.brainiac.com/cmm/
It is a Classic Microgame Museum. Anytime I need some nostalgia I head over there. It would be great if Melee and some (or all) of the other microgames were made available as pdfs or something.

 

[wandmlaw]

A few years back some fans inquired about getting the rights to TFT themselves, but I think Howard Thompson had gone all Howard Hughes and was very difficult to make contact with.

Somehow, though, I don't think Scorsese would be interested in directing Thompson's life story, what with all the dice-chucking, Star Trek t-shirts and miniature painting.