Like the White Guys in Dragon Rouge, a package of 4 new games from SWI, a brand-new company, dropped in, unannounced the other day. It was quite a varied group, with one game on Rommel at the Meuse, one on finding the Lost Dutchman Mine (complete with chunk of pyrite), and a rather interesting simulation of the early days of Pro Football, entitled Ironman. The most promising-looking specimen, in terms of subject matter, seemed to be Dragon Rouge - a game title that sounds more like a new brand of lipstick being shilled by Courtney Love, a woman who seems determined to give sleaze a bad name; Congo would have been much more evocative - that covers the joint-allied operation in 1964 to retake the 1600 Euro-hostages seized by the Simba rebels in Stanleyville, in the old Belgian Congo. Any game that allows you to massacre nuns can’t be all that bad. (Hey, c’mon guys, it’s only cardboard!)
Now, while Congo (we’ll use its “new” name) hasn’t quite sunk to Perry Moore Level in production terms, this ain’t State of the Art, folks. Everything is computer generated. The map is colored, if not colorful, and appears to be from the Queman School of Computer Cartography. Counters are from about the same date as the Rescue mission, and you do need an x-acto knife. But everything is clean and usable, if a bit primitive.
The system itself is easily learned, and, just as quickly, you discover the game’s drawback: this is a solitaire game masquerading as a one-on-one. Virtually everything the Simba Player does is by dieroll, from his deployment to his movement capability. He starts the game by randomly deploying about 1/3 of his possible force plus some hostages. The “Good Guys” then (literally) drop in, hoping that the recently hired mercenaries haven’t got totally lost in their trek through the jungle, as they did in Real Life. Then the shooting starts, with the Whites having far more fun than the Blacks, who have little firepower and poor leadership. (It seems their head guy decided getting drunk in a Kenyan bar was a better choice than standing and fighting.)
With a clean system, possible massacres abounding, and a quirky situation, Congo seems like it would work well. Well, it plays well - although one has to grimace at the rather un-PC choice of giving different VPs to the various nationalities; an American appears to be worth 3 Pakis - but there’s little for the Simba player to do except get himself toasted.
The Lost Dutchman game, although it doesn’t appear to be something that would interest anyone other than Arizonians and watchers of “Unsolved Mysteries”, turns out to be a small gem, which it actually includes!! LD is a Treasure-hunting/prospecting game, as players search for the fabled mine of the title. Get your grubstake, buy your equipment - it becomes obvious after a while what you should have bought - and head off into the rough, Arizona desert, looking for the Mother Lode. Seems easy, except for the rather amusing Random Events Cards. By turn three, all of us had had at least half of our equipment swept away by Flash Floods (Damn! It got ma dog and ma tools!), one of us had been bitten by something called the Walapai Tiger kissing Bug, and “Crazy Old Coot” had twice stolen my food. By the fifth turn, we had all started shooting at each other. Fred C. Dobbs had nothing on us.
The end game was quite interesting. Down to 0 Water and Food, with little endurance Left, I managed to find a hidden cave with some interesting markings, rolled the die, and, Eureka!! … I hit the Mother Lode. With my trusty nugget of Fool’s Gold in hand - one of the neater game components of recent years - I headed back to town, only to have the Dastardly Fox ambush me, shoot me in the back, take my gold … and win.
Granted, Lost Dutchman could use a little more variety in what you can do, and in what happens to you, but it plays in about 1 1/2 hours and produces lots of laughs. For $12, you can’t go wrong!
CAPSULE COMMENTS:
Third World production values doesn’t hide designer Morehead’s inherent creativity and sense of humor. Dutchman is fun; Congo less so.
from SIMULATION WORKSHOP
ODR: One 11”x 17” map; 120 uncut counters; Rules Book; 3 Play Aid Sheets; Ziplocked. $10
LLD: One 11”x 17” map; 180 uncut counters; 108 uncut cards Rules Book; Character and Play Aid Sheets; One nugget of Fool’s Gold. $12 Both Ziplocked from SWI, 2708 Gen. Chennault NE, Albuquerque NM 87112
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© Copyright 1994 by Richard Berg
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