Advanced Melee was tied more closely to In the Labyrinth, and featured more combat options, such as called shots, additional weapons, and greater detail in general.

While working at Metagaming Concepts in 1977, Steve Jackson created Ogre, a small, cheap, fast two-player microgame packaged in a ziplock bag.

Jackson had also joined the Society for Creative Anachronism to find a closer understanding of actual combat, and based on his experiences, he designed Melee, which became the third game in the MicroGame series.

[1]: 79  Jackson intended for The Fantasy Trip to be published as a boxed set, but publisher Howard M. Thompson decided that the price was too high and so he split the game into four separate books: Advanced Melee (1980), which expanded the Melee system, Advanced Wizard (1980), In the Labyrinth (1980), and the adventure Tollenkar's Lair (1980).

[1]: 80  The Metagaming science fiction game Starleader: Assault relied on Melee's rules for hand-to-hand and handheld weapons combat scenarios.

After Metagaming went out of business, Steve Jackson's GURPS borrowed heavily from his first role-playing rule set The Fantasy Trip, with a similar minimal set of primary attributes to determine in-game results: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence (which had been added in Wizard), and a new ability, Health (which was added to address shortcomings in the original damage system).

Because of this I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone who has already adapted rules from several combat systems for their own use, but it is likely to be a great help to anyone who finds that it is difficult to sort out exactly what is happening during a D&D confrontation.

Freeman concluded by giving the game an Overall Evaluation of "Very Good", saying, "Despite its atypicality, Melee is probably the best place for aspiring RPG players and designers to begin.

"[6] In the book Designers & Dragons, game historian Shannon Appelcline noted that "The tactical combat of Melee worked because it was also very playable; it was simple, yet allowed for thoughtful play, all without paging through charts and tables.

"[1]: 79 In Issue 27 of Simulacrum, Brian Train noted, "Together with Wizard, this set of simple rules for individual combat formed the framework for an array of expansions (Advanced Melee and Advanced Wizard) and associated games (the programmed adventure Microquests, including Death Test; Death Test 2; Grail Quest; Orb Quest; Master of the Amulets; Security Station; Treasure of the Silver Dragon; Treasure of Unicorn Gold).