Artifact Play By Email Support Page By Walter O'Hara Back to the Play by Email Emporium

This game, for all its cartoony art and silly premise, still delivers on the replay value. The premise is that there are Soviet and NASA (American) bases on the moon (this game was written during the height of the Cold War, remember?). An American scientific team discovers an Alien landing (which was in the midst of munching on some hapless lunar workers). The Aliens possess a contraption of overwhelming power called "the Dingus". Both the Soviets and the Americans are willing to go to war to get their hands on it. The game has several scenarios (all included here for download). There are some hangups with the game system that might affect Play by Email play. For one thing, as the rulebook states, all movement is considered to be (ugh!) simultaneous (section 4.1). There still isn't a good method of simultaneous email play that I know of.

NOTICE: This Gamebox is created using Dale Larson's excellent Play By Email utility, Cyberboard (the poor man's Aide De Camp!)

Visit the Cyberboard website by following this link

ARTIFACT is copyright, Metagaming, 1980.

Designer: Glenn Williams Editing/Development: various

The Action

The graphic above illustrates some of the features of this gamebox. Two scientific teams come to blows over the Dingus in scenario 14.1. Yeah, I know the counters look crude, but oddly enough, I don't consider this to be an inaccurate description of the counter art.

Turn Record

How to get the files

Download Gamebox:

Artifact Gamebox (zipped)

Artifact Scenarios (zipped)

Related Links/Resources:

Metagaming Gameography

Sleeping Dragon, a source for this game

This page content copyright, Walter O'Hara 1998