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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4874609" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 132: April 1988part 5/5The frontiers of design: Star frontiers' article this month is about improving the ship design process. Just how much can you fit in a ship? More than you'd think, if modern gadgetry is a good guideline. But it'll cost ya. Fairly dry stuff here, which by it's own admission has a bit of power creep. Whether it'll result in a more balanced or fun game is very much open to speculation. Another bit of filler, really. The paranoia enquirer joins in on the adverts disguised as newspapers game. Space aliens eat Elvis's (sic) brain. The computer wants you to be well-informed. Buy it. But do not read the sections in colours higher than your clearance. That would be treasonous. Looks very much like The marvel-phile: Rocket Raccoon! Jeff once again delivers the fun when all around him are staying resolutely sensible. Born on a planet inhabited largely by anthropomorphic animals, created to serve as doctors and security for all the insane people from worlds around, he became chief law officer, and faced down all kinds of opposition. We also get stats for Wal Russ, Uncle Pyko, Judson Jakes, Lord Dyvyne, and a whole bunch of generic creatures, including Killer Clowns, Prank Tanks, and Drakillers. Ahh, the joys of the marvel universe, mixing so many wacky elements together that somehow it manages to come full circle and become a serious story. Which has recently been resurrected in an even more serious form, as I see from wikipedia. (obsessive compulsive disorder?! :shakes head: ) Which cycles things back to amusing. So another entertaining but hardly worldshaking article here, especially once context is factored in. The role of Computers: Beyond Zork, despite it's silly name, is an entirely serious text adventure game.(well, as serious as you can get when the macguffin is the coconut of quendor) Thankfully, they've been improving their parsers over the years, so our experienced reviewers have no trouble controlling the game. They also have automapping, randomisation of puzzle elements, and a booklet which will be nearly essential in completing the game. Well, you've gotta do something to fight piracy. Another tricky entry in a well-known series. Pirates! (speaking of piracy) is an adventure game where you take the role of a ship's captain and go adventuring. Will you engage in legal trading, privateering for your country, or just raid all and sundry? While you can't really win it, if you're good, you can adventure for years of game time, and amass quite the fortune. With a wide range of choices and playstyles, they give it another 5 star rating. Tons of mini-reviews as well, 17 to be exact, ranging from 2 to 5 stars. They certainly aren't short of material to cover. Less pleasing is the fact that they are unable to give awards for the best software of last year because not enough people voted. Even though they might be a fairly popular column, they aren't getting quite the reader responses they'd like. Oh well, I can understand how that happens. Dragonmirth has several hellish jokes. Snarf gets out of one pit, but may well find himself in more trouble soon. And so we come to the unceremonious end of Wormy, as the storyline simply cuts itself off midflow (at quite a dramatic point as well), and dissappears without a trace. Such a shame. Oh well. It's happened before, it'll happen again. Often the Fox network will be involved. All we can do is complain, write letters, and do our best to not let our own creative projects suffer the same fate. I'm doing my best. Are you? An orcish map of the known world. Quite amusing. This of course ties in with the Orcwars game. Despite the lack of a full themed section, this has been a fairly decent issue overall, both in terms of humour and usability. By spreading the mischief around, they keep it from being so groan-worthy, using it as a spice rather than a main course. Not such a bad idea, really. They're still covering a wide range of games, but the quality of their articles is even more variable than the D&D ones. Still, once again, I think they've managed to provide at least one thing that I'll use again later. So this is still a worthwhile exercise. Looks like zaniness will still go through several more ups and downs over the years. So let's get a filking move on. We three gamers of orient are. Killing things to gain ever more power :fade out:</blockquote>

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