DVS Games

"Hey, get out of here!" barked the spaceport technician. "We don't like your kind here."

"Ease off, I'm making repairs," answered special agent Gnack, more calmly than he felt. "Look, see the repair droid?" As the pacified technician left, Gnack thought about how much he hated being loathed. True, being a special agent had its perks. He could travel places normal folk were not allowed, like Desh. He would be trusted with equipment normal people seldom new existed, let alone could borrow. It even meant there was a nice, fat paycheck waiting for him if he could get the famous archeologist, Dr. Jones, and some Panacea back to Erthe. But he was currently on Desh and miserable.

Desh was volcanically unstable and violent. So were its people. Even those not fanatical enough to join Desh's infamous Invisible Infantry still hated off-worlders, which in Gnack's personal experience meant they picked fights with him even more than with each other.

But Desh was also the planet where Borflinx were native. And he needed one of those large, green, winged, fire-breathing reptiles to bring to Art, or else the scientists of Art would not give him the Panacea only they could make.

"I'm a special agent, not a zoo keeper," Gnack thought, pondering how he could keep a Borflinx from wrecking the interior of his spaceship during the flight to Art. His beautiful, red ship was fine, of course: the repair droid was merely an excuse to stay in port long enough for his contacts to get him a Borflinx.

Sometimes Gnack considered irresponsibly leaving it all, perhaps to search for the legendary Book of Knowledge. Only the alien-bilipandi scientist , Dr. Storn, knew where in space the book was. But Dr. Storn's stories about how its contents had turned his home world into a utopia were spreading. Finding the Book was becoming a modern quest for a holy grail.

Meanwhile, Desh's own special agent Agna!grawla!Ak! was on Erthe, trying once again to convice the planetary government to ignore the pan-galactic embargo against exporting weapons to Desh. "Only one! If you let us buy just one Ion Ram!" The High Council looked down at Agna!grawla!Ak! from their chairs, then whispered to each other.

"Very well. Because of the embargo we will not sell, but we offer a trade. In exchange for the one Ion Ram you must bring us a Bell of Animal Handling from Biddel and the famous Orchestra Bell of Clyde." Nearly impossible conditions, of course. Agna!grawla!Ak! gnashed his teeth and left the High Council chambers, fuming that he, a special agent of Desh, would have to visit stuffy, over-cultured Clyde to try to talk them into lending him their most prized cultural artifact. Of course they wouldn't agree. Agna!grawla!Ak! had no tact. However, he did have contacts on Clyde, and if the proper people were secretly threatened... He gnashed his teeth again as he forced his brain to consider subterfuge instead of raw aggression.

Agna!grawla!Ak! returned to his spaceship, and was surprised to find Dr. Storn waiting for him. "Greetings!" began the only bilipandi to enter explored space, his pasty skin shining like wax. "Had your realized we have a similarity? You are the only being from Desh to visit Erthe in the past..."

The doctor's welcome was cut short as Agna!grawla!Ak! picked him up under one arm and carried him into the spaceship. Perhaps someone on Biddel would trade the doctor for a Bell of Animal Charming. Dr. Storn's artificial hairpiece, made to look as waxy as the rest of him, fell to the ground. It was melted by the thrusters of Agna!grawla!Ak!'s midnight-black ship as it lept into the sky and beyond.

An Artifact for Dr. Storn? blends diplomacy and board-movement in an original way, creating an interstellar treasure hunt that appeals to both a childlike desire to collect nifty artifacts and a mature desire for strategy. Players are agents sent by different planetary governments to collect famous artifacts. Since some artifacts cannot be picked up unless you are carrying others, players constantly trade and steal artifacts. How should you balance trading for mutual benefit with hindering your opponents' progress? How can you time your interplanetary travel so you are carrying or steal the artifacts you need the moment you return to your home world? Should you abandon your main quest and search for the mysterious Book of Knowledge, that if correctly handled will allow a second player to claim victory?