Solium Infernum: Turn 9

A manuscript has been snaffled up, which can often be worrying, because manuscripts usually mean tooling up Praetors for single Praetor vs Praetor combat. However, a lot of manuscripts arrive in pieces, and are collections so this might be just the start of a collection. Lets hope.

The Conclave has decided to confiscate any Prestige gained from Places of Power this turn, however, there is already a 7 turn Prestige drought, so I doubt this will shake anyones will.

In rolls my Unexpected Tribute event, and what a sight for sore eyes, 5 or 6 tribute deliveries with some really valuable composite resource cards turn up.



Again, the map has become fairly static, especially for me, although with my new found resource glut, I'm figuring on tooling up a Legion or two and making an advance for the Palace of Gluttony that I've got cordened off.



Searching through the Praetors, its time to bag myself a decent one. My eyes are drawn to Naphula's ability to block Combat Cards. In any Legion to Legion combat this may be a decisive power. So I make a bid for the Preator Naphula.



Here you can see my wealth, and the stacking system I've adopted for sorting the tribute cards, so that I can quickly find composite cards, or look through singles, to determine the best mix when paying for items at the Infernal Bazaar.



Finally the wealth goes to my head, and I decide to make a bid for a Melee boosting artifact for my melee bereft 'Chosen of Stal' Legion. The Adamantine Golem artifact adds 4 onto the melee score, but also adds the Stunning Blow special, which if successful doubles the amount of damage, but also reduces the opponents attributes to 0 for the remainder of the combat. My Chosen Legion has a deep infernal attack, and to add some initial melee might soften the opposition with this artifact in place.

Solium Infernum: Turn 8

Starting off with a Prestige drought isn't good, but it is across the board for 7 turns, so it will affect everyone equally.



I managed to secure the 'suicide bomber' relic the Orb of Oblivion, so when I get a spare turn, I'll have to tool up my weakest Legion with it.

I am awarded the regency this turn, and as such I get to choose between the existing event card I hold, and a new alternative. Luckily, the new card presented is 'Unexpected Tribute', which is essentially a tribute/resource windfall, something that will help my ichor deficit tremendously.



Theres not much happening on the map this turn, I think the majority of the land grabbing has finished, we're now in the phase were players start to beef up their Legions, play their events, and begin the diplomatic process of picking fights, or psyching out their weakest opponents.



With the prestige cost of making a demand on another, Leverpastej has had his total paired down a little, which has the fortunate knock on effect of boosting me to the top of the Prestige leaderboard. But its early days yet.

Solium Infernum: Turn 7

Is seems the Vendetta has been formed, and Leverpastej and Melfice will now come to blows for at least a turn or two.



I've got Renge Darkfiddler on my North Western border, presumably with an eye on the Palace of Gluttony, but in order to make a play for it, he'll need to initiate a Vendetta with me, and until I've tooled up one of my Legions, I'm not ready for conflict.



I'm desperately short on ichor, and even with my high level of Charisma pulling in 4 tributes, choosing 3 of them to keep, I'm not finding much ichor on the slimey dinnerplate. My souls are doing well, and they're important when making bids, because the more souls you can add to a bid, they count as +2 to the overall bid value, so if you really want something, stuff it with a few more souls than necessary. Looking at Legions (not that I want any more to be honest, they're too much to manage, and move, with only two orders per turn) I can't afford any, and Praetors all seem to require lots of ichor, sadly, so I thought perhaps equipping my weakest Legion with a decent artifact might give it some poke if a Vendetta is on the cards.

Out of all the artifacts, well the ones I could afford anyway, the Orb of Oblivion seemed to give me that suicide bomber send off. Rather than stoke one or two of my paultry attributes, if my weak sauce Legion goes under, they have a decent chance of taking the opponents Legion out also. Figuring it might stop an Archfiend in his tracks if I can take out his advancing Legion with a fairly weak one of mine.



If it sounds like a desperate tactic, it is. Without any tribute to beef up my Legions, or secure some Praetors I'm a bit stuck, and the paranoia is starting to set in, especially with Melfice snagging The Beast!

Solium Infernum: Turn 6

Let it be known, the War in Hell has begun! Last turn Leverpastej made a tribute Demand of Melfice, and after the Infernal Conclave messangers had passed the message on, the answer returned with a flat denial. Subsequently this rejection is grounds for a Vendetta to be declared upon Melfice if Leverpastej so desires it.



For my Archfiend Stal, theres a shortage of some ichor, and darkness mainly, these resources are needed if I'm to bid on some relics or even a Praetor Hero to add to one of my Legions, boosting their combat ability. So for now, I will attempt to grab some more cantons to eek my prestige higher a little, and I'll have to make more tribute demands of my minions, lets hope the blood and the black come dribbling in next turn.



You can see Leverpastej's and Melfice's Legions locking antlers to the South of my Stronghold, if a Vendetta is called they'll be going at it tooth and claw in the next turn or two.

Its hotting up in Hell tonight...

Solium Infernum: Turn 5

On turn 5, it seems the diplomatic demands have begun, with Leverpastej making a public demand against Melfice. And someone is tooling up with Praetors.



A swift turn for me, I was caught by the land grabbing, fiend blocking bug, and had to move both my Legions in place. I saw an opportunity to block access to the Palace of Gluttony, coupled with the chance to close another bridge into my forgotton plateau, so I took it. With both orders taken up, theres no room for Legion buying or Tribute demanding.



Lets see what happens next…

From Fumanstu:

I feel like I should weigh in with some comments here. I’m in the same game and, in fact, if you look at the second screenshot above that’s my legion in dark brown (all legions that don’t belong to you are displayed in dark brown) sitting on the bridge, eyeing up Spelk’s legion.

From the very start of the game, I’ve been aware that the initial phase of the game was going to be about the land grab. So I was pleased when I was able to take a low power POP as my own on the first turn. Since then its been about ensuring that I grab as many cantons as possible whilst trying to ensure that I retain access to as many of the nearby POPs as possible. Even if I have no intention of capturing them at this stage.

So this has led us to the current situation, at the moment I don’t want the POP that Spelk is attempting to fence off but also I don’t particularly want to have the option of capturing it later removed. So the question becomes do I use one of my two orders for the turn in an attempt to move in and grab the territory – I don’t know for sure that the order will succeed though because of the way the game processes moves. It may be that Spelk will go first and in that case my order will become invalidated and I really can’t afford to waste an order at this stage.

Unfortunately for me, I’ve got almost the exact same situation at the other end of my territory. I’m racing with one of the other players to try and secure access to another POP. It’s entirely possible that I could lose out there as well and then I’ll have lost a whole turn, which would be a serious setback.

So do I go cautious, regroup and use my orders to start planning something nasty for later? Or do I go in all guns blazing and hope that the moves work out in my favour and my opponents are the ones that are the losers?

And how long can me and Spelk maintain the uncomfortable neighbourly peace before things start to escalate? :D

Solium Infernum: Turn 4

I planned to record my dealings in a Play By Email game of Solium Infernum, but being swept up in a wave of enthusiasm I managed to tick over a few turns before remembering to explain myself, so we join the game entitled “Newbie Death Delight”, at Turn 4.

My Avatar, Stal, the Horse Head Fiend was rolled with Charisma and War in mind, I wanted to boost his ability to bring in plenty of tribute (the resources in the game) as well as be able to conjur Combat Cards for his Legions to equip, making them more powerful. The build was more thrown together out of hearsay from the Cryptic Comet forums, and tidbits gleaned from Quarter to Three forums, and I wanted to keep it simple to begin with, so I would be able to make informed decisions and not wild guesses.



The floorplan of Hell after Turn 4 looks like this from my perspective. Things have already started to slither around, my most loyal Legion The Chosen of Stal has already managed to capture a The Unholy Fountain, a Place of Power (PoP), directly north of his Stronghold (the building with the fiery red aura). This delivers an extra 1 point of Prestige per turn, so already we’re ascending in standing amongst our rivals.



After a quick slew of demanding tribute, I was able to bid for an extra supporting Legion on the Infernal Bazaar. Luckily a soul or two more than it needed secured the acquisition of The Order of Infernal Engineers.



This Legion wasn’t necessarily the best I could have bid on, but it was one I could afford with the meagre tribute I had available at the time. Rather than wait, I decided I’d grab a quick Legion, and start to mark off some of the territory, particularly to attempt to corden off The Palace of Gluttony to the west of my Stronghold. As you capture the unclaimed cantons (hexes) by moving a Legion across them, you effectively block out your opponents. They can only cross your cantons if a diplomatic Vendetta is arranged.

Since I’m currently a bit clueless about the subtle nuances of the game, I’m sticking (perhaps foolhardily) to a basic land control and Legion boost policy for the moment. I fear I might be playing the turns out more like a traditional wargame, but with limited experience of the more esoteric mechanics to employ against your demonic foes, I’ll stick with what I know for now.

During Turn 4, the Turn Log indicates that my rivals are also swallowing up their close Places of Power, as well as filling their ranks with Legions and Praetors (heroes that can be attached to Legions) from the Infernal Bazaar.



The remaining entries in the log show me that my Demand for more Tribute has delivered another batch of random resources I can select from to top up my dwindling pools of souls, ichor, hellfire and darkness.



And lastly the Regency has passed onto Leverpastej, indicating that he will begin the next turn with the first phase. The regency can be important because all players turns are resolved simultaneously, but are decided by the position in the turn phase, with the Regent being processed before those in the phase queue.

Finally, heres the diplomacy status screen, showing all players portraits and their prestige values at the end of turn 4.



As you can see, my early PoP grab has boosted my prestige from 10 to 21, but my Horse Lord rival Leverpastej has pipped me at the post with a prestige of 22. Players can prioritise their threat list (for free until turn 10), and often they’ll sort the list by prestige scores early on, so sometimes sucking up all the prestige initially can focus your rivals against you. Having said that, my reasoning was to provide myself with a base of prestige trickle whilst I can, and the longer the game runs the more prestige I will accrue. Since you have to use prestige to perform the diplomatic procedures to initiate a state of war (Vendetta, Blood Feud and even Insults), I figured its better to have some prestige to play with.

More next time…

HISTORY - Great Battles Medieval

HGBM, I've only given it the briefest of tries, but from what I've seen in just the tutorial, its got a lot of potential.



Its like Total War, only turn based, with Card based Specials. Now that ticks three boxes of mine in terms of gameplay.

The Total War series have always tried too hard to be too real time, and you often get a sense of too much UI chaos not enough strategy. With the turn based offerings here, and the unit placement being physical boxes on the map, you have more strategy like a traditional turn based hex wargame really. But you still get to play out the action in real time, only its pausable, using the space bar to issue more commands.

The graphics are not bad, a major step forward from previous titles, if the animation seems a little "stiff" in places. The idea of being able to employ certain higher effects provided by the battle cards, feels like it might give you more strategic decisions at the commander level, rather than just fitting the rock/paper/scissors jigsaw pieces together of combat.

Upon pausing the game, you can see clearly where your units are and where the enemy is, because they are highlighted in blocks of red and blue, so it becomes much easier to make offensive and defensive decisions based on layout and positioning, almost at-a-glance, something I'd say you'd have difficulty with any of the Total War series.

I must say from the brief nibble I've had, I like it, I like the turn-based principles behind it, I like idea of the cards, and the boardgame like shuffling of your troops during combat and pursuit.

I'd like to see the cards and the UI to be a bit more ornate and polished, but I look forward to exploring the strategy within the campaign.

Currently only available as a download for the PC at Slitherine's website, but in February 2010 it will be available on consoles.

Exclusive Interview with Chris Park about AI War

I thought I'd pose a few questions to Indie Developer Chris Park regarding his recently released co-operative 2d space RTS AI War: Fleet Command.

UKGamer: What was your original inspiration to make AI War a co-operative game against an asymmetrical AI, rather than pursue a more traditional single player campaign with player versus player multiplayer providing much of the challenge?

Chris Park: Well, to be perfectly honest, my motivations were quite selfish. The short answer is that its simply the sort of game I want to play. The full story is that, since around 1998 or so, my dad, my uncle, and myself have had a weekly RTS session together -- and in recent years, one of my uncle's colleagues has also become a regular. At any rate, we started out with the original Age of Empires (I had already exhausted Warcraft I and II for myself), and then moved on through the AoE series, the Empire Earth series, Empires Dawn of the Modern World, Rise of Nations and its offshoots, Supreme Commander, and also a few outside the genre like CivIV and Neverwinter Nights, both of which were much more shortlived.

For me, that was the most fun I had in RTS gaming, was playing with that group, co-operatively against the AI in skirmishes in those games. There were a lot of other RTS games that I played and enjoyed, such as Star Wars: Empire at War and a few entries from the Total War series, but they didn't support the sort of multiplayer I was interested in and so they got a lot less play.

The problem, even with the other games that we did play, was ultimately the AI. In the earlier entries such as AoE, AoE2, and Empire Earth, we were all less skilled and so we got a lot more use out of those games. In later games such as AoE3 and Supreme Commander, we reached the point of competence much more quickly -- once you're competent at most RTS games, the AI doesn't hold a candle unless it really outnumbers you, which isn't possible when you are trying to play 4 humans against the AI players.

When we were winding down on Supreme Commander, in the middle of 2008, I was looking around at the other possible candidates to become our next RTS mainstay, and I was really frustrated by the fact that nothing matched exactly what I wanted. I had been programming and designing games as a hobby off and on for years, but it never occurred to me to attempt an RTS until then. When it came time to decide on modes of play -- campaigns, skirmish etc -- I chose to focus only on the modes of play that I actually personally play, since those are the modes that I have enough experience with to do a good job with the design. Any scripted campaign I was likely to create, or pvp offering I might try to put out there, is likely to be sub-par for the genre simply because I don't really play those modes enough to know what's already been done, what works, what's been found to be annoying in the past, etc.


UKGamer: Where did you derive the idea of having an escalating AI Progress mechanism (incorporating AI aggressiveness and attack consequences) into the game?

Chris Park: This basically arose out of my desire to have the game be able to support long seiges. The most fun I ever had with an RTS prior to AI War was some 12-hour marathon player-vs-AI skirmishes in Empire Earth. Playing on team islands map types, their AI didn't know how to effectively use transports and so they would get this huge mass of guys on their territory, while they were completely unable to attack us except with nuclear bombers and the like. This made for a very interesting situation as we tried to take the smaller islands, get a foothold on the bigger islands, and ultimately win. We did win, eventually, but it took many hours.

I wanted to have the game design of AI War support that sort of extended seige (with all the feelings of satisfaction that come after winning that), and I think you can see that throughout the design of the game. The AI Progress gives the game a bit of the feel of a turn-based game, even though it is entirely realtime, and I think that not only allows for the seiges (it's original purpose), but also allows for a lot more strategic thinking. The turn-based level of strategy that the AI Progress provides was also a really motivating factor for its inclusion -- I was really impressed by the level of strategy in CivIV (and quite addicted to it in single player), but multiplayer with my group usually devolved into a lot of waiting around for the next turn if we weren't all attacking at once. So I basically tried to duplicate that level of strategy in a realtime context where there isn't any waiting.


UKGamer: What do you think is the biggest selling point or hook of AI War, that would act as the magnetic pull for RTS and strategy gamers?
Chris Park: For me, it's right in the name: the AI. If you're playing solo or cooperatively, you either need great AI or really well-designed scripted campaigns. So far we've seen a lot of the latter in the genre, but almost never in a cooperative context (very recent games like Red Alert 3 and Dawn of War II being the exceptions to that general rule). A lot of people have been really excited by the high unit counts, too, even though at this stage I am so used to them that I hardly remember it's a unique point any longer (that's always a side effect of spending so much time with any one product, and I've heard of it happening to a lot of other software developers).

But mainly, I guess, it all boils down to the fact that the game is actually fun, and a bit different from your standard fare while still feeling reasonably familiar in its overall control scheme. With any RTS game that I've really enjoyed, it simply "felt right," and I'm really happy that AI War is finding a growing pool of players for which that holds true here.


UKGamer: How did you come up with the variety of AI types that are currently in the game?

Chris Park: Some of them, like the turtle and the raider, are simply genre standbys. Others, like the Attritioner or the Special Forces Captain, are really built around highlighting a specific game mechanic or new ship type. Generally I wanted each AI type to feel different enough so that players could recognize over time which one they were playing against without being told. That, and I wanted to maximize the number of possible scenarios people might see; the effect of adding more AI types is multiplicative in that regard.


UKGamer: What's the most outlandish idea for a new Ship design you've ever had, whether it be your own idea or a member of the Arcen Games community?

Chris Park: Hmm, that's a tough one. A lot of the designs that made it into the game are pretty esoteric by RTS standards. Electric shuttles, slow-moving ships that emit giant bolts of lightning that lightly damage all nearby ships jump immediately to mind. So do vampires, which steal health from the enemy ships they attack. The ship that most people have commented on as being outlandish is the Astro Train, however. That ship is held only by enemies, and is completely indestructible (an odd choice for a wargame), but it's not primarily a combat ship. Mainly it just causes disruptions-over time in your defenses, most notably your turret emplacements and minefields, but it can also cause problems for your scouts.

The players have a variety of ways to deal with the Astro Trains, most notably some counter-turrets that protect against the train attacks, and the ability to destroy the train stations, thus causing trains to re-route. These sorts of decisions are not something you really see in most RTS games, where the usual response to a troublesome enemy is just to kill it. When that is no longer an option, and you have to employ some other methods, you get some very interesting and unique gameplay scenarios. There are a variety of other ships that fall under that category in the game, but Astro Trains are the most commonly seen.

UKGamer: Are there any plans for truly massive starships with their own communities of support ships, fighters, bombers and transports?

Chris Park: Yes, very much so! Players have asked for some ships specifically along these lines, and I already had some plans for this, too. The main limitation that caused these not to be in the original version of the game was art. All of the art from the game was either from free sources (mostly Daniel Cook's work), or stuff that I cobbled together myself. I'm a competent artist, but not a great one, and large ships like that are beyond me. Now that the game is out and is actually selling, I'm interviewing artists to contract for some general graphics upgrades, as well as new ships that I simply couldn't do before because of a lack of art. Most of the really massive new ships will probably be in expansions, but there will be a couple in free DLC.


UKGamer: Any chance of seeing colonization of planets, planet resource management and planet defense, come into the game or future incarnations?

Chris Park: My original design for this game actually had planned for a planet-level view (with ground/air/sea combat) in addition to the space-based level. However, through further testing and design, I eventually decided that was simply out of scope and would not only take too much work to develop and test (and largely be redundant with the existing space combat), but I was also worried that would just be too much for players to manage. I've always liked that idea, though, so perhaps in a later expansion a limited form of that sort of thing might make a resurgence. I doubt that will be in the first expansion, though, since its focus is on bringing even more scope and variety to the space-based aspects of the game.


UKGamer: We have seen that you are committed to providing regular free downloadable content (DLC), often incorporating many ideas from the Arcen Games community. Do you think you'll be able to sustain such a regular stream of new content for very long, and how are you deciding which new features to bundle in DLC and which ones to hold back for future expansions to the game?

Chris Park: I think I'll be able to maintain a fairly regular stream of free DLC for as long as there is player interest in the game. Some of the interface additions and other gameplay shifts can be quite time consuming to implement, but usually the additions to the AI logic or the additions of new ships are actually quick and easy by comparison (when I have the needed artwork for them). This game was designed to be modular and easily extensible (from within -- not by outside modders). I still play this game every week with my RTS/alpha group, and we've been basically looking for a game that we could stop and really sink our teeth into for longer than just a year or so (our average time with most other RTS titles). So far we've been playing it for around 8 months, and no one is really getting tired of it yet, so that's a good sign. I'll keep adding to it just for us, at the very least.

However, that said, I think that the nature of the free DLC is going to shift over time. So far there have been a lot of features requested that basically made the game more playable for people coming from other specific RTS titles with conventions different from those I'm used to, or for people with different play styles or preferences in general. A lot of those really come down to polish and usability. I feel like the product we delivered at launch was quite polished and extremely usable, but at the same time it has made some pretty amazing leaps forward since that time. Take that as you will, I guess. Having a dedicated fanbase giving constant, detailed, quality feedback is a real asset for any game. One reviewer called an earlier version of the interface "almost completely fantastic," so hopefully we're getting closer to "completely fantastic" with the free DLC.

Those sort of changes presumably won't keep coming in forever, though -- already I've seen a noticable drop in those sort of "I could play this a lot better if only" requests. A lot of the requests now are more "nice to have" features, or game-expanding features. The latter is where I see the focus ultimately staying in the long term, and as I've said that sort of thing is comparably quicker for me to implement. My original plan with the game was to do weekly DLC for a month after release, and then switch to monthly, but the weekly DLC has been so valuable and such a hit that it's two months since release and I'm still doing weekly releases with no immediate plans to cut back (vacation/holiday weeks excepted). A year from now, I expect the weekly (or possibly bi-weekly) free DLC releases will have quite short release notes compared to now, with just a key new ship or feature or two added in.

As far as how I decide what to hold back for expansions instead of free DLC, that's fairly straightforward: if it affects usability, the interface, playability, or AI quality, it's free DLC. If it's a large new game mechanic or ship that is going to take a lot of my time to implement, then that's most likely for an expansion. Those sorts of features need a longer testing cycle than one week, anyway. Most of the content for the free DLC releases is focused on augmenting the existing game, or offering minor extensions and new options to it, rather than huge game-changing new content. But, that said, sometimes just making significant improvements or shifts to the AI logic, as has happened a few times in the past, can make a huge shift in the game even just from the free DLC.


UKGamer: AI War is currently available on Stardock's Impulse digital distribution client, are you looking to pursue some of the other digital distributors (such as Steam, Gamersgate, Metaboli, Direct2Drive etc)?

Chris Park: Yes, definitely. We're one of the more popular games on Impulse at the moment, and I couldn't be happier with the folks at Stardock, but to really make it long-term Arcen Games needs to have more distribution partners. It's never good to have all your eggs in one basket, no matter how awesome that one basket is -- I've learned that the hard way in past business ventures (unrelated to gaming). We're currently under review at five other distribution channels, but these things just take time. One of the great things about Stardock is how responsive and quick they are, but our experience with them was even quicker than average simply because a staff member saw our inquiry, tried the demo and loved it, and accelerated the entire submission process. So the combination of those two factors has put us out on Impulse far before most of the other platforms even responded to our initial inquiry emails.

I'm very hopeful about getting the game on the other platforms, and given our success at Impulse hopefully that is something of a no-brainer for them. But it's always a challenge for indie titles from little-known developers, so we'll see. A large part of Arcen's future rests on whether AI War really finds a self-sustaining audience or not, and getting the word out through print/web publications, as well as every distribution channel that will take us, is the only way for the entirety of that audience to find the game. There are a few distribution channels out there that have rather unfair terms or royalty rates, and we're avoiding those, but anyone who is on the level is someone we are interested in partnering with.

UKGamer: Can you ever see any future iteration of AI War supporting a 3d graphics engine and perhaps incorporating the 3rd dimension of space into the gameplay somehow?

Chris Park: Actually, probably not. The game wasn't built in 2D as a poor-man's substitute for 3D. I played Homeworld back in the day, but for a lot of reasons just never connected with it. Obviously there are millions of players who did, but it just wasn't my style. When it comes to 3D space games I am more a fan of action-oriented games like the Rogue Squadron or Descent: Freespace games. But, more than that, pretty much every Arcen Games title is going to be in 2D, at least for the forseeable future. Part of me would really like to make a 3D first-person shooter game at some point, but in general I feel like there are more quality 3D games than 2D games coming out these days, and I want to help fill in the gap with quality 2D. I'm a sucker for good pixel art, and I'd really like to develop the sort of games that might have been common in a parallel universe where consumer-level 3D never became common. There are lots of other companies out there that are better than me at making 3D games, and in general I prefer to just play their offerings while making my own games to fill the 2D void.


UKGamer: Have you writing aspirations to include a backstory and AI War Lore in either expansions or future versions of the game?

Chris Park: For me, RTS games aren't too much about the story. I enjoyed the story very much in Warcraft II and its expansions, but I can't think of another RTS title where the story mattered much to me. This is a funny thing for a guy who has written several novels to say -- I still hope to be a published novelist some day, even though my main focus is going to remain software development. But, plain and simple, I just don't feel like every game is made better by having a story. Chess doesn't have a story. Neither does the skirish mode of any other RTS game, which is what I mostly play. I have aspirations to do some very story-centric RPG games in the future, but I don't want to try to graft that sort of thing into an RTS context. I like the fact that players have the freedom to imagine all sorts of scenarios with AI War. They can picture themselves in any of their favorite sci-fi settings, then, instead of any lesser knock-off I could conjure up (there's not a lot of room for quality storytelling in this sort of genre without scripted campaigns).

UKGamer: Do you plan to support the modding of AI War? If so, what areas would you open up to the community? Graphics? Ship behaviour? Star system build and details? etc.

Chris Park: I go back and forth on this. If I ever abandon development on the game, I might just open-source the whole project. Sometime down the line, ten years or so later if sales have slackened off, I'd probably do that anyway. In the meantime, right now I'm basically keeping it closed because I want to act as a gatekeeper for quality and balance. Right now, I'm the content aggregator that takes all of the community ideas, implements them in a consistent and quality way, and makes them available to everybody. Too often with other RTS titles you see the community fragment around a series of mods, often many of which just contain a unit or two that are not cross-compatible with one another.

The way I'm doing it, the overall quality of the game never drops, the community doesn't fragment, and instead of having a lot of little optional offshoots that the majority of players of the game will never see anyway, the player suggestions go right into the core experience that everyone sees. I think that's a win for everyone, but it's only possible while I remain engaged and active with the project. If ever there comes a time where I am not able to fulfill that role, then I'll do something to make sure that someone else can come along and take up the responsibility (or several someones).


UKGamer: As a new indie game developer what do you think you can do to maximise your chances to make the gaming press (both print and web) sit up and take notice of AI War?

Chris Park: With this, I am still learning. I submit a lot of press releases, offer a lot of review opportunities, but of course the majority of those go unanswered because gaming professionals have enough to do with their jobs without looking at a complex game they've never heard of. So mostly it's a matter of getting through the first few tiers of filters first, as far as I can tell -- get as many reviews from smaller sources as possible, get as large and healthy a player community as possible, get on as many of the reputable distribution channels as possible, and then keep sending out those press releases and review offers every so often.

Over the past two months, I've seen a marked improvement in response since we've been on Impulse, and then since we've been doing so well on Impulse and in the few reviews that the game has received. Sites that once didn't respond at all now run the occasional little news blurb about a press release, and occasionally an opportunity just comes out of nowhere like the recent podcast with techZing. Right now it's summer, and so everything is slower even than it otherwise would be, so that doesn't help, but overall things are trending in the right direction.

What major action can I take to really maximize the game's chances of success? I don't think there is any one thing. I don't have any special connections, or inside tracks, or easy paths, or marketing budget. The only thing I know to do is to keep pressing onward with every possibility, to never turn down an opportunity no matter how humble it appears (any publicity can lead to surprising other opportunities, I've learned), to keep writing (hopefully) interesting articles that people see fit to link to, and to keep improving the game through free DLC and player suggestions. Good word of mouth has been invaluable so far. Beyond that, it's just a matter of whether people like the game and therefore choose to give it some coverage. I wish there were a silver bullet, but so far I have not seen one.


UKGamer: Have you learned any lessons so far, whether good or bad, that would help other Indie developers hit warp speed a little faster?

Chris Park: In many respects I don't have enough accumulated data to really give a solid answer to that -- two months isn't a long time for an indie game. Also, I'm really coming to believe that every indie game is going to take a hugely different trajectory. Writing interesting articles works for me because I'm also a writer and there's a lot of unique tech and design elements in play here. On another game, without those talking points, such an approach would be worse than futile. It also really depends on who picks up your game for distribution, where you are able to squeak out some coverage, and where/how big your player base is.

Contests are helpful, obviously -- we entered the PAX 10 but sadly did not win a spot. We'll see how IGF and similar go later on. Having great production values is also clearly important -- I think our slightly-underwhelming art has been a sticking point for some players, but there was nothing I could do about that when all the money was coming out of my pocket. I am not independently wealthy, and taking out a loan for something so speculative as a cooperative 2D RTS seems the height of foolishness. So now that AI War is selling well enough, I'm looking at bringing on an artist to spruce up the visuals and hopefully make the game accessible to a larger crowd. Music in the game is already terriffic thanks to my lucking out in meeting Pablo at just the right time in our respective careers, and I think that has helped win some people over and show that we are serious about the game, not just hobbyists. Professionalism really does count.

Having excellent tutorials and also putting a lot of effort into usability in general has also been a large part of our success, I think. The more complex the game, the more players need to be eased into things. They also need to feel like they are really able to play the game without constantly stumbling or fighting the interface, which can be a challenge in a genre with many varied (often conflicting) expectations. Flexibility in the interface thus becomes key, as does listening to player feedback.

So, thinking about it, I guess that's the number one tip I could give other upcoming indie developers: listen to your players. I really mean it. Don't just nod along and then do your own thing, and for God's sake don't get angry at them for deigning to give you advice. Often their advice is really solid, and even when it's not there's often an underlying need that they are expressing that you should take note of. Big AAA developers have the advantage of giant QA teams, but we indies have the advantage of flexibility. Make the best game you possibly can before release, make sure you have zero open issues on your list when you go gold with any product, but then don't expect there to not be any issues or requests after release. Plan on supporting and expanding your product through at least a honeymoon period with your playerbase, and take their needs seriously. If you treat this as a "take it or leave it" situation, a good number of them will just opt to leave it.


UKGamer: What does the future hold for Arcen Games and Chris Park in terms of games development?

Chris Park: Well, money permitting, I intend to keep doing this for a long, long time. I've been doing game programming and design to some degree as a hobby since I was around nine years old, and it's what I'd like to do with my life if the fates allow it. I'd like to hire a small team of full-time staff with a composer, an artist or two, and another game designer or two. Possibly one more programmer, also. Beyond that, I think we'd be getting too bloated for the sort of lean, highly-creative company I want to run.

I see us making a lot more 2D games, with ever-increasing production values, across a lot of different genres. I really want to make some action platformers, but I also have some very large and involved quasi-Japanese-style RPGs planned. It's always been a personal dream of mine to make a game that could stand in the ranks of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, or the other greats of that time period. Those are my two favorite games ever right there, incidentally. Those sorts of titles will require a lot of up-front capital, however, so sales of prior games will have to reach a certain threshhold before I can be comfortable taking on such an ambitious project like that.

When it comes to RTS, I think that AI War is probably going to be it for Arcen Games for the next five years or so, if not longer. I plan to keep on adding to the game with free DLC and expansions for as long as there is interest, but I'm not sure I ever see myself making an AI War 2. To go back to the drawing board and lose all the existing content seems foolish to me with a game like this. Instead, in a few years I expect to basically have so much content out there that it is like three or four games all rolled into one, with a solid and ever-refined interface and engine underlying all of them.

I'm all about iterative development and constant improvement, rather than single releases that you just drop out into the wild and then forget. That approach works very well with business software, and there are a few other games (mostly free or indie) that take this approach, but it will be very interesting to see how my particular brand of iterative development fares with the gaming community. Indications thus far are excellent, but I'm also quite conscious of the fact that I'm standing near the start of a very long road. Good thing I love what I do, or I'd never be able to do it.


A very big thanks for answering our questions Chris, and we here at UKGamer wish you all the best for the evolution of AI War and the success of Arcen Games in the future.

techZing Podcast

There is a rather splendid interview with the developer of AI War: Fleet Command, namely Chris Park, over at techZing episode 10. Chris goes on to explain his development methods and digs deep into the infrastructure behind his AI concept for the game. Worth a listen.

Its also a strange podcast in that the techZing guys seem to talk really, really fast, so either they are slightly speeding up the audio playback for effect or those guys should lay off the coffee! Their chat was amazingly fast paced, and whilst it means you get a lot said in a shorter time, it doesn't give us "slowbies" a chance to ponder on the stuff being said as its being said..

Also check out Chris' AI articles on his blogsite

Designing Games in a Vacuum #1
Designing Games in a Vacuum #2

Designing Emergent AI #1 - Intro
Designing Emergent AI #2 - Queries and Code
Designing Emergent AI #3 - Limitations
Designing Emergent AI #4 - Asymetrical Goals

The Case for Co-op Games

These articles exemplify Chris' close relationship with his gaming community as well as his transparency about the techniques he employs, and not only is it a great insight into the development process, but its also reassuring for fans of the game that he will listen and possibly implement functionality suggested by his playing followers.

New Evochron Legends Build Out Today!

New build of Evochron Legends out today
http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/evochronlegends/about.htm



Version 1.108 is ready for download. This update adds the following:

- New warp tunnel textures for jump drives and gates.
- New 3rd person view added, current target perspective.
- Autopilot now automatically controls jump drive for long range/deep space travel.
- Custom city object system now supports separate custom textures (rather than being linked to ships).
- Stations without names will now display their ID number rather than no data when hangar fees are paid.
- Higher frequency of mission participation from Alliance military spacecraft in war zones.
- Separate custom cities can now also be included for each planet in the game.
- Issue with an error message while changing music setting in-game fixed.
- Fix for the mouse-over display showing the wrong planet economy type.
- Multiple cargo object entities (container sets) per sector now supported.
- HUD highlight brackets added for cargo containers not being scanned.
- Version value and check routine added to universe data file system.
- Engine exhaust effect updated for a more centralized appearance.
- Fuel burn rate better calibrated (overall lower burn rate).
- Fix for custom planet textures not loading correctly.
- Planet positions in several systems updated.


The new target 3rd person view offers the same camera controls as the player view mode does, including zoom in/out and panning up/down/left/right. Simply press the default V key three times to access the new view mode. You can also change targets while in this mode.

To update your profile for station ID listing (if you are renting a hangar from a station without a name), simply clear the hangar, exit back to your ship, then restock it and save.

Trine

Trine is out on Steam
http://trine-thegame.com/site/



Hells bells its a bloody good looking puzzle platformer with saucy RPG leanings. Well worth the effort. I believe its coming to XBLA and PSN but sometime in the future.

Each character really does have clear and usuable powers, with the bow toting ranger girl being the best for getting around the play area with her agility and her grappling line (bionic commando style). The physics solutions to some of the puzzling and experience collection is something to behold, and with the clockwork crate conjuring wizard who can levitate and pull world items theres a lot of jiggling and fiddling you can do to the environment setup. Lastly you have the rather rotund beefy shield and steel toting warrior, who has the pleasure of laying waste to the attackable enemies, or smashing his way through boarded up entrances, or blocking incoming missile attacks. Switching between each of them is a dream, hotkeyed to 1,2 and 3. And you can do it mid-air if you're feeling twitchy skillful. If death for one of them ensues you can resurrect at half health at the next checkpoint orb, similar to Little Big Planets mechanism.

Utterly beautiful to look at, and really a physics based pleasure to play, plus you can level up various skills as your characters gain experience.. I'll be buying this at least on a console just to see how it translates, because the grappling can be a bit tricky with mouse and keyboard controls, takes a bit of mastering..

Upgrade Complete

I've been recently impressed by a rather nifty little shooter from Armor Games named UPGRADE COMPLETE, which has a total of about half an hours play in it. However, the concept behind the game involves the usual upgrade mechanism, but applied to everything in the game. The game loader, titles, menus, progress bars, backgrounds, graphics, all novelty additions but the upgrade process is also key to progressing in the game itself.



Your ship starts out quite humble with a coin collector and two gun turrets. The ship moves left and right, but can angle as it does so, to provide you with an arc of fire. The enemy descends from above and you have to terminate them upon which they relinquish the valuable coin cargo. Collecting this with the center of your ship adds funds useful for upgrades! Completing the wave successfully gives you a bonus to the funds collected. Back to the shop you can then add more equipment spatially (within a defined rectangle around the ship). Equipment includes magnets to attract the coin to your collector, engines to boost ship speed and agility, turrets, lighting arc generators and missile launchers - all of which can be upgraded using coinage to a maximum of level 5. You have a limit on the number of items you can attach to your shipspace, and therefore a lot of the "strategy" involves working out a balance between firepower and coverage, as well as how fast you want the ship to move and whether you want to maximise your coin collecting abilities.

Placing your firing mechanisms across a wide area as possible is good to sweep the enemies up, but having some forward to soften them up, and some below your main ship, to catch stragglers that get by you is also important. A major part of the enjoyment of this casual blast em up is building your ship, and boosting the parts in a particular order to get you past the next wave, collect as money as you can and begin the re-design process as you add more or better equipment to the mix. The ability to go back to the main menu, and upgrade the system graphics and music options really does stack novelty onto enjoyement. When you have finally pushed on through to wave 20/20, there is still one or two things you can tweak up, to open up acheivements and end screens.

9/10 for providing a novel and entertaining bitesize of retro, yet original gaming. I wonder where you go with this sort of idea in a much more complex iteration of the game.

You'll have to spend $2000 to upgrade me to provide a better review, possibly a 10/10.

P.S. Although the 4 levels of graphics are entertaining, the people I've discussed this with have all agreed that graphics option 2 is the best - and once you upgrade theres no going back... although there is an upgradeable option to start from scratch.. thankfully.

AI War: Fleet Command

AI War is a game that almost passed me by. A 2d space based RTS that sailed past stealthily cloaked and headed for the nearest warp gate 'outta here'. Luckily my Impulse client explore page slyly winked a small ad for the game and like a distress beacon it caught my passing attention.


The game presents itself in 2d, all craft and structures are flat sprites. The backgrounds are rendered 3d planets and starscapes, but are purely for flavour - they do not affect the flow of the game. The scope and scale of the game however is big, you have large planetary systems as your main conflicted play area, interconnected via warp gates into a web weaving and winding itself into a chaotic galactic tapestry. The game setup allows you to randomly seed the generated Universe and select the number of planetary systems available. The connections between systems are "spun" in a chaotic fashion, and they can lead to isolated systems, ideal for defense, or well linked "junction" systems giving you many paths to travel and explore. Zoom is your friend, and as you plan your movements and offensives you will rarely notice the 2d sprites, because your broad strokes of battle will usually be made on the max zoomed iconic representations anyway. The sheer number of units that can be deployed is astounding, 10,000+ is not uncommon. The game was inspired by the similar large scale conflict and zoomed out operational approach that Supreme Commander adopted.

What is not obvious upon your first play with the tutorial levels is the nature of the more strategic scale of operations you will play out. It is your goal to scout and explore a path through the systems to locate specific advantageous enemy structures and either destroy them or capture them. This almost surgical precision applied to your offense is your greatest strength, because if you advance aggressively through the Universe conquering all you meet, you will quickly meet your demise, because with each takeover the AI's aggression turns up a notch. With every conquest, you're essentially stoking the AI into a frenzy and into more advanced tactics to employ against you. A more carefully planned and well considered approach is needed to balance the AI aggression as you make your way forward. Destroying its data centers deny the AI valuable computational resources and thus reduces the AI's aggression level. Capturing Advanced Research facilities will open up to you some of the more specially developed equipment that the AI can use against you, equalising the odds when it comes to tech vs tech conflicts. Another key tactic to employ is to secure your travel lanes, by blockading warp gates and holding the AI enemy at bay whilst you planet hop your way around the most economic and efficient path.

So, in essence, you are:

1. scouting and pathfinding
2. exploring and searching out key targets
3. plugging and unplugging warp gates
4. capturing planet systems to install resource gathering equipment
5. eeking out scientific knowledge from new planetary systems
6. managing your manufacturing and fleet content so that when you find the AI core base you can annihilate it!

The unique draw of this game is that you're plunged into a randomly seeded Universe, where the AI can be scaled in difficulty and tweaked with various play styles into very different opponents. As the name suggests the AI plays a very important role in the games appeal, and as such it can be tailored to your needs, and pacing. The developer has provided a very detailed explanation of the unique features of the AI, from its swarm intelligence to its completely emergent sub-commander logic, and a layer of fuzzy logic applied over it, so that its not always predictable and precise. Another feature is that the game supports up to 8 players working cooperatively against the AI, so gather your disparate fleets to survive, live long and prosper (the AI also scales depending upon the number of players involved in the conflict). Sadly, the game doesn't support player versus player combat, with the main focus of the game pitting the strategic and tactical capabilities of the human player against this finely crafted AI.



There are a large variety of hardware on offer and many of the techs will open up new tactical possibilities, with free downloadable content being available in the form of new community requested features and ships. Some examples of the equipment you can utilise (in addition to the usual range of fighters, bombers and starships) are: defense turrets, mines and mine repairers, tractor beam turrets, laser turrets, long range sniper turrets, missile turrets, force field shields, de-cloaking devices, detectors of incoming ships through warp gates, to name a few, and I've really only scratched the surface in terms of the unit specialisations. I am assured that as you play the game, increasing AI difficulty levels and AI play styles, you will find new uses for existing equipment and you will discover new equipment and new tactical ways to deploy them.

I would recommend watching the video guides presented by the developer to get a feel for how to get started with the game, and to see an explanation of the "bigger picture" strategic game.

Since you specify the parameters of the Universe you play in, there are a lot of replay opportunities and the degrees of AI difficulty and play style will also further add to that, so you're getting a lot of indie-fuelled strategic play for your $20. But you are also encouraged to become part of the AI War community, and participate in its future evolution and development. With DLC already being rolled out regularly, and a planned expansion in the works, you too could be a part of its emergence.

Whilst playing the game, I'm reminded of other games, Supreme Commander, Sins of a Solar Empire, Stars!, but also see glimpses of Battlestar Galactica's desperate plight of jumping through a Universe full of Cylons and having to "box clever" to stem the tide of the AI toasters and jump your way through secured corridors of space, picking up what little resources you can... but then I do have a vivid imagination for those sort of things.

JUMP!

Conquest: Medieval Realms

I've only played through the first and second scenario in the first campaign. Its not a bad game if you like boardgame territory grabbing. The key to winning seems to be divide and conquer.. all about cutting the enemies supply of money by slicing territories in half and reducing their income so they can't support the army raised. If the territory does become financially compromised, then you simply lose your men, and the surrendered flag shows up in their hex. This can lead to devastating defeats, if you're not protective enough of your territory.



Units face off against each other based on level, and there are no exceptions to the rules a level 2 unit beats a level 1, a level 3 unit beats a level 2. So you have to make sure you have the coinage to purchase the appropriate levelled unit. In order to gain cavalry and ranged units, you have to spend some money on converting forest land to archery ranges, and building stables. You start with pikemen. You can buy a higher level unit straight off if you have the gold, or you can buy lower levelled units and upgrade existing ones with them. Their zone of control regardless of unit, is a single depth ring of six hexes around your units current position. Although you can attack by moving onto a lower levelled unit's hex. Your movement will be restricted if there are higher level units exerting zones of control in front of you, or defensive buildings such as forts and castles.

Presentation is very boardgame, and the miniatures are well realised. The UI is very minimal and functional, obviously done on a budget, with the art assets mainly being tied up with the miniatures. There are some historical facts included in the campaign, which is a nice touch to add some credibility to the very abstracted boardgame presentation. The second scenario in the War of the Roses campaign, is actually at Sandal Castle in Wakefield, England (a place where I lived and played as a teenager) and I was quite disappointed to see that the castle grounds are depicted as a mere large hexagonal set of walls. Not quite a historically accurate abstraction of the place I used to climb over all those years ago.. but you know, it was exciting to finally see a wargame depiction of the siege at Sandal Castle.



There are a one or two niggly issues I have with the game, first the miniatures don't drag and drop as you'd want, as you pick it up with a left click on the mouse, the unit drops to well below the mouse cursor, and you place the unit by putting the mouse cursor over the destination hex, and sadly NOT by placing the miniature down over the hex. This single very nitpicky interface quirk, really did drop me out of the illusion that its a boardgame with lovely metal miniatures. Secondly, there doesn't seem to be any feedback when the AI executes its turn, all its moves are resolved in an instance, and your carefully laid plans and defences just disappear or shift about without much in the way of understanding at what the enemy has done. You can often read what might be coming next from the AI's current position and indeed, you strategy is probably geared towards this, but it would be that much more rewarding if there was an option to play out the enemy's actions, or at least have some sort of summary of what happened on a piece by piece basis. The tutorial option on the menus mentioned tutorial scenario's, but from what I can see, the tutorial consists of three pages of information with diagrams to explain the game.

The game does support network play, and even comes with editors for custom skirmishes or scenarios or even custom campaigns, so I'd wager there is a lot of replayability, especially if a modding community gets off the ground. I cannot really comment on the effectiveness of the network play, since I've only really dabbled in the single player game.

Overall, for the money, its worth a go if you enjoy the more abstracted gameplay of a territory grabbing boardgame. Whether the AI can stand up to the more seasoned wargamer, I'm not sure, but with the ability to play against human opponents it could become quite a "chess like" battle of wits.

Advanced Tactics: WW2

It has to be said all this WeeWar stuff has got me into a right lather about strategic war games, but WeeWar is a bit light, for those quick lunchtime sessions, so I've been looking into other similar games with much more depth.

I was recommended Advanced Tactics: WW2 (which is more of a war game engine with a comprehensive scenario editor), and it has totally enchanted me.



The level of depth to the play is quite refreshing for someone who plays a lot of lightweight strategy and is always frightened off by the proper 'grognards' stuff. The supply mechanism alone is worth its weight in gold, because now you have to factor in logistics as a major part of the battle. Chains of supply, and troop movements are all necessary. It comes across more like a Steel Panthers with added depth. The interface is a bit quirky, but it does the job, and the photo stuff is a nice touch. Plus it even supports bonus cards and research trees for unit upgrades. Anyway, I could spout on all day about this feature and that complexity, its no easy ride to begin with, because the tutorial scenario is very brief and the manual is more of an interface and rules list than any sort of instructional guide.. however, there is a decent community on Matrixgames forums, and looking over their AAR's (After Action Report) has opened the game up a bit more for me, after my tentative steps into getting my ass handed to me by the basic training scenario.

If you have some time, and you are interested in complex fulfilling wargames then give this AAR a read, it has pictures and turn by turn based explanations. Its by a person who has just begun exploring the AT game, so it also presents the beginners view on things, and some of the old vets chip in here and there to help out.

This really spices up the tiles and hexes for me, and gives a blow by blow account of what he encounters and how he reacts to the games AI.

There is a scenario building community here, complete with a Scenario bank full of downloads for extra games to spend hours mulling over..

Its been a while since a PC strategy game has caught me by the nollocks and worked me up into a frothy latte. Worth the entrance fee, and I'm ashamed I've put this game in the same mail as 'WeeWar'.

Evochron Legends

Evochron Legends (EL) is a space combat, mining and trading simulation set in the Evochron Universe. Since it is a simulation, it will take you time to come to terms with the mechanics of basic space flight, navigation, mining and trading - but the investment of effort early on will pay out later. The demo of the game is time limited, but the tutorials for the game don't count against this. So it is encouraged that you play through the tutorials one by one, taking in the information presented. Although they can be daunting at first, with the 'wall of text' presented to you, that text is accompanied with spoken word, which helped me ease into the cockpit. I can see that without the tutorials, just diving in may leave you lost and abandoned. I can also see why people try to skip over the tutorials, their enthusiasm and impatience egging them on to get flying and fighting, but since the finesse of combat and all other matters are derived from your basic skills as a pilot in a void using Newtonian physics, I'll stress it again, these tutorials and the information they impart is the key to opening the wonders of the Pandora's box that is EL. Once you "get it", you'll uncover the depths that the game offers.

The Evochron Universe is a seamless experience, once you are in the cockpit, there are no zones or loading screens to bother you. You have a fulcrum warp drive which you can use to jump through space, and there are connected jump gates between systems, but it is equally possible to use your fulcrums to get to any system if you are a good navigator. Another plus is the ability to Planet fall and switch to normal flight avionics, and drop through the atmosphere and land on planet based stations. You can even land gently on the planets surface and go strip mining by focussing your mining laser downwards. The Universe is distributed about systems and they all have their points of interest and anomalies, as well as a main storied mission that you can choose to follow throughout the game. At space stations, you can enter the shipyards, or trade in precious goods, or re-fuel and re-arm, or take on local missions, such as cargo drop offs, ship protection, enemy ship destruction, races, solar panel cleaning, and asteroid clearance. You can even read the local news, and market changes, as well as get a feel for your standings with the various system wide factions, whether that be with the military, or the rebels. Your reputation amongst system factions influences equipment and costs, and how various other craft will react to you. To gain very good reputation with one faction, you may need to actively lower reputation with another by hunting and destroying their ships.

The game is an evolution of the StarWraith series of games, dating back many years, particularly Legends is a sequel to the Evochron Renegades (ER) game, with updated graphics, and many features requested by the previous games players. In fact one of the key selling points of this game is that you're not just buying into the dry downloaded software, you're actually supporting the StarWraith community, you're enabling the developer to continue evolution of the series. Uniquely, we have a dedicated person as the games sole developer, Vice, who takes a very active part in his community. He is willing to listen, to evaluate and to modify the game based on ideas and suggestions presented by his player base. A sort of symbiosis exists whereby the developer nurtures his players through his game, with hints, tips and advice, and they feedback, enthuse and cultivate his community and popularity by word of mouth.

The game is a simulation and as such, you are encouraged to master inertial flight, and the use of the IDS (Inertial Dampening System) which ultimately controls where you're going and how fast, and how much fuel you will expend. Firing your afterburner with IDS off, and zero thrust, will hurtle your craft in a particular direction at maximum velocity, cutting the burners will maintain that velocity without expending any fuel. Meanwhile you can spin on your axis and take in the sights, or gun down incoming missiles, or perform those 'flip on a sixpence' Viper turns you see in the likes of Battlestar Galactica. Switching on the IDS, engages a whole array of thrusters and compensators to maintain your position and direction set by your steering and your main engines. Learning to take advantage of inertial flight and its manoeuvring possibilities, especially in combat, is the key to being a good pilot in EL. Combat can be very hectic and you'll spend a while getting used to missile interception or avoidance (with countermeasures) as well as utilising beam weapons to drain your enemies shields, and particle cannons to blast holes in their hulls. I'll warn you now, the game can be quite brutal and unforgiving in terms of there are so many ways to die, my advice would be quick save often and learn from your mistakes.

Graphically speaking Evochron Legends isn't at the front of the pack, however, what it lacks in bloated textures, it makes up for in disk space conservation (the is a 45Mb download, with a 130Mb footprint) and artistic beauty. Some of the scenes available in the game are simply breathtaking.



In customising your spacecraft, EL surpasses most other space combat sims in the flexibility of your ships overall appearance, with many of the upgrade able parts (engines, wings, cargo holds, fuel tanks, shields) having distinctive looks, but also in that you can change the positioning of the parts, and their scale in all dimensions by using the custom slider bars. So you can build a truly unique vessel, symmetrical or not, with components you place and size up. Your craft's hull for instance has a specific form, but what you do with the components attached to it, is completely up to you. All of this, and the spaceships look like space travelling craft, some space combat simulations struggle at delivering believable vessels, but EL manages to give you flexibility and integrity. The game's visuals are also scalable so that you should be able to get the game running on quite a low specification machine and still enjoy it.

Both the multiplayer and the single player experience are interchangeable, meaning you can load a pilot profile and play offline, save it and then take the same pilot profile onto one of the player hosted dedicated servers. The servers can host 32 players online at any one time, and the software and configuration files are available for download, so you can run your own private Universe if you want to. Knowing that you can log onto a server, and continue your gameplay, only be able to chat to other pilots, or have them join you in some co-operative missions, or even go head to head against them in Player versus Player (PvP) combat, is extremely exciting. The StarWraith Community forum is a considerate, mature, friendly and very helpful place to converse about the game, and to organise meets and match ups online. So you're never far away from someone who wants to impart knowledge about the game, or who is willing to give you a coaching session online. In fact there are a number of clans there that have grown together through the development of the StarWraith games and who like to take part in organised leagues. Theres even a Capture the Flag style setup in one of the systems for players to experience more than just your normal deathmatch style PvP game. The main difference between the multiplayer and single player game, is that the multiplayer game doesn't affect your faction reputation.

As much as possible the developer has built the game to be mod-able. You can change a lot of the HUD and interface, textures and ship models, you can customise all manner of gamepad controllers and joysticks, and you can even set the game up for TrackIR's 3d head control mechanism for managing you in cockpit viewpoint.

The game has a few rough edges, it is a labour of love, and it has a number of idiosyncrasies ("close up" low textures, quirks in the interface etc), however, if you are willing to be a part of the StarWraith community, your suggestions can help forge the future for this game. Imagine being a part of the process of something so inspiring and so exciting... that is what EL opens up to you. For example, since launch last week, and ultimately down to many suggestions on the forums, the game has gone through 4 or 5 patch iterations, including function changes to the Nav console itself, and more multiplayer information linking and optimising. This is community based 'hands on' gaming at its best.

Overall, you just can't find a more compact and elegantly evolved space combat simulation game. If Elite had a cool big brother this would be it.



Some points to note:

1. affordable and very re-playable
2. large explorable universe with factions
3. freeform open gameplay, exploring, trading, building and customising, racing, fighting, mining, transporting, protecting
4. the space flight physics (inertial flight actually helps you reduce the cost of fuel)
5. planet fall, and switch to gravity based flight model
6. the ability to customise your ship uniquely, by adding, placing and scaling parts
7. the ability to play as a twitch pilot doing missions, and combat and mining (asteroid and planet surface) and trading, fuel scooping from stars and nebula
8. the small download (45Mb) and install footprint (130Mb)
9. single player profile can be used interchangeably on a multiplayer server and play co-operatively or competitively with up to 32 other players
10. run a dedicated server of your own
11. part of the StarWraith community

Allies vs Axis - AKA Plants vs Zombies

Whilst playing through Popcap's Plants vs Zombies, I can't help but think about how many "serious" gamers might be turned off by the overtly low res cartoon graphics (that admittedly do lend the game its "charm" and artistic style).


Imagine if you will a more dark and gritty implementation, still with stylised art, but less colourful, loony and throwaway. Perhaps take the art style of a game such as Disciples for instance, or for the wargamer sub in Allies vs Axis (with Sunflowers being supply trucks, and peashooters Artillery guns, and walnuts entrenched soldier fortifications) and then the game may cross more boundaries and not be taken as a cutesy casual game.

As it is, I like the game very much, I think the game has a lot of depth, yet it presents its depth as frivolity. Which works on one level. But, I feel, boiling down the mechanic and tweaking it for a real time (but abstracted) conflict in more "mature" settings would elevate it in the global strategy community.

It seems as an all round gamer (with a job, family and responsiblities), who delves into casual abstractions (sometimes distractions) as much as console stalwarts and nitpicking niche strategy titles, I yearn for more credible casual titles, condensed "quicker play" games that have great game mechanics, but don't need the rainbow of the fat brushed primary palette nor the cutesy cartoon art style to appeal to the so called "casual space".

I guess ultimately what I want is a more abstracted almost boardgame mechanic that is often applied to casual games, but with the mature artistic flair and appeal of full blown titles, rather than the "fisher price" glitz and glam of a traditional Reflexive/Popcap title.

I suppose I should make it clear that I am virtually in love with the game Plants Vs Zombies, and would urge people to snap it up and gorge themselves on it now. I even find the viral marketing they did beforehand charming to some extent, and I "get" the jokes they present during the game. I just think it would make me more happy if the game was presented more credibly rather than as a bit of a joke. Stacked up against Stalin Vs the Martians, PvZ blows them out of the water, with tangleweed.

DRADIS (for Evochron Legends)

Well after being inspired by another players' (Warsign) customisation efforts, I thought I'd love to have a go at integrating the Battlestar Galactica DRADIS console into EL. I found a screengrab of the Galactica DRADIS system from a scene in the new series, and thought it would be kind of exciting to mould it into EL's cockpit...

Screen Capture of DRADIS Console from newly imagined Battlestar Galactica series

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="DRADIS"][/caption]

Evochron Viper Mk II

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="498" caption="Viper Mk II DRADIS HUD"][/caption]

Evochron Raptor

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Raptor DRADIS HUD"][/caption]

So here are the files... you can download them and unzip them into your /hud directory.. these files aren't a total cockpit, just custom console screens, NAV compass, gunsights and some warning messages..

DOWNLOAD DRADIS HUD for the VIPER Mk II

DOWNLOAD DRADIS HUD for the RAPTOR

Hope you enjoy the custom HUD's and fingers crossed, with the help of others, we can attach them to custom cockpit designs too.

Cortex Command

http://www.datarealms.com/

Bloody good game this, imagine Worms, but with proper physics, proper guns, and deformable terrain, with resource collection, in real time. The demo only gives you an hour of gameplay, but after that I was hankering after much more... the only downer is the game is still mid-development, however, they allow you to purchase it, as is, with its 1 tutorial level, and 2 other levels, and the level editor, and the multiplayer skirmish mode. I bought it because I was having so much fun on just the tutorial level, I couldn't stop playing after the hour. Its cheaper to purchase at the moment, because its not finished, but as it gets done, the price will go up, until at final release it will be full price.. its an odd way of marketing, and I'm not sure they'll get enough interest to finish it.. but they should.. its got a whole lot of potential, especially if the level editor is up to scratch.

Its quite a brutal game, to control the 'actors' you have to master jetpacks and the physics of not getting stuck, or smashing into things, every bump will take your health down a notch, ordering new materials, has rockets landing and dropping off, but you can't guarentee that it won't tip over and blast your other men with its exhausts.. very entertaining. Give it a try and play out the tutorial.. I failed the tutorial level about 10 times before completing it, and normally that would turn anyone off, but this just made me want more and more.. amazing.. worth a look anyway.

Iron Grip Warlord

http://igwarlord.isotx.com/

As I tried the demo of this game, a sort of tower defense FPS, I was sucked in, even when I didn't know the range of my talents, like building defensive structures or laying trip wire mines and poison gas traps, like buying a better weapon that the standard issue musket with its drawn out laborious reload time, even when I ignored all of this, I still enjoyed the ride. On easy difficulty, the demo map was a twisting winding set of streets interconnected with buildings and basements and ramps and tunnels. The Objective of the game is to defend a Stronghold, against a relentless wave after wave assault from an increasingly resourceful Confederate army. When they start to send rocket launching and flame throwing elites, and I was still taking single pot shots at them from upstairs windows it seemed like a insurmountable quest, but one which kept drawing me to it, like a moth to a paraffin flame. Once you fathom out that your power meter at the bottom, fills up slowly as your AI teammates make kills, you can utilise this power to purchase and build key defensive measures. Pressing 'G' will flip you into a top down, RTS style mode, where you can buy machine gun nests, supply stations, trip wires, poison traps, Anti-tank turrets and the like. Dropping these in place at choke points and crossroads is vital to holding back the flow of multipathing enemies. Pressing 'M' allows you to use some of your power reserve to buy different weapons, and a much machine gun with grenade launcher can come in very handy.
As time progresses, Elite troops wade in, and some take meandering paths, designed to flank you, or keep you at bay whilst the main body of troops march onward to your stronghold. With more and more troops on the field mini-bosses in the form of Officers turn up, with chainguns blazing, and these are tough cookies to deal with. They also seem to dodge in and out of buildings, so laying waste to an officer usually involves pursuit, and thinning his bodyguard minions. Then you find yourself up against Armoured vehicles, in the demo, you are menaced by a tank, a machine gun toting and explosive shell throwing killing machine. These things require repeated shelling or grenading, your molotov cocktails won't make much of an impact here. Setting up a string of trip wire mines will help weather them down. And pumping in MG grenades in from a shielded position might help. In the full game, you will meet up with spider walking mechs with bouncing fireball shells, that can devastate an area rather quickly, torching your defenses.

If your stronghold goes down, and you have the power resources to rebuild it, then get it back soldier, and make it snappy. The game tends to ebb and flow as you run around and find power pickups, and you lay waste to lots of enemies at bottleneck choke points. Downing an officer and taking his chaingun, spraying a path through the advancing cannon fodder can be very therapeutic. If your defenses take a battering, you can swap to your spanner, and start to repair them, whilst dodging the bullets. You can also upgrade the defenses if you can harvest enough power to do so..

So, in the end, you're placed in a tower defense style game, where you can not only lay down defensive placements, but you can go lone wolf and have a gun toting role to play in stemming the flow. Checking the map and reacting to enemy outbreaks down the different paths is one of the main strategic elements to master. And one which if mastered can alter the whole outcome of the conflict. It can turn into a war of attrition, but one in which you're at the frontline, making the decisions and also making the plays with your shooting and strafing and dodging skills. Map knowledge is also key, to turn run of the mill streets into killing zones. You can run the game in single player mode, where your teammates are AI controlled and they do a decent enough job, turning their hand to whatever (laying down fire, repairing mechanisms etc). You can also run a dedicated server, and have people connect to join you co-operatively in the defensive carnage. Or you can join an official server (although at the time, the most people I saw playing on an official server was about 6).

I like shooters. And I like Tower defense games. Put them both together, with the possibility of co-op play, and I can see why it draws me in.