Space Gamer #31

Space Gamer #31 (cover-date September 1980) takes us once again into the gaming hobby's early days – and the articles are fun to read, too! In addition to the regular game reviews, news, and letters, this is the "Special Computer Issue." (Remember that this is computer gaming 1980s-style – the ad on page 3 proclaiming "We do Games, not Windows" is being prophetic, not ironic!) The showcase article is the "1980 Game Software Survey," which includes information on 17 companies that were creating hobby- and game-related software at the dawn of the home-computing era. Also included is "Deus Ex Machina," an article that gives a computational technique for generating random dungeons; "Sam Beowulf," a piece of fiction that recasts the epic hero as a hard-boiled private eye (complete with stats for The Fantasy Trip, Dungeons & Dragons, Tunnels and Trolls, and War of the Ring); and the fifth in the series "Game Design: Theory and Practice," co-written by Steve Jackson. It also contains errata for Kung-Fu 2100 (from Space Gamer #30). Whether you're a fan of old-school gaming or a historian of our hobby, each issue of Space Gamer is the perfect passport to the past! Written by Steve Jackson / Nick Schuessler / Bruce Webster / Forrest Johnson / Ronald Pehr / Joseph Miranda / Alan Isabelle / Joseph Power