''The Island of Doctor Apocalypse'' is an adventure published by

Fantasy Games Unlimited Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU) is a publishing house for tabletop and role-playing games. The company has no in-house design teams and relies on submitted material from outside talent. History Founded in the summer of 1975 in Jericho, New York b ...

(FGU) in 1982 for the superhero role-playing game ''

Villains and Vigilantes ''Villains and Vigilantes'' (abbreviated as ''V&V'') is a superhero-themed role-playing game which competed primarily with ''Champions'' and ''Superworld'' in the early to mid-1980s. Origin ''Villains and Vigilantes'' was the first role-playi ...

''.

Plot summary

''The Island of Doctor Apocalypse'' picks up immediately where the preceding adventure, ''

Death Duel with the Destroyers ''Death Duel with the Destroyers'' is an adventure published by Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU) in 1982 for the superhero role-playing game ''Villains and Vigilantes''. Plot summary The second adventure published by FGU for ''Villains & Vigilantes' ...

'', ended: The superheroes (

player characters A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

) have just defeated the Destroyers, but they have less than a day to find Dr. Apocalypse before he destroys selected U.S. cities.

Publication history

FGU published the first superhero role-playing game, ''Villains & Vigilantes'', in 1979. They published their first adventure for the game in 1981, and followed that in 1982 with ''Death Duel with the Destroyers''. The sequel to that adventure, also published in 1982, was ''The Island of Doctor Apocalypse'', a 22-page saddle-stapled softcover book written and illustrated by

Bill Willingham William Willingham (born 1956) is an American writer and artist of comics, known for his work on the series ''Elementals (Comico Comics), Elementals'' and ''Fables (comics), Fables''. Career William Willingham was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. ...

Reception

William A. Barton reviewed ''The Island of Dr. Apocalypse'' in ''

The Space Gamer ''The Space Gamer'' was a magazine dedicated to the subject of science fiction and fantasy board games and tabletop role-playing games. It quickly grew in importance and was an important and influential magazine in its subject matter from the la ...

'' No. 59. Barton commented that "Overall, ''Island of Dr. Apocalypse'' is a satisfying follow-up adventure to ''Death Duel'' and should help gain new adherents to ''V&V'' – possibly even regain some who may have defected to some of the newer second-generation superhero RPGs. And if not, with a few revisions ''Island'' would make a great adventure for ''Champions'' or ''Superworld'' too." In the November–December 1984 edition of ''

Different Worlds ''Different Worlds'' was an American role-playing games magazine published from 1979 to 1987. Scope ''Different Worlds'' published support articles, scenarios, and variants for various role-playing games including ''Dungeons & Dragons'', ''Ru ...

'' (Issue #37), Paul Ryan O'Connor found much to like in this adventure's clean layout, but thought that the module lacked the humorous tone of previous ''Villains & Vigilantes'' releases. He also found that far too much detail about the island had been included in the slim 21-page book. "What all this does is monopolize the page count and crush the character descriptions into the last few pages of the book." He concluded by giving the adventure an average rating of 2.5 out of 4, saying, "If you are looking for a free-wheeling adventure in the mold of previous FGU ''V&V'' efforts, then pass this one by."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Island of Doctor Apocalypse Role-playing game supplements introduced in 1982 Villains and Vigilantes adventures