Why can't I find this game?

by Frances Moritz


Igor: The Mad Scientist's Lament from Interactivites Ink

This game is now known at my work as Igor: The Gamer's Lament. A coworker and I typically exchange games each year at the winter holidays. Ideally, these are games that we can play at lunch with our other almost gamer coworkers. Last December, I received Igor: The Mad Scientist's Lament, which looked like so much fun, I went to the Interactivities Ink website before we even played the game.

Imagine my chagrin when I saw the following text: "Interactivities Ink is going out of business. Final Liquidation Sale. Check our Catalogue for slashed prices!"

I was even more disappointed after finding out that this is the same company that produces Prawn, "the live action roleplaying game you play in a swimming pool." While I've never played Prawn, I've heard very good things about it.

Then we played Igor - it's a charming little game where you're all scrambling to put parts together for blueprints that give you some bonus abilities, all in the interest of getting 10 points worth of devices built. The parts you're putting together range from "A Tangle of Wires" (with 4 connectors) to a "Gyrothermal Replicator" (with 2 connectors) to a "Surfboard" (with a measly 1 connector). The connectors must match when building, unless you've already built the one blueprint, the "Part Shunt," that allows you to have one connection of differing types. There are cards that are played out of turn or when specific events occur - these are referred to as Maniacal Laughter cards in the rules, but the cards actually read "Bwahahahahahahahahahaha". Incidentally, the rules say that the person with the best megalomaniacal laughter goes first.

This first time we played Igor resulted in several of us combining our orders to buy spare copies (I gave mine spare copy away already, so I may have to order more) and some of the other interesting games appearing on the website.

The website has no updates after the September 5th, 2004 announcement that they're going out of business, so I'd hurry if you want to get a copy before it disappears entirely.



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