Yes, I’ve been on this Space Opera crazy of late. I thought I had the OSR front covered. I’ve got Stars Without Number, Hulks & Horrors, Bandit & Battle Cruisers, X-Plorers and even Machinations of the Space Princess (which should not be confused with Tales of the Space Princess).
The thing is I knew about Tales of the Space Princes all along. It just happened to slip my mind mainly because of my own silly shopping patterns. It ain’t on Drivethrurpg. It’s on Lulu. (Yeah, I know there’s all sorts of cool stuff on Lulu.) And my oversight was my loss.
This is a darned cool game. While not exactly a retro-clone, the mechanics are so close to the old-school games that any conversions would be easy. And that’s an awesome plus. Tales of the Space Princess is very much a retro-space/dungeon crawl in space type game. Enter the Dark Lord’s Space Fortress and rescue the Princess. OK, before anybody gets on a soapbox here. It’s not literally “rescue the princess”. The “princess” is the goal of the crawl whether it be a prince, a relic, technology or whatever. Got it.
The best points on the game for space opera folks. A simple alien generation system. A good skill system that’s easily hackable. Good and evocative classes (although it’s doesn’t have your usual level type progression). Star ship combat that doesn’t require a slide ruler (if you even know what one of those is).
So over all it’s a good investment whether you just want to run it as is or mine it for ideas and use a different set of rules (and that’s my favorite thing about the OSR).
So head on over to Lulu and check it out.