I had to get my theory of Manifest Destiny and Hinterland to a larger audience. I like the game a lot, but there are some undeniably annoying interface and information issues that need to be cleaned up in a patch before I can recommend it whole heartedly. A little more variety in portraits would be […]
Hinterland Review
October 7th, 2008 · Comments Off on Hinterland Review · City Builder, Crispy Gamer, Review, RPGs, Tilted Mill
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Well That’s New
October 6th, 2008 · 10 Comments · Civil War, Tilted Mill
The American Civil War has been done. But people keep doing it. Not like this, though.
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Improving Wargames
October 4th, 2008 · 11 Comments · Design, Media, Wargames
IGN’s Steve Butts is one of the last wargamers at a major game media site. (Before his departure from 1up, Jeff Green and I were in negotiations over how I could contribute there since Grognard God Geryk is too busy for that sort of thing. That may be a dead letter at this point.) In […]
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The Most Imperialist Game of the Year
October 1st, 2008 · 10 Comments · City Builder, RPGs, Tilted Mill
Tilted Mill’s Hinterland was released yesterday over Steam. I’m reviewing it, so I won’t write my final judgment here, but I will say that this is most aggressive manifestation of Manifest Destiny that I think I’ve seen in a light strategy game. The set up pushes you in that direction. You are the leader of […]
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Empire: Total War on Land
September 29th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Creative Assembly, Preview
Not a lot of stuff we didn’t know in the new trailer (number two of five), but that hasn’t stopped me from writing yet. 1) The campaign map looks great in the three seconds we see of it. I expect that will be the next thing we’ll see. 2) Elephants. Always with the elephants. Part […]
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Seven Deadly Sins
September 28th, 2008 · Comments Off on Seven Deadly Sins · Blogs, Design
Soren Johnson has posted his “seven deadly sins” of strategy game design, a column that (I think) premiered in an issue of Game Developer magazine earlier this year. His point on scripting (#1) and on story (#7) are two sides of the same coin. If you have a story based campaign, like his examples World […]
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