Intruder (board game)
Intruder is a solitaire board game published in 1980 by Task Force Games. Gameplay. "Intruder", designed by B. Dennis Sustare, is based on the movie "Alien", in which a rapidly maturing alien roams a spaceship, ambushing and killing crew members. In "Intruder", a young alien life form has escaped from the labs of the space station "Prometheus", and hunts members of the crew as it matures and gains new abilities. It is up to the crew to find the alien and either capture it when it is young, or kill it in its later life stages before  crew losses become unacceptable. If all else fails, the crew can initiate a self-destruct sequence to destroy the "Prometheus" while escaping by shuttle; however, there is a chance that the alien will also escape by stowing away on one of the shuttles. The provided map shows the various areas and corridors of the "Prometheus". The sequence of play in each turn is: The game components are a 16" x 20" paper map, 54 die-cut counters and a 16-page rulebook, packaged in a zip-lock bag. Reception. In the May–June 1980 edition of "The Space Gamer" (Issue  No. 28), Jerry Epperson was not impressed by "Intruder", saying, "I was somewhat disappointed. This one is for solitaire gamers, or others who are really hard up for new sci-fi games." In the July 1980 edition of "Dragon", Tony Watson liked "Intruder", saying, "There was a game in that movie ["Alien"], and Task Force has done a fine job of extracting and offering it to us in a pocket-game format." Watson enjoyed the quick turns that resulted in gameplay of only 45 minutes. His only complaints were about a couple of glitches in the rules, and the shiny  finish on the counters, which sometimes revealed the location of the facedown alien due to reflection. Watson recommended the game, saying, "The game... is a lot of fun. The situation is tense and games are often close. The Intruder is truly a mean monster and the player will have to use some brains to defeat it." Roger Sandell reviewed "Intruder" for "White Dwarf" #21, giving it an overall rating of 6 out of 10, and stated that "in the end, my feeling is that this game is a good idea which needs further development. It would have been nice to  have seen a game system that, like "The Creature that Ate Sheboygan", allowed the Intruder to be radically different each time."