Game: Intruder

Thread: Re: Trivia Geekdom About the Designer

castiglione — 2008-10-06T01:04:44+00:00

He designed a LOT of games, both RPG and board games.

Thread: Re: User Review

Hex_Enduction_Hour — 2008-09-01T06:34:04+00:00

I have the game as of a week ago.
The chits were unpunched.

So I color scanned the set, glued them to comic backing board, and cut them out.
No revealing colors sides.
Ah discovering this game decades later!

Thread: Re: A few questions

Badgeroonie — 2008-08-31T07:47:25+00:00

Yep, they go in the lab.

Thread: Re: historic capsule review

Hex_Enduction_Hour — 2008-08-30T23:27:27+00:00

kvezner wrote:

Unfortunately, Intruder is not as well written as the other Task Force games I have seen. I had the distinct feeling that some of the rules were missing. For instance, where do you set up the cages? (I put them in the lab.) I had problems with the sleep-dart rules; they let the Intruder wake up so quickly that my officers had to fire repeatedly. Very irritating.

I was somewhat disappointed. This one is for solitaire gamers, or others who are really hard up for new sci-fi games."

Wow an historic review - that's neat! Thanks for sharing this.
~

Played my first game of Intruder last night - had the same confusion with Cage placement! I too put them in the lab. Didn't successfully get the darts to work, so I can't comment on that issue.

For a solitaire game, I think Intruder is just sweel. Love the pacing and successful implementation of nearly everything 'Alien'.

Thread: Re: A few questions

Hex_Enduction_Hour — 2008-08-30T16:15:47+00:00

Played my first game of Intruder last night.

Here's a question: where do I place the cage counters? I couldn't locate the directions stating where the go.
For the sake of getting started I put the cages in the Lab.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.

Thread: Re: Preserving the game board

Hex_Enduction_Hour — 2008-08-30T16:12:29+00:00

Thanks for that suggestion, Juan!

Thread: Re: Rules wanted

henry9 — 2008-08-14T14:18:18+00:00

Hello

As i search all ican find about aliens universe. Could you send the rules of alien intruder ?
henry9924661J[AT]yahoo[point]com

Thread: Re: Variant rules set

Fred22 — 2008-07-17T13:40:43+00:00

I considered this variant, but it is to much randomness for me.

Part of the fun is, for the crew to formulate a plan to track down and finally to capture/kill the Intruder.
So, if you know, the Intruder is somewhere in the lower left area of the station, you can try to use teams to hunt him down.

The use of generic "Movement Counters" gives animals/intruders "teleport" powers, and make tactics/plans by the crew futile, in my opinion.

Fred

Thread: Re: Variant rules set

Ned Ludd — 2008-07-16T17:40:25+00:00

About "1. Movement of face-up Intruder/Animal counters"

The Living Rules here suggest using "Movement Counters" and keeping all the tokens in the bag or a cup. This way when an exposed counter leaves the crewmans sight it goes back in the bag and is replaced by a counter. When the counter is encountered again - a new token is pulled out of the bag. This way you could go chasing after a cat and come upon the Intruder.

I think it would add even more tension to your variant.

What do you think?

--
Ned Ludd

Thread: Variant rules set

Fred22 — 2008-07-16T15:28:20+00:00

This is the 'set' of variant rules that I now use for Intruder.
They make the game more challenging.
Some of the rules are from the "Intruder Living Rules" document, that you can find in the files section.

1. Movement of face-up Intruder/Animal counters
a.) Face-up Intruder/Animal counters are moved by the standard random movement procedure during the 'Intruder and Hidden Counter Movement Phase', exactly the same as hidden(face-down) counters.
b.) If they enter a compartment without a crew counter(or start their move in such a compartment), immediately turn them face-down again.
c.) If they enter a compartment with other inverted counters, shuffle all counters in this compartment, so that you do not know, which is the newly entered Intruder/Animal counter.

2. Crew Movement
a.) If a crew counter starts the 'Crew Movement Phase' in a compartment with an Intruder counter and/or an inverted(face-down) counter(s), or if he enters such a compartment during his move, he must roll 1d6 if he wants to leave this compartment.
1-3 = he can leave the compartment
4-6 = he can NOT leave the compartment this Movement Phase (he still can do other 'Functions').He can roll again during the next 'Crew Movement Phase', if Intruder/face-down counters are still in his compartment.

3. Crew Action Segment
a.) Only a maximum of three crewmen can interact with an Intruder/Animal, i.e. only three can attack the Intruder (as per the standard rules), only three can try to cage/capture/put under control, etc.

If, for example, two crewmen shoot at the Intruder, and you have two more crewmen with Electric Prods in the compartment, only ONE of them can try to control the Intruder.
The limit is three interactions per Crew Action Segment per Intruder/Animal.
Other actions do NOT count toward this limit, like Lab Animal Inventory etc., as these actions are not interactions with the Intruder/Animals

4. Controlled Intruder
a.) If other crew counters are in the same compartment with the controlling crewman and the controlled Intruder during a Crew Action Segment, a maximum of two crewmen(other than the controller) can interact with the controlled Intruder.
b.) They can attack the Intruder, try to put him to sleep and/or try to cage him. For attacks, use the normal attack procedure and probabilities (NOT the self defense column).
Caging for a not asleep Intruder is still only possible if the Intruder is at Life Stage 1, and only on a roll of 1-2.
Caging for an asleep Intruder is successful on a roll of 1-5, as per the standard rules
c.) If these interactions are NOT successful (i.e. attacks fail, caging fails, etc.), the Intruder is considered to be no longer 'under control' at the end of the Crew Action Segment.
An attempt to put the Intruder back under control can be done during the next Crew Action Segment, following all the standard rules.

5. Weapons Use/Construction
a.) You can only take Blasters/Gas Canisters from the arms room, or start to construct flamethrowers, if the Intruder is at Life Stage 3 or if one of your nine crewmen was killed be the Intruder.

6. Lost Crewmen rule
If you play with the optional Lost Crewmen rule (rule 10.3), please note the following
a.) It is quite possible, that more than one crewman can get lost. This happens, if another Panic Interlude Phase comes into effect, before you found the first lost crewman. So another crewman gets lost.
b.) If a crewman gets lost, he drops all items he is carrying (including weapons) in the compartment he is in.
Put the items in the compartment and then mix the crewman counter with the other inverted(face-down) counters, as per the standard rules.
c.) If at any time, all alive crewmen are 'lost', you lose the game.

Thats it

Fred

Thread: Re: A few questions

GaryP — 2008-07-14T19:12:58+00:00

Yeah, which is exactly why I originally moved the face-up tokens, too. However, the rules make it pretty clear that the movement rules are only for hidden tokens, and no movement rules for face-up tokens.

Even in the "Intelligent Intruder" 2P scenario (13.1), it mentions only moving face-down counters.

Thread: Re: A few questions

Fred22 — 2008-07-14T19:08:47+00:00

Thanks for the quick reply!

Maybe I am picky, but the phase is named 'Intruder AND hidden counter movement phase'.
That SEEMS to imply, that in this phase not only the hidden (face down) counters are moved, but 'known' (face up) intruder counters too.

Fred

Thread: Re: A few questions

GaryP — 2008-07-14T15:43:20+00:00

I read this and thought to myself, "I wish I had the rulebook with me." Then I realized that I do have the rulebook! =) Let's take a look...

#1 and #4 -- Rule 7.1 only specifies movement for "inverted" (face down) counters. (Section 3.2 also mentions that the INTRUDER AND HIDDEN COUNTER MOVEMENT PHASE is for hidden counters.) There are no rules for moving face-up Intruders or Lab Animals. They stay where they are until a PANIC INTERLUDE occurs.

(However, I think I used to play that the face-up counters moved with the hidden ones. I remember chasing a cat at least once. I just left the counters face-up.)

#2 -- There is nothing that suggests you cannot attack or attempt to cage a controlled Intruder. (No lethal attacks until Life Stage 3, but you could try to put it to sleep, I suppose.) The rules do not cover caging a controlled Intruder, but I think it should be equivalent to a sleeping Intruder. If an attack or caging attempt fails, I would say that the Intruder is no longer under control, but there is nothing in the rules to address this. I just like the idea of it escaping and keeping the game difficult.

#3 -- The rules make no indication that a crewman must stop in any of those situations, oddly enough. That's rather counterintuitive compared to most games. I've always played that the crewmen must stop if there is a hidden or Intruder counter, but the rules give no such limit.

Thread: A few questions

Fred22 — 2008-07-13T13:20:37+00:00

Hi,

maybe someone can answer a few rules questions:

1. Intruder movement

A hidden counter enters a compartment with a crew counter. The hidden counter is turned face up, and it is the intruder. Both attack each other, but no effect.
Now, during the next 'Intruder and hidden counter movement phase', what happens:
- Is the intruder still moved by the standard random movement procedure, even if starting the move in a compartment with a crew counter?

- If yes, and the die roll makes the intruder leave the compartment, is its counter then turned face down again, or does the intruder counter stays face up?

2. Gaining control using electric prods

A crewman has gained control of the intruder with the electric prod.
- Can another crewman in the same compartment now (or in a later turn) attack the 'controlled' intruder?
- Can another crewman in the same compartment now (or in a later turn) try to cage the 'controlled' intruder?
- If yes, does the intruder stays 'under control', if the attacks/caging attempts fail?

3. Crew movement
- Must a crewman stop movement, when entering a compartment with a hidden(face down)counter, or can he continue to move?

- Must a crewman stop movement, when entering a compartment with the intruder in it, or can he continue to move?

- Must a crewman stop movement, when entering a compartment with a lab animal in it, or can he continue to move?

4. Lab animals
- Is a lab animal still moved by the standard random movement procedure, even if starting the move in a compartment with a crew counter?

- If yes, and the die roll makes the animal leave the compartment, is its counter then turned face down again, or does the animal counter stays face up?

Thanks

Fred

Thread: Re: Rules questions.

kvezner — 2008-06-21T03:13:02+00:00

My thoughts are the same as Noonan's.

What is the Computer Room for? I found instructions on how to open it but not what to do inside.

I can think of no mechanical purpose for the computer room other than yes, another room where the wandering Intruders won't go. But note that with the station map laid out the way it was, there had to be a third room to preserve the map's symmetry. And you would have to call that room something. And since that room is in the central area of the ship, you would want something unique.

But you could always make up your own rules for the computer room! Perhaps an earlier draft even had special rules for that room.

Combat example on the bottom of page 8, right after section 8.282. A Blaster roll is modified by +1 because another crew member was killed in the same fight. I can't find a section on modifying battle rolls. Are there other modifiers?

I took that as something left over from an earlier draft. I remember seeing a few odd references in the rules that I took to be similar relics. The rules do not simulate panic or the Intruder's intimidating presence, beyond panic interludes. That's why my homemade rules (posted here as "Intruder living rules") added panic rules.

On page 10 while describing "Functions" the following three sections make specific mention of the cost of each Function in movement points even when the cost is zero.

(9.2-A) PICK UP AN OBJECT. This activity costs 1 movement point ...
(9.2-E) CONSTRUCT WEAPONS. This function requires three movement points ...
(9.2-F) DROP AN OBJECT. This action requires no movement points ...

However the following three make no mention of the cost.

(9.2-B) UNLOCK ARMS ROOM.
(9.2-C) UNLOCK FREEZER.
(9.2-D) OPEN COMPUTER ROOM.

What would be a good cost for each of these functions based on your knowledge of the rules or experience?

I take the cost to be zero, because if a cost was intended it would have been in the rules. You have to go by the written rules as much as possible. I interpreted the rules as stating a zero cost for dropping an object because if the rules were silent on that point, then people might wonder if dropping cost something because picking up costs one movement point. To be clear and consistent, the designer of course should have stated the cost of all functions. But good organization and consistency are not among the virtues of the Intruder rules.

Not to say that one couldn't decide to limit the crew by imposing a movement point cost to unlock or open those rooms. For those functions, a cost of one movement point sounds good.

Thread: Re: Rules questions.

GaryP — 2008-06-16T21:57:10+00:00

I agree that the Computer Room has no official purpose other than hiding and that the modifier in the example is from a rule that didn't make the final cut.

I don't have the rulebook with me, but I have always played that it costs 1 MP to unlock those rooms. (Although I've never opened the Computer Room.) I'll have to check to see if I (quite possibly) made it up. In any case, I find that it works well, requiring a bit of coordination for the humans to arm themselves.

Thread: Re: Rules questions.

Awfki — 2008-06-13T01:03:18+00:00

Ned Ludd wrote:
What is the Computer Room for? I found instructions on how to open it but not what to do inside.

It doesn't seem to have a purpose other than providing a room to hide in. You could always make something up. Maybe it's also the communications room where you call for help?

Ned Ludd wrote:
Combat example on the bottom of page 8, right after section 8.282. A Blaster roll is modified by +1 because another crew member was killed in the same fight. I can't find a section on modifying battle rolls. Are there other modifiers?

I don't find that modifier anywhere in the rules except the example. I do believe that they skipped the panic phase (10.0) that should have occurred after the crewman was killed. I suspect that there was a rules change and the example didn't get updated.

Ned Ludd wrote:

On page 10 while describing "Functions" the following three sections make specific mention of the cost of each Function in movement points even when the cost is zero.

(9.2-A) PICK UP AN OBJECT. This activity costs 1 movement point ...
(9.2-E) CONSTRUCT WEAPONS. This function requires three movement points ...
(9.2-F) DROP AN OBJECT. This action requires no movement points ...

However the following three make no mention of the cost.

(9.2-B) UNLOCK ARMS ROOM.
(9.2-C) UNLOCK FREEZER.
(9.2-D) OPEN COMPUTER ROOM.

What would be a good cost for each of these functions based on your knowledge of the rules or experience?

I'd say either make them all zero since they're not specified. If you assume a voice lock or a palm scan then that seems fairly reasonable. Alternately make them 1, 1 and 0 to quickly tap out an unlock code or open the computer room which doesn't seem to be locked (though it is access restricted...).

Edited because I never remember the preview button.

Thread: Re: I bought this game when I was in high-school...

Awfki — 2008-06-13T00:40:50+00:00

castiglione wrote:
Wasn't there a variant of Intruder in which the player controls a team of marines trying to clear the station of several aliens (obviously, the Intruder had been busy doing the birds and bees thing)?

This is an amazingly late response, about 3.5 years after the question, but...

Yes, Scenario 13.2 is Return to Prometheus where three teams return to the ship. There's an optional variant for the scenario to make all the Command and Engineering personnel into marines who carry all four weapons (and nothing else) and can shoot those pesky lab animals.

Thread: Rules questions.

Ned Ludd — 2008-06-12T20:12:52+00:00

Questions after reading the Intruder rulebook.

What is the Computer Room for? I found instructions on how to open it but not what to do inside.

Combat example on the bottom of page 8, right after section 8.282. A Blaster roll is modified by +1 because another crew member was killed in the same fight. I can't find a section on modifying battle rolls. Are there other modifiers?

On page 10 while describing "Functions" the following three sections make specific mention of the cost of each Function in movement points even when the cost is zero.

(9.2-A) PICK UP AN OBJECT. This activity costs 1 movement point ...
(9.2-E) CONSTRUCT WEAPONS. This function requires three movement points ...
(9.2-F) DROP AN OBJECT. This action requires no movement points ...

However the following three make no mention of the cost.

(9.2-B) UNLOCK ARMS ROOM.
(9.2-C) UNLOCK FREEZER.
(9.2-D) OPEN COMPUTER ROOM.

What would be a good cost for each of these functions based on your knowledge of the rules or experience?

Thank you.

Thread: House of the Horror

flavioezio — 2008-05-31T10:41:55+00:00

Hi,
I have read on a old TFG Flyer of a new game called HOUSE OF THE HORROR using the INTRUDER and BOARDING PARTY game system that was never published.
Does anybody know his designer ? If it is still possible to receive the rules I could design a Cyberboard module to play it.
I like these kind of games. Simple and fun.

Thread: Re: Rules wanted

purestrain — 2008-04-01T20:52:58+00:00

Yeah, would work - And it would be really great! To be honest, i never thought of an answer. I want to give the game a try and see if it could be converted so a simple coffeebreak computer game - The game itself sounds really interesting.

uschkinredsunshine[AT]gmx.de

Many many thanks to you!

Thread: Re: Rules wanted

Herr Niemand — 2008-04-01T20:41:15+00:00

Would JPEGs work for you?

I could scan my rules and e-mail them to you.

TT

Thread: Rules wanted

purestrain — 2008-04-01T20:27:08+00:00

Is there a change for getting the rules as PDF/DOC?

Thread: Intruder: We barely escaped with our lives...

Phytoman — 2007-11-18T18:49:55+00:00

"IT'S LOOSE!!!"
"Lab, this is command. WHAT'S loose?"
"It broke out of the lab! It killed Jones!"
"What is it? WHAT killed Jones?"
“I don’t know, but it’s headed your way!”

Stardate 2452.3 Commander of the Prometheus reporting. After this unnerving message from the science lab we were scared of our own shadows. We did manage to quickly get two animals back in their permanent cages. But I wasn’t taking any chances and ordered the engineers in the Maintenance compartment to start producing a prod and flame thrower. In the meantime, the intruder was discovered in Corridor B-1 by a command officer and science officer. Fortunately, the intruder didn’t attack and since the intruder was only at stage 1 we tried to cage it with a portable cage but were unsuccessful. The intruder moved to an access shaft with a command officer and engineer in hot pursuit. By this time the intruder changed into life stage 2 and we could see that it had gotten stronger where no cage could hold it. This time the intruder attacks the command officer and in self-defense the engineer fires a sleep dart that misses and the intruder kills the command officer. This sets the whole team in a panic and everyone retreated to the Command module.
The intruder goes through two metamorphoses and after regrouping the crew replenishes their weapons and decides to hunt it down. Since the intruder is flame resistant, the production of flame throwers was halted. We also realized that there was a good possibility of several of these creatures roaming around our station. The plan was now to hunt them down and prod them into one of the airlocks and release them into the empty void of space. We found one of them in a corridor by a science officer and a command officer with a prod. The intruder didn’t attack and so the science officer was reluctant to shoot at it with his blaster. The intruder escaped into a storage room. The command officer demands the blaster from the science officer and moves into the storage room. But, the intruder quickly pounced on the command officer who was killed instantly. The bloody screams could be heard over the com-unit and panic set in again.
A role call revealed that I was the only command officer left alone with the science officers and engineers. At this point it was decided to try and save ourselves as we new there were at least three other intruders who were immune to vacuum. If I was killed it would leave no one to start the self-destruct system so I put it in motion. It’s time to get to the shuttles. Since there were seven of us, we had to split up and go in two separate shuttles. We leave one of the science officers in the command module to turn off the self-destruct system in case we are successful in controlling the intruders.
Team one moves into one of the corridors cautiously hearing a noise, which turns out to be nothing. Team two moves into the other corridor also hearing a noise but it turns out to be just a dog. Team two investigates another noise in the adjacent storage room forcing the team to come face-to-face with an intruder. The science officer is killed after a dart misses its target.

Self-destruct at 8!

We all move back to the command module and decide to try and make it to the shuttles again splitting up. Both teams quickly encounter intruders resulting in deaths of engineers from both teams. Now we have a real sense of urgency to get off this station and most of my team is not thinking straight at this point..

Self-destruct at 7!

Now that we are down to a team of four, we can all fit in one shuttle. The coast is clear to shuttle deck 1 and so we all make a run for it. Realizing that none of us have weapons I go back to the command module to pick up a blaster. The rest of the team makes it to the shuttle bay before I do and are in preparation for the shuttle to take off waiting for the self-destruct system to move down to 4, hoping that one of the intruders doesn’t discover us.

Self-destruct at 6! Nothing.
Self-destruct at 5! Nothing.
Self-destruct at 4! Nothing.

The shuttle departs and we give a sigh of relief feeling that we will now be safe. However, security was short-lived as we discovered an intruder had stowed away in the confusion. The intruder attacks me and in self-defense I killed the intruder with my blaster (boy am I glad I went back for that weapon!!). Now we could feel safe as we head for home as we see the Prometheus exploding in the distance.

Commander of the Prometheus reporting out.

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RayGuns — 2007-11-12T19:36:53+00:00

A comparison of the game components.

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RayGuns — 2007-11-12T19:35:44+00:00

If you like one chances are you will like the other. Of the two games INTRUDER being the older one, and I also believe easier to play as well.

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Raid1280 — 2007-11-07T23:01:15+00:00

Two unknown units lie across the way from the science team. Is one of them the Intruder?

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Raid1280 — 2007-11-07T23:00:17+00:00

A command unit prepares to open the armory.

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Raid1280 — 2007-11-07T22:59:02+00:00

Starting setup

Thread: Description, counter manifest and comments

ltmurnau — 2007-10-02T22:15:13+00:00

INTRUDER

Designer: Dennis Sustarre
Publisher: Task Force Games

Players: 1 or more
Period: science fiction future
Playing time: 30 minutes to 1 hour
Scales: up to 1 hour per turn, indeterminate area per square, individual person/ animal/ monster/ article per counter

Intruder was published in 1980 by Task Force Games as #1006 in the Task Force Pocket Game series.

Components

1 - 16-page rules folder
1 - map showing the layout of Deep Space Station Prometheus
1 - sheet of 54 counters, die-cut, single-sided

Counter Manifest
There is a total of 54 counters. There are no blanks.

9 Human counters: 3 each from Command, Science and Engineering
19 weapon/article counters: 3 Blasters, 3 Dart Guns, 3 Gas Grenades, 3 Prods, 3 Flamethrowers, 4 Cages
6 Lab Animal counters
6 Dummy counters
5 Intruder counters
9 Markers: 7 Intruder Power, 1 Intruder Life Stage, 1 Self Destruct

Comments:

Okay, sure, this is a direct and unauthorised rip-off of the movie Alien, down to the monster on the cover (portrayed as Gigeresque as the rather fanciful cover artist A.J. Belflower could). But it's still a situation that lends itself to a primarily solitaire design, and Dennis Sustarre made a fun game out of it.

In the basic scenario, all human counters and the various weapons are placed around the space station, as are an unknown number of lab animals, dummies, and one Intruder. The game is assumed to begin at the point when a crewman has been killed by the Intruder. The Intruder moves randomly, and as it grows and metamorphoses it gains powers like extra speed, immunity to certain weapons, and so forth. The player's objective is to capture or kill the Intruder while losing a minimum number of crewmen. However, if things go wrong, he can attempt to escape with the remaining crewmen in a shuttle after setting the space station to self-destruct (and hoping the Intruder hasn't hitched a ride along).

There are three other scenarios with slightly different premises: an intelligent Intruder played by a second human player; a return to the space station by heavily armed and forewarned crewmen; and a scenario where one player controls the Science Officers who want to capture and study the Intruder, another controls the rest of the crew who would just as soon kill the Intruder, and a possible third player controls the Intruder itself.

Support Material

Reviews: Nexus 1, Space Gamer 28
Errata: Nexus 1
Variants: Space Gamer 84, Nexus 7 (2 player variant); some online variants at Chris Camfield’s site at http://www3.sympatico.ca/ccamfield/games/intr.html.

Thread: Re: Trivia Geekdom About the Designer

heli — 2007-05-09T21:10:59+00:00

Also the designer of Bunnies & Burrows, which being an RPG will not appear in the database.

Thread: Intruder: the second incident.

mbourgeois — 2007-04-20T05:06:19+00:00

You'd think they would have learned... just cause it's cute and fuzzy doesn't mean it won't eat your liver with a delightful carafe of Chiante.

This was played with the rules of 1)no access to weapons until Life Stage 3 or someone gets attacked so the armory stays locked. 2)No engineer production of Flame Throwers until Life Stage 3 or someone gets attacked. 3)Cages are randomly placed so that you have to search for them and you must have a scientist present to place an animal or Intruder into the Main Cages.

This was a quiet game right up to almost the end. No Intruder (although he hit life stage 2 before being noted), all the dummies were found first, all the animals were found before I could find the cages and all the scientists were stuck over in the airlock trying to stop two animals from running away. (I ruled that every animal to be captured needed at least one person to herd them... no grabbing one and holding on)

My crew were all on the way back to the science lab with the last two animals when they ran into the intruder. One bagged the intruder with a dart gun and what I didn't know was that a)he was very strong so the cage he was schlepped into broke like matchsticks when he flexed and 2)he was also immune to cold so trying to freeze him just got the door to the freezer wanked off it's hinges. Hmm, well he was still very young so we couldn't off him... that was solved the next round when before our eyes he evolved up in stature and gained the ability to ignore vacuum conditions. That is also when he attacked a crew member but slipped on a banana peel and missed. For some reason the two engineers in engineering started making prods and firethrowers. Didn't grab weapons and help... just stood there putting part a into slot b.

Next round he evolved again... something about being able to grab onto stuff and not be pulled out of airlocks by vacuums. The dart guns were still working and we shoved his snoozing bod into the airlock... hit the button and he somehow whipped a claw out and hooked it into the doorframe.

I was a bit pissed now and I had the horror of seeing him evolve again... I figured now the only thing that could go wrong was for him to be immune to blasters. Nope... clones now... that was his bag... like 3 or 4 extra clones in the wings waiting to rain down havok... fortunately... the crew was kinda pissed by now from trying to off the freak and a volly of Blaster Fire turned him into incandescent fumes.

Must better session this time. Still no crew deaths but there is always a next time.

Thread: Re: Preserving the game board

Brewtal_Legend — 2007-04-04T18:29:20+00:00

I came up with a very cheap yet a little time consuming way of preserving my original game map. I took my original map to kinkos and had a full sized black and white copy made for about $2.75. I used a glue stick to glue index cards to the back of the paper, then very carefully layed clear packaging tape across the back, front, and sides of the maps. This made a pretty durable and flexible game map that I can play with and keep my original in an envelope for safe keeping. It's not the spiffiest way to do this but it's very cheap and effective. The hardest part was laying the tape and overlapping it being careful not to make any bubbles.

-Legend

Thread: Preserving the game board

Brewtal_Legend — 2007-04-01T17:09:37+00:00

How do you guys preserve the game board for this and other task force games with paper boards? Do you laminate them? Make copies? I'm wondering because I can already see some decent wear on the edges and creases on my copy of Intruder and Valkenburg Castle. Any Suggestions?

Thread: Re: User Review

Rliyen — 2007-03-02T19:53:12+00:00

That's what I did with my set of counters. Worked like a charm.

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Badgeroonie — 2006-10-11T08:19:23+00:00

The Space Station

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Badgeroonie — 2006-10-11T07:54:47+00:00

Intruder Known Powers Chart

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Badgeroonie — 2006-10-11T07:54:36+00:00

Intruder Life Stage Chart

Thread: Re: historic capsule review

Geosphere — 2006-09-14T14:19:26+00:00

When I was about 12, had no opponents and a rainy day, I truly enjoyed this game a lot.

Thread: historic capsule review

kvezner — 2006-09-13T19:30:33+00:00

The following capsule review of Intruder appeared in Space Gamer #28, May/June 1980. It was written by Jerry Epperson. I post it here for historical interest. As you can see, it lacks the substance of a full review. I feel that it is a little harsh but basically accurate.

"Intruder is a solitaire game (with scenarios allowing more than one players [sic]) of hide-and-seek on the research station Prometheus. Sound familiar? It is. This game simulates the action in the movie Alien, and does a good job of it. The alien wanders around killing things; as the game progresses, it gains new powers, each of which comes as a surprise to the humans, and gets tougher and harder to kill.

This is basically a solitaire game; players who have opponents available will want it only when it gets hot in Siberia. If you do have some fellow-gamers around, you might try collaborating instead of competing.

Unfortunately, Intruder is not as well written as the other Task Force games I have seen. I had the distinct feeling that some of the rules were missing. For instance, where do you set up the cages? (I put them in the lab.) I had problems with the sleep-dart rules; they let the Intruder wake up so quickly that my officers had to fire repeatedly. Very irritating.

I was somewhat disappointed. This one is for solitaire gamers, or others who are really hard up for new sci-fi games."

Image

Herr Niemand — 2006-09-04T22:18:35+00:00

close up of the Prometheus layout, showing Intruder movement probabilities

Image

Herr Niemand — 2006-09-04T22:07:58+00:00

clearer countersheet image

Thread: Trivia Geekdom About the Designer

DemonVanVeen — 2006-08-06T15:25:03+00:00

Dennis Sustare, the designer of Intruder, is thanked in the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons, as at least one source points out. He also lent his name to the old seventh-level Druid spell "Chariot of Sustarre" (sic). According to some sources, he is the only real person whose name appears in a TSR spell.
Geek on.

Thread: Re: User Review

Chris__M — 2005-10-06T15:33:29+00:00

This bugged me at the time, too, and I tried two things to remedy it.

The second (successful) method was to play with a set of blank counters, and kept the animal/alien counters in a bag. When I had an encounter, I would pull a chit out at random, which would replace the blank counter on the board.

The first (partly successful) method was to try and change the background of the board - on the the principal that a red background wouldn't reflect the counters so much. It is for this reason that my copy is probably unsellable, as it is (badly) coloured-in.

What was I thinking of?

Chris

Thread: Re: User Review

tolendante — 2005-09-19T03:16:44+00:00

A quicker and easier solution to the counter problem is to use a black marker and darken all the sides. It only takes a few minutes.

Thread: Re: User Review

wmshub — 2005-07-15T23:07:33+00:00

Nice review, but I'd like to add one fatal flaw that really bothered me: All the harmless counters had black or white backgrounds, but the aliens had bright orange backgrounds. No big deal, right? Except that the alien was hidden by turning the counters all upside down. Just from glancing at the counters it was always easy to spot a trace of neon orange on the edge of the alien counters, or often even reflecting from the counter onto the map underneath it, making it so even if you wanted to keep it a secret you always knew where the alien was!

The solution of course is to make your own set of counters. I never got around to doing that, played a couple of games then decided it wouldn't be worth the effort. Very disappointing problem though, especially since it would be so easy to fix.

Thread: User Review

castiglione — 2004-12-30T19:32:17+00:00

Intruder is a "microgame" that was published by Task Force Games back in the 80's. It is a solitaire game in which the player attempts to bring under control (by either capturing or killing it), an initially benign alien life form that suddenly has developed a disconcerting need to round out its diet with human flesh.

The player is in control of nine crew members, three "command" officers, three scientists and three engineers. A random system controls the movements of the escaped "harmless" lab animals, the carnivorous alien and a few dummy counters as they move about a space station - this system was later used in Task Force Games's Boarding Party and I'm surprised it hasn't been used more often in solitaire games - given a fairly low number of counters (as in both games), the system is fairly manageable and gives the player a sense of frustration (of the good kind) as they try to "hide" from a counter...or attempt to chase one down as it zigs instead of zagging.

The theme of the game is as follows - the player controls a scientific survey crew aboard a research station orbitting a planet. They have brought back several of the animals on the surface back to study (BAD idea - haven't these mooks been watching any movies while off duty). One of these animals which seemed harmless at first, suddenly morphed into a viscious predator, killing one of the crew off-camera so to speak, causing enough mayhem in the lab to free an unknown number of other lab animals before running off somewhere to digest its latest lunch. The crew must now track it down.

The movement of the alien predator is controlled as follows - the chits for the alien, some lab animals and some dummy counters are turned over and shuffled and initially distributed throughout the map. A random system governed by a die roll for each counter governs their movement - the numbers are printed right on the map on each room so the system is actually fairly fast playing - there's no rummaging through tables and charts to see how the counters move...the "charts", so to speak, are "internalized" on the map. What this means is that each non-player controlled counter needs a die roll to determine where it wanders off to. This may be cumbersome with a large number of counters - but in this case, the game doesn't involve that many...after all, this isn't a massive battle we are playing out...just the life-and-death struggle between a bunch of scared scientists and a hungry predator.

As the game progresses, the alien has a chance of morphing into its next life phase, which makes it more aggressive (and likely to attack), more likely to succeed in attacking and which also grants it a certain number of (initially) unknown powers. These powers, unfortunately, can make or break a session of the game. When an alien is encountered, two dice are rolled to determine which powers it has. One of the powers is the "clone" ability, which leads to the most interesting games - this means that the alien could have one or more clones of itself running around, further complicating everyone's job. The game's designer apparently realized that this power is the one which makes the game the most fun and gave it the highest probability of turning up (it turns up on a roll of 7 on two dice...7 is the number that is MOST likely to turn up when two dice are rolled...much to the chagrin of craps players world-wide). However, despite the designer "loading the dice" (so to speak), this ability doesn't aways turn up. When it doesn't, the game becomes fairly pedestrian. With nine crew members on the map at any one time, one alien, even with a variety of other powers, can quickly be cornered and brought under control. The game, in other words, is sometimes too easy to win if the alien happens to have a lame bunch of powers instead of some of the "super ones".

There are other factors which reduce the ease at which the player can win. The players are restricted from using the more lethal (and effective) weapons until the alien reaches a certain life phase - in the early phases, the crew members are restricted to merely capturing it.

The crew members are also prone to panic - if a crew member dies in an attack, the surviving crew members panic and run for the control room, giving the alien predator a chance to hide anew.

However, despite the sometimes ease with which victory can be attained, Intruder is still a very fun, atmosphere laden game. And there are house rules floating around on the web which provide it with some more souped up powers with which to confound the crew - the powers I enjoy the most are "camouflage" which prevents the crew from seeing the alien very well as it blends, gecko-like into its surroundings and "carnivore" which means that whenever the alien kills a crew-member, it runs off with its snack and chows down, increasing its chances of morphing to the next life stage level (and thus gaining more powers!). However, there is also another potentially must simpler fix than adding new powers. I always thought the array of weapons available in the game was ridiculous - the crew members have access at the beginning of the game to three dart guns, three blasters and three cannisters of nerve gas in addition to being able to contruct cattle prods and flame throwers. IMHO, merely reducing the number of weapons initially available to the crew (after all, this is a RESEARCH station, not a military base) to whatever the player feels is "reasonable" (I think ditching the blasters and nerve gas cannisters, leaving just the 1-2 dart guns initially makes sense) makes for a more "suspenseful" game. NOW the players depend on the engineers to construct the cattle prods (and later, when it's decided the alien is too strong to capture, the flame throwers). Now, instead of fanning out into the station like a bunch of highly trained commandos (which they are not), the crew has to huddle around the one guy holding the single dart gun the ship has while the improvised weapons are being constructed.

Anyway, Intruder is a fun game and I'm surprised its system of "dummy counter" movement wasn't used more in games set in a dungeon or haunted house or alien infested space craft. It's a bit more complicated than Boarding Party (which it begat), but its more fun...probably due to the uncertainty produced by the alien as it morphs into one life stage after another, picking up new (and until the crew runs into it - unknown) powers along the way.

FYI - Intruder obviously served as the model for Boarding Party, which I have already discussed. It also served as the inspiration for Last Frontier, whose theme AND format (small booklet of rules, counters and map in a little ziplock baggy) is very similar to that of Task Force Games's micrograme.

Thread: Session Report

castiglione — 2004-12-30T14:49:34+00:00

While digging through some old things, I happened upon my copy of Intruder.

Sooo...I had no choice but to dig it out and give it a whirl.

The first turn had my crew arming themselves with dart guns while the engineers began working on cattle prods - the science officers began loading up on the cages with which to cage the "thing" once it once under control.

Unfortunately, our first encounter with the hostile life form had it go "pitbull" on our engineer, tearing out the poor guy's throat, resulting in general panic even though one of the command officer's managed to hit it with his dart gun. Sooo...my obviously incompetant crew left the slumbering predator and ran pell mell to the command center to discuss what to do next.

By then, the alien had advanced to a degree to which it could break out of our portable cages and I decided that lethal force was the way to go.

Sooo...our brave party armed themselves with lasers and escorted the engineers back into maintenance where they could work on cobbling together weapons of a more lethal variety than the cattle prods. The science officers began sweeping the other wing of the station, armed with dart pistols and escorted by a command officer with a laser.

The science officers ran into the alien and darted it. The command officer with the laser began shooting at the slumbering alien while the others in the maintenance wing of the station strapped on their now completed flame throwers and rushed to the science wing of the station.

The alien proved to be resistant to lasers (tough hide) and momentarily gained a respite but we managed to track it down again. The science officers darted it to sleep and one of the command officers fried it with his flame thrower.

Total victory points were TWO. Not great but still positive.

The alien kept gaining rather useless powers. The power that it had the greatest statistical chance of gaining (cloning) which should have given it awesome powers didn't even show up.

Thread: Session Report

castiglione — 2004-12-30T14:49:34+00:00

I attempted another outing of INTRUDER.

My basic strategy was simple - break out the tranquilizer guns and portable cages while the engineers worked away at the cattle prods.

While the cattle prods were being made, the others set out in groups of three and attempted to account for any of the escaped lab animals so as to prevent from confusing the search for the Intruder. Three lab animals had been successfully caught and caged when one of the three men teams stumbled upon the creature.

The creature leapt to the attack - but before it could inflict any damage, a tranquilizer dart successfully put it to sleep. After that, it was only a matter of stuffing it inside one of the portable cages and then sprinting for the freezer, keeping one's fingers crossed, hoping that it didn't develop the super strength and resistance to cold mutations - it did not. The creature, cage and all, was thrown into the freezer next to the savaged corpse of its first victim (killed off-screen, as it were) and the freezer was turned on.

My next outing, I'll attempt to play around with some of the "extra powers" described in some of the house rules that have been posted - as it stands, unless the alien gets the cloning power or mutates at a zippy rate, it's almost too easy to corner it and bring it under one's thumb.

Thread: Re:Session Report

castiglione — 2004-12-15T15:40:43+00:00

NOTE: I'm not a big fan of the "teleport" option - that kind of stretches the boundaries of credibility . I'd rather call it the "Intruder moves so fast that no one can track it with their eye and suddenly, it's disappeared from the room and no one knows where it's gone" option. The predator and camouflage ones are nice, though.

Thread: Re:Session Report

castiglione — 2004-12-15T15:27:27+00:00

mbourgeois (#69898),

This may liven up your next session:

http://www3.sympatico.ca/ccamfield/games/intr.html

Thread: Session Report

mbourgeois — 2004-12-08T22:34:32+00:00

While waiting for my wife to finish her Master's Thesis Defense (she passed by the way Yay!!) I sat in the cafeteria and played a solitaire game of Intruder.

The game set-up is simple with almost all the pieces going onto the board. (the board needs some wearing in though... it has some bumps and creases that make the chits sit unevenly) The game is sturdy and the pieces are easy to tell apart.

My game was very uneventful... I had the intruder metamorph 3 times but never get the cloning power until its final metamorph when it was locked up in the portable cage. I was then able to chain move the alien intruder from room to room. The lazy bugger didn't even try to attack and I was able to dart it to sleep twice when free. The game was fun and I will give it a run again. Next time pehaps I'll be lucky enough to have a busy intruder who runs rampant.

Thread: I bought this game when I was in high-school...

castiglione — 2004-10-21T17:27:17+00:00

...man, that brings back memories.

It may even still be around somewhere in my parents house. I'll have to remember to look around for it.

Wasn't there a variant of Intruder in which the player controls a team of marines trying to clear the station of several aliens (obviously, the Intruder had been busy doing the birds and bees thing)?