Board Game Night

Well, tonight went well.  I was hanging out with two of my friends at a church they attend.  We played two board games.  One was a board game that I know very well called The Omega Virus.  It's dated, but the computer does most of the narration.  It's a board game about a space station being overtaken by a virus.  Different alliances around the world are sending a champion to eliminate the virus and take over the space station.  In essence, it's an every man for himself type game.  If no one wins, the virus wins.  He constantly taunts you by calling you "human scum".  He takes great pleasure in taunting you and the space station computer.  It's up to you to defeat him.

When you turn on the game, you need to enter a skill level.  Either 0 (easy), 1 (medium), or 2 (difficult).  The skill levels govern how much time you have to hunt down and defeat the virus.  In order to find him, you have to enter a 2 digit secret code that no one else can know.  It can only be a limited number of combinations, but examples of this are 0-0, 1-2, 2-0, and so on.  Everyone starts with a green access card.  This means you are only restricted to exploring the green rooms when starting.  You can not enter the other rooms without finding the access cards first.  When you explore a room or endure a security breach on your turn, a code will be announced by the virus.  Depending on what you notate on your pad, you can learn where the virus is before anyone else.  But learning his location means nothing unless you have the antivirus weapons.

Once your code is entered and the players are determined, you're ready to begin.  A buzzer sounds and the virus announces how much time you have before he takes over.  The turn order rotates clockwise, but the virus determines who goes first.  Once it is your turn, you can press 2 to explore a room, followed by the three digit room number.  The player must be aware of the fact that they can only move three spaces to a room.  They can acquire a robot that can move any number of spaces between rooms as long as they are connected on the map.  They can not bypass rooms.  Think of probes as an extension of your turn.

Take this for an example of a room exploration turn...

"Red, help me!"
*press 2*
"Enter room code"
*press 0-0-2*
"Probe found, Code: 2-0"

Then since you found your probe, the probe can now move.

"Red prove, hurry, we are running out of time"
*press 2*
"Which room...?"
*press 0-1-0*
"Access denied"

This is just for the sake of teaching, but let's pretend that Red had only a Green Access Card.  If the probe tried to enter a yellow, blue, or red room, it would say access denied.  The computer knows who has what access cards at all times.  You can not trick him while playing this game when it comes to entering rooms.  You can go from one side of the station to the other if you want, but why would you want to cheat?  If you are close to a docking bay on your turn, you can just push 0 to pass.  When you pass, you move to the nearest docking bay (considering you had the moves to do so) and teleport to the one you desire.  The docking bay is where all the players start out in the corresponding color (for example, Red player starts in the Red docking bay of the red sector, Green starts in the Green docking bay of the green sector and so on.).

Sometimes when you explore a room, you will trigger a security breach.  Other times you will be teleported upon entry.  These are known as hazards, and should be notated with a minus (-) sign to keep you from going there again.  But remember the code to the room on your turn...  That could be where he is hiding.  Here is an example of a security breach.

"Red, hurry, we are running out of time"
"Try and stop me you human scum!"
*press 2*
"Enter room code"
*press 2-1-0*
"Security breach!  Security breach at 2-1-0 *laser sound*  Red energize 1 shield"
(remember that when the virus attacks you like this, it's random)
*press R*
(miss sound)
"I missed, Code: 1-1"

When two players are in the same room as each other, they have the option to attack each other.  The codes for attacking are found at the bottom of the sector panel.  For example, to attack Red, it would be 1-0-0 (don't push any buttons before this or you can't take it back).  You can attack to gain an edge on the opposition.  You can destroy their access cards, their antivirus weapons, or even steal said items.  After all, it's a fight for the space station.  Once you have everything, you can find the virus and destroy him.  You will need the antivirus weapons before that.

The antivirus weapons are typically found in the rooms they are color coded to.  They are the Negatron, the Distruptor, and the Decoder.  One can battle the virus as long as they have these items.  Sometimes when the virus knows who has what items, he will say "Blue must be TERMINATED!"  That means someone is getting close to him, he sees Blue as a threat, and thinks the players should try to delay him.

As the time counts down, sectors will begin shutting down, which limit your search to the rooms that the virus occupies.  It gets easier to find him this way so you aren't searching every single room just to locate the virus.  Also, when the final minutes are at hand, the virus will taunt you almost every turn to delay you from destroying him.  His voice will also speed up during certain segments, which is very humorous!  Once you have all the antivirus weapons and enter the room code, you will hear "You found me!  Try and stop me!"  At this point, you will have to push one of the four buttons.  You have a 25% chance of getting it, but try not to show your opponent which button you pressed.  This way you as the player will know which button not to press next time in case you didn't get it the first time.  If you guess wrong, you will hear, "*BUZZ* WRONG!" which I can't help but laugh at.  If you push the right one, you will hear "*laser sound, BOOM* You human scum!!!  You win!  I... am... termina... ted...."  If you hear this, congratulations, the space station is yours. 

I hope you can still find this game floating around somewhere.  It's obviously out of print, but it was a great take on evolving board games with computers.  It wasn't perfect, it didn't always know where you were, but it knew what you had, which is very impressive for a board game that came out in 1993.

The kickstart

Good day everyone,

My name is Patrick Rhodes.  I'm 27 years old, and I'm currently attending UWF for Software Engineering.  My hobbies are currently playing board games, Magic: The Gathering, anything Japanese, listening to music, retro gaming, retro television and other mundane and nerdy things.  I have been back in the states for about half a year as this post is dated, approximately six months.  I've lived in Japan for almost two years.  I can honestly say that it was the best time of my life aside from work.  I was there on assignment in the United States Navy.  I can tell you all about it in another post, but right now I just need to break the ice.  There will be many more posts from this point on, consider this as an introduction for now.