Manifesto Games, the brainchild of gaming Cassandra Greg Costikyan and former Computer Gaming World editor Johnny Wilson, has been unveiled to the world. Based on the principles of the Manifesto, Manifesto Games is meant to breathe life into dying genres and give a new portal to indie games that need wider distribution. Seeing Costikyan and Wilson put their money where their mouths led them was a heartening development for an industry with too many doom-sayers and too few get-off-their-ass-ers.

So what great treasures are unveiled for us strategy gamers? Strategy First’s back catalog, apparently. Chariots of War, Jagged Alliance, Gates of Troy, Disciples II…Where are the games that the industry has been ignoring? An industry “run amok” gave the OK to all these titles, but here they are again. How mainstream. Not an auspicious start to breaking down walls.

Well, that’s a little harsh. The “Committee Choice” (this gets more Communist with every reading) is a non-violent RTS I’ve never heard of called Mudcraft. They are also giving a home to the delightful Outpost Kaloki and the interesting A Force More Powerful. So there is some indication that they are scouting around for underappreciated indie games. Then again, they have one of Jeff Vogel’s RPGs, Genefore 2, and Nethack. Yes, they have the free, open source Nethack on their catalog.

Good luck to Costikyan and Wilson, but I’d advise them to steer clear of the Strategy First stuff. They went bankrupt, you know.