Today I'm wrapping up the early days of microgames with what I consider the coolest and most impressive microgame of the era (which does not mean best), Barbarian Prince. This solo fantasy adventure game was designed by Arnold Hendrick and published in 1981 by Dwarfstar Games. Dwarfstar was part of Heritage USA. While the company's microgame line were almost all hard hitters the company filed for bankruptcy a year later in 1982. The brightest flames often burn the shortest.
Barbarian Prince (BP) was a paragraph based game system. The player, the titular Barbarian Prince, has been forced from his home after his father the King was assassinated and replaced with an usurper. Armed with only your sword and possessing a pauper's worth of coins you must earn enough money to hire a military force to reclaim your rightful throne. As you do this the clock is ticking, as in ten weeks those who have stolen the crown will have enough reinforcements to make retaking the castle impossible.
The game unfolds on a hex map. The game came with a miniature of the Prince for tracking the player on his journey. Turns represent one day with the player allowed to do one action a day. An action could be resting, seeking news, hiring followers, making temple offerings, and much more. Oh, and of course the most important action, moving to a new hex. At the end of the day the player must eat and each day without food has a significant impact on the player's abilities. While you cannot die from starvation you'll reach a point of such nutritional deprivation that a mean look will send you to the great beyond.
What makes BP so impressive is the sheer amount of content that is packed into the game. You can travel on foot, mounted, airborne, or rafting. Encounters range from social to combat and there are even rules for falling in love. This may actually be the first game in which you can date NPCs. Actions such as temples, villages, and meeting with nobles have a multitude of possibilities beyond simply buying equipment and resting. There are tiny details like if you hunt in a civilized area you could end up being chased by the local police force for poaching. This is a living, breathing world.
The only downside to BP is this is a game that if you hate RNG you'll hate BP. One game, cursed by the dice gawds, saw my guy never leaving his initial hex, wandering in circles and starving with each passing day as he failed his hunting. But when the dice are on fire so is the game.
Barbarian Prince is highly recommended and you can actually download a copy to experience the game, along with several other Dwarfstar microgames here:
https://t.co/NHq2seROiW
Next time our journey enters the '90s and '00s, a period that saw one Canadian publisher bringing indie wargames to the masses in a small format.