Tag: games

SJWs retroconverging games

I saw that the Enhanced Editions of Baldur’s Gate were on sale at Good Old Games and put them in my cart. However, in between that and clicking through to checkout, a tweet by Escape Velocity drew my attention to this interview with a writer at Beamdog concerning the expansion they’d created in the process of enhancing the original games.

And by “enhancing” them, of course, they mean “converging” them:

“If there was something for the original Baldur’s Gate that
just doesn’t mesh for modern day gamers like the sexism, [we tried to
address that],” said writer Amber Scott. “In the original there’s a lot
of jokes at women’s expense. Or if not a lot, there’s a couple, like
Safana was just a sex object in BG 1, and Jaheira was the nagging wife
and that was played for comedy. We were able to say, ‘No, that’s not
really the kind of story we want to make.’ In Siege of Dragonspear, Safana gets her own little storyline, she got a way better personality upgrade. If people don’t like that, then too bad.”

“I got to write a little tender, romance-y side quest for Khalid and
Jaheira where you could learn a little bit about how their marriage
works and how they really feel about each other.”

There’s also four new companions, one of whom is gay, one of whom is bisexual.

They loved the games so much they just needed to remake them in their own converged image. Consider this absurd example.

We don’t like that. We won’t play it. Too bad.

Combined Arms, Take Two, turn three

While the battle to the east is fast, brutal, and direct, with the big-gunned tanks blowing holes in each other at an alarming rate, the 1st Panzer Division has recovered from its initial setbacks and is beginning to make some headway by outflanking the Soviet’s western defenses. This is the situation after the end of Turn 3. The second turn.

The most important action was the armor battle in the east (top). My Tiger first took out the T-34 at the crossroads it had already acquired, then, with a nearly 500-meter side shot, killed the Stalin that had traversed the big northeastern hill and took out my Panther guarding the northern road. Three kills in three turns for the crew, but in doing so, the Tiger left its much weaker side armor exposed to the AT gun in the village. Fortunately the 57L gun missed its first shot and although the second shot hit, it didn’t penetrate the Tiger’s armor.

The combination of the second Tiger, the Panther, and the infantry all pounding away at the Guards platoon defending the eastern approach to the village killed the leader and two of the three squads, but the Soviet commander somehow managed to extricate the surviving squad safely, thereby preventing me from rapidly exploiting my chosen schwerpunkt. That squad fell back and reclaimed the first building I’d taken, but soon found itself surrounded on three sides as the troops I’d sent around the southern side of the village moved in and took possession two of the buildings there. They kept the well-led Soviet platoon that was established in the village occupied while the German officer leading the assault headed north to try to take out the anti-tank gun before it could kill the Tiger with a third shot.

In the west, the key development was the immediate rallying of my surviving infantry platoon combined with the two Panthers taking out the T-34 on the north side of the building. Also, the assault engineers who rushed the building in the center were able to break the two Soviet squads that had been holding the nearby hill, catching them out in the open as they tried to fall back to the village. And to the southwest, lacking any infantry support, the one T-34 proved unable to stop the dispersed platoon that was seeking to link up with the panzergrenadiers attacking the village from the southeast.

All in all, it was a very favorable series of three half-turns for the attacking Germans, and although the battle isn’t over, I feel quite confident that I’ll be able to secure the necessary nine buildings well before Turn 7. I was able to crack the village in the east while simultaneously flanking his massed firepower in the west to the north and south, which was exactly what I intended.

Combined Arms, Take Two, turn two

Now that the second pincer of the German attack has entered the map, this is how the battlefield stood after the German Turn 2. The first turn.

The Soviet commander divided his tanks into two squadrons, sending four to deal with the Tigers from the 23rd Panzer Division shielding my assault on the village in the west (top) and three to bolster the infantry preparing to meet the company-sized assault from the east (bottom).

The Panther on the northern hill was destroyed right away; in retrospect this position was a foolish decision on my part. However, the Soviets lost the T-34 defending the approach to the village in an exchange of fire with one of the Tigers, and more crucially, a Stalin to a timely critical hit as it charged past a Panther in an attempt to get a shot at close range on the exposed side of the engaged Tiger. Despite being buttoned up and having to swivel its turret, the Panther managed to take out the heavier tank at a range of 120 meters.

However despite the assistance of the other Tiger delivering suppressive fire, the Panzergrenadiers were unable to dislodge the platoon of Soviet Guards from the building near the hills. And in the west, the T-34s and Stalins wreaked havoc on the 1st Panzer Division.

I’d set up a death star of a platoon with both medium machine guns under my best leader, a 9-2, and advanced them into the stone building at the bottom of the map, thinking to use them to suppress the Soviet infantry and permit the other two platoons to advance. A single shell from a Stalin’s 122L killed most of them and broke the survivors. That allowed the Soviets to concentrate their fire on my second-best platoon, who also broke under the pressure.

My only success was rushing one squad of engineers armed with a demolition charge into position where they would be able to claim the first of the nine buildings the Germans require for victory. Also, a pair of squads managed to make their way towards the village on the south side of the map, although it will be another two turns before they are able to reach it.

At this point, I have to admit that it doesn’t look good for the attacking Germans. I needed to break that Guards platoon to give me access to the village before the carnage in the west permits him to start falling back and reinforcing the troops he’s got there. Also, I made a serious mistake in exposing the side of one Tiger to the anti-tank gun in the village, which is quite capable of punching through the monster’s relatively light side armor. I am going to need some luck to stay in this one.

Combined Arms, take two, turn one

As the previous game of S23 ended as quickly as I’d expected – Ender’s last German platoon didn’t manage to take out the gun or make it across the street before being broken and I didn’t even need to reveal my squad in L8 to stop them – we decided to tackle something bigger. This time he picked S26: Last Ally, Last Victory and gave me the challenge of attacking the village and taking nine of the multi-hex buildings with the Germans.

It’s a late-war 1944 scenario set in Hungary, so the Germans are outgunned despite having two Tigers at their disposal; the Soviet main armaments range from 76L to a nightmarish 122L although their armor can’t compare with the 26 To Kill of the Tigers’ front armor.
It’s a complicated setup, with two German formations coming in from the east and west, and Soviet armored reinforcements arriving from the north. As the German commander, I had to decide which group would enter in Turn One and which in Turn Two, SchwerePanzerAbteiling 503rd platoon in the west (top) or a company from the 1st Panzer Division in the east(bottom) prior to the Soviet setup.

I assumed the Soviets would focus on stopping the larger, well-led company, plus the open fields gave them the opportunity to set up a deadly killzone to the east, so I decided the focus of my attack would have to come from the west and thereby decided to make my Turn One entry and subsequent push for the village there.

I decided I’d use my armor to screen the platoon, but kept my Panthers out of the line of sight of the anti-tank gun and lone T-34 by daring them to take on the Tigers and their massive front armor. The Panthers took up positions to the north, where I hoped to slow down the coming Soviet reinforcements and prevent them from disrupting the infantry before they could reach the safety of the stone buildings. So, there was virtually no fire exchanged during the first German turn, which ended like this.

I was a little surprised by the placement of the two Soviet platoons in the woods to the north, which gave me some degree of encouragement that I’d be able to quickly take the two multihex wooden buildings with the 1st Panzer when they entered from the east on Turn Two. My armor wasn’t able to take out the one T-34 defending the western approach, but with two 88Ls and one 75L trained on it, I was confident it wasn’t going to survive for long, after which the big cats could turn their attention to the single platoon of the 6th Guards and give me easy entry to the village.

A lesson in combined arms

Ender and I haven’t been able to get back to Fifth Frontier War lately, but we did find the time to break out a short Advanced Squad Leader: Starter Kit scenario, S23: Monty’s Gamble. Ender is just learning how to use vehicles, and in this scenario, he learned a rather painful lesson concerning why tank commanders always insist on having an infantry screen when engaging enemy infantry.

The scenario is set in 1944 Holland, with a German Kampfgruppe counterattacking the British 1st Airbourne Division after the seizure of the city of Arnhem as part of Operation Market Garden. The British were attempting to hold out long enough to permit 30 Corps to reach Arnhem and reinforce them, while the Germans were hoping to cut them off from the Rhine and capture the entire division.

Interestingly enough, this scenario played out rather similarly to the historical event, where the Staffordshire regiment managed to hold off the Germans long enough to let the greater part of the 1st Airbourne to extricate itself and retreat. The Germans are attacking from the east and their objective is to exit a sufficient number of victory points (two tanks and two infantry units are enough) off the west side of the map. The British units are all set up hidden, and I’d chosen to present a false forward defense in the north while putting all of my anti-tank defenses in the middle and south. I figured that if a tank went the north route, I’d have time to turn my rear anti-tank gun and take a shot at its weak side armor before it exited.

However, Ender took me off-guard by deciding to race his first tank straight past the town using the north road. There was nothing I could do about that, so he had 7 of the 17 VP required right there. I thought that might have been a scouting move, but then he tried to run his second tank through the middle; I held my fire with the first anti-tank gun and blew it up with the second one when it came adjacent.

That made him a little more cautious, but not enough. The last tank was already following the previous one on the middle road and it managed to avoid being brewed up by the first gun, but when it turned up the road to avoid the second one, it took a PIAT up the tailpipe. Then, to make matters considerably worse for the Germans, thinking the northern route was clear, Ender moved an entire platoon, led by his best leader, adjacent to my single squad in forward defense. The paratroopers popped up, killed the leader, and broke the entire platoon.

That essentially ended the game on the first turn; although it is theoretically possible for his second platoon to fight its way past my guns and other infantry units, they can’t do that and go north to relieve the pressure my one squad will keep on the broken platoon to prevent them from rallying at the same time. We’ll play one more turn, just in case, but I’ll be very surprised if the second platoon even manages to cross the road, let alone the map.

Ender was more rueful than chagrined; now that he understands the concept of an infantry screen, I very much doubt he’ll ever make that particular mistake again. And now that I’ve taken full advantage of that specific gap in his knowledge, I can let him watch the Band of Brothers episode where the British tank commander makes the spectacularly unwise decision to ignore the advice given by the American infantry screening his tanks.

Art internship

As part of the first Dev Game course, we’re doing four very small games that are updated remakes of Apple II classics. While we have sufficient programmer volunteers, we’re short an artist.

So, if you’re an animator/illustrator and you’re interested in a short, modestly paid internship in the game industry, send me an email with examples of your work. And by work, I mean animated illustrations.

Homework assignment #1

At the end of the first session of Dev Game, I promised those attendees who were interested the chance to participate in a real game development exercise. Those from the blog knew what game I was referring to; it occurred to me that this was a very good opportunity to not only add another few hundred questions to the game, but let them experience the development process in action.

The attendees appeared to find it useful. One wrote:

I did find the first session quite informative and it ignited my DRIVE to learn more and get involved in the game industry, starting with our first homework assignment. I am looking forward to the next session. 

You don’t have to be a Dev Game attendee to participate in this exercise, of course. It’s not only educational, it’s rather fun to research new games and come up with questions for them. And the game itself is turning out to be a history lesson of sorts; I can even envision it potentially becoming an edutainment tool because you end up learning more, more rapidly, than I had imagined when I designed it.

Instructions:

  • Select a game that is NOT on the list of games below.
  • If you know the game well, great. If not well enough, download it, emulate it, buy it, research it, and play it.
  • Write a list of 10 trivia questions about the game: four Easy, three Medium, two Hard, one Expert. Easy questions should be totally obvious;
    anyone who has played the game should be able to get them right. Don’t
    be clever, as we don’t want trick questions.
  • Write down both the fill-in-the-blank answer and four multiple choice answers for each question. The fill-in-the-blank answer must be one of the multiple choice answers, the other three should be credible, but incorrect answers.
  • Arrange the questions and answers in a spreadsheet (.xls or .ods format) in the following format. Each set of brackets represents a separate spreadsheet cell. [game][difficulty][question number][question][answer][multiple choice options][correct multiple choice answer][your name]. Be sure to separate the multiple choice options by semicolons with no spaces after them.

For example:

[Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri][easy][1][On which planet is the game set?][Chiron][1=Hermes;2=Vesta;3=Chiron;4=Eunomia][3][Jason]

[Ms. Pac-Man][easy][2][What is the fruit on the first board?][Cherry][1=cherry;2=strawberry;3=peach;4=banana][1][Vox Day]

  • Check to make sure you’ve got the formatting correct. Only correctly formatted submissions will be credited.
  • Email the spreadsheet to me.

Below is a list of the games for which we already have questions. We particularly need games for the following categories.

1980/90 console sims, 1980/1990 PC sims, 1990/2000/2010 arcade action,
2000/10 console sim, 2000/10 mobile/online strategy, 1980/2000/2010
console strategy, 1990/2000/2010 mobile/online action, Console sims,
2010 pc sims, Mobile/online strategy, 1990 console strategy, 1980 PC
strategy, Arcade action, 2000/2010 mobile/online RPG, 1980/1990/2000
console RPG.

Academagia, Adventure, Age of Empires II: Age of Kings, Agent U.S.A., Akalabeth: World of Doom, Annals of Rome, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, Armello, Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, Bomberman 64, Command & Conquer, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Conquest of the New World, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Covert Action, Crash Bandicoot, Dark Souls II, Darklands, Destiny, Destiny of an Emperor, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, Dishonored, Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest, Doom II: Hell on Earth, Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, Dragon Warrior, Dwarf Fortress, Dynasty Warriors 8, Elevator Action, Elite: Dangerous, Emperor of the Fading Suns, Europa Universalis IV, EVE Online, Executive Suite, Fable: The Lost Chapters, Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy VIII, Galactic Civilizations II, Geneforge, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Heroes of Might and Magic II, Heroes of Might and Magic III, Hitman: Absolution, Homeworld, Journey, King of Dragon Pass, King’s Quest, L.A. Noire, Left 4 Dead 2, Long Live the Queen, M.U.L.E., Mario Kart Wii, Master of Magic, Master of Orion, MechCommander 2, Mega Man, Mega Man 2, Mega Man 3, Mega Man X, MegaTraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Minecraft, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, Ms. Pac-Man, NetHack, Neverwinter, Phantasie, Phantasy Star Online, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Planescape: Torment, Plants vs. Zombies, Postal 2, Quest for Glory II: Trial By Fire, Quest for Glory III: Wages of War, Quest for Glory: So You Want To Be A Hero, Robot Odyssey, RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, Romance of the Three Kingdoms X, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3, Sid Meier’s Alien Crossfire, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, Sid Meier’s Civilization II, Sid Meier’s Civilization IV, Sid Meier’s Civilization V, Sid Meier’s Pirates!, SimCity 4, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Space 1889, Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon, Star Control II, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Star Wars: Rebel Assault, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Swashbuckler, Swords & Serpents, Swords and Serpents, Taipan, Team Fortress 2, The Bard’s Tale: Tales of the Unknown, The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Operative: No One Lives Forever, Thief Gold, Thief II: The Metal Age, Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider 2013, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Typhoon Thompson: Search for the Sea Child, Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny, Ultima VI: The False Prophet, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, Wasteland 2, WaxWorks, Wipeout 2097, Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge, Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, Worlds of Ultima 2: Martian Dreams, Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire


Bandit Kings of Ancient China, Betrayal at Krondor, Cliff Hanger,
Diablo, Dig Dug , Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon’s Lair, Dragon’s Lair
II: Time Warp, Gauntlet, Gauntlet II, Gauntlet Legends, Genghis Khan,
House of the Dead, Imperialism 2, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of
the Rings Vol. I, Leisure Suit Larry, The Lost World: Jurassic Park,
Simpsons Hit and Run, Space Ace, Star Control 3, Star Wars: Tie
Fighter, Temple of Elemental Evil, Thayer’s Quest, Wing Commander:
Privateer

Game Dev session 1

I thought it went reasonably well, all things considered. There are a few things we can streamline and improve, but not a bad start.

I’ll have the information about the homework assignment here later.

If you want to sign up for the last nine sessions, feel free to do so. I’ll send you the slides to help you catch up.

For grognards only

I have to say, I, for one, am really enjoying what Task Force Wargames has been doing over at Castalia. Reading Alex’s post on the old Avalon Hill game, Air Assault on Crete, is the first time I have ever wanted to play that game. The unusual zone control rules sound fascinating, and frankly, superior to the norm.

This game is hard. Very hard. Part of why it is hard is because it is rules heavy even for a wargame, but it is doubly so because it is so different from most war games I’ve played. This difficulty is a bit asymmetrical, as many of the special rules apply only to the German player (such as conveys, paratrooper drift and air power) but you’ll find in the options of the advanced game plenty of fiddly bits to keep the Allied player scratching their head and checking the rulebook. You also can’t bring with you any mechanical assumptions you may have based on other similar wargames because so many of those assumptions would be wrong in the case of Air Assault on Crete.

In several games, fog of war rules may be limited or optional, but I can’t imagine the Allies having a chance in this without the facedown setup. The Germans have to land, take and hold at least one of the three air bases at Maleme, Heraklion and Retimo. In the basic game, the Allies win by preventing this (an almost impossible task). In the advanced game, the Allied player wins by putting up a decent fight and successfully evacuating a sizable portion of their forces. The fog of war effect is continuous throughout the game, in that any Allied units that are not adjacent to German forces or actively being targeted by German bombardment are kept face down. This allows the Allied player to mask his strength and shuffle non-combat units to evac points, but can sometimes be a bit of a hassle, as one will constantly be checking their piles for AA units and defensive artillery anytime anything happens.

This sort of thing isn’t for everyone, or even very many gamers, let alone normal readers, but it is illustrate of the depth to which we intend the Castalia posts to increasingly go. If Wargame Wednesdays aren’t your cup of tea, one of the other days will be. And the newly discovered HP Lovecraft letter that Jeffro posted which mentions A. Merritt’s work is intriguing for any fan of the writer.

In barely tangential news, I am having a great time reading through the Domains of War rules that I acquired as part of the Sinister Stone of Sakkara kickstarter that I backed last year. If they’d been around when I was in junior high, I probably would have played a lot more RPGs. Forget role-playing as an adventurer wandering through caves and dungeons, it’s a lot more interesting to role-play military campaigns and battles.

How can I help?

That is the question we should be asking ourselves regularly, advises Mike Cernovich:

Luck rules our lives, although we can increase our odds of winning – of getting lucky – by taking more spins of the wheel. Thus you must stay busy.

Your life is the sum total of your activities and the people in your life. Be useful to other people. Find ways to meet market demands. Be good to your friends. When is the last time you emailed a friend to say, “How can I help you?”

People are doing poorly at being useful as they believe simply being around a person adds value to their lives. Yet many people are vampires.

Too many people are out for themselves, trying to extract as much value from others as they can.

That’s one way to live, but it doesn’t work for me.

I find ways to be useful to other people, and it works for me.

Instead of wondering why people don’t reach out to you or old friends fall away, why not stop working angles on people, being a manipulator, and simply saying, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Too many of us practice a warped secular churchianity, where we congratulate ourselves for donating a modicum of money here and there to savages we don’t know in lieu of helping our friends and allies.

But you’re not a better person for helping the stranger and ignoring your neighbor. You’re a worse person, you’re a performance artist. As Jesus himself said, even the tax collectors love those who love them and even the pagans greet their own people.

Now what does it say about you if your own behavior doesn’t even rise to their level?

Just as only the strong can turn the other cheek, only those who help their own first can help others.

This is not a criticism; the readers of Vox Popoli are well-known across the Internet for their strength of support. You not only support me, but you support my allies and you support each other. But it is a reminder, to me, if no one else, that instead of waiting for others to ask if they need our help, we should proactively go to our friends and ask if there is anything we can do.

In that vein, I know there are a number of people here who would very much like to attend the Dev Game course, but cannot afford to do so. Perhaps you lost your job. Perhaps your kids need braces. Perhaps you’re a young man who probably shouldn’t be reading here in the first place, but wants to get into game development.

So, in the interest of following Mike’s lead, I’d like to offer seven free course passes to readers who would have signed up for Dev Game if they’d had the ability to do so. Write me an email today with DG in the subject and a one-paragraph description of what you’d like to do in the game industry; I will select the seven I believe will most benefit from the course and send them registration links.

And be sure you can actually attend on Saturdays before emailing me.

UPDATE: A donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, has made 10 additional seats available for those who cannot afford it. So, if you would like to utilize one of those seats, let me know.