This week, the Tuesday Screenshot returns with a look at the new Lock’n’Load: Heroes of Stalingrad, in haiku
Click to enlarge
So guys, let’s start at the beginning – what was the impetus behind Command, and why did you want to build your own game instead of continuing to build on existing proven platforms?
Command is a culmination of all our hobby experiences. Our interest was born reading & watching the great techno-thrillers of our youth (Forsyth, Clancy, Ludlum, Coyle, Brown etc.), absorbing all the political & military history and facets of the Cold War (which at that day seemed far from over) and playing some really great amazing games of the era (F-19, RSR, M1TP, SPI’s CentFront series, the Fleet series, Gunship, Steel Panthers, Fleet Defender, Tornado, Harpoon and loads more). Our involvement with Harpoon and AGSI helped cultivate it as we met each other through the Harpoon community and really started learning about modern warfare, talking with professionals and thinking about simulations. We started out as avid modders for Harpoon 2 and then 3 and had great success helping to grow the Harpoon community and helping AGSI develop their game (including doing the grunt work for their first pro deal). All of this played a part in our own development and helped us build a strong and skilled team that had a vision of the game they wanted to build and the energy and motivation to do it. So we reached a point where we really wanted to do our own thing and as is now self evident we went ahead and did just that.
When you have to describe Command to someone who doesn’t know wargaming, what’s the “elevator pitch” for the game? How do you hook a potential player with just 1-2 sentences?
If the guy is getting off at the next floor and I have only 5 seconds:
“Command is the ultimate modern air and naval wargamer’s sandbox.”
If we’re both heading for the loft and he’s stuck with me for just a bit more:
“Breakfast – you trade machine gun fire & rocket salvos with pirates & smugglers in the littoral.
Lunch – you plan and execute an Alpha Strike from a carrier.
Dinner – you launch a strategic nuclear attack over the North Pole.
Midnight snack – you spin your own historical or what-if anywhere on the globe, with practically any war machine in existence post-WW2.
All with high realism & accuracy. All in one game. Command.”
Part 2: Terraformin’
Fortunately there are no alien life forms in the Tohvun system. While this is a sad little system with tiny little planets (two Barren, one Desert, one Jungle, and one Arctic), the Jungle planet has a food bonus for its fertile soil, and the Desert planet has some great angles or something to it so it catches lots of rays for solar energy absorption. Or something. It’s pretty scientific, you probably wouldn’t even understand.
Those brave colonists immediately began to terraform the planets in the Tohvun system. Meanwhile, I took a look at how things were here in the Sol system. That’s where Earth is, don’cha know.
We’ve managed to terraform Mars, but not Venus, Mercury, or Pluto. Right now we have room for about another 80 population, but if we terraformed those three planets we’d have a shot at really growing our britches off.
Our Readers’ Choice Awards are a pretty simple concept – it’s all up to you! We take nominations all year long in our forum threads, and any game that’s nominated that was released within that calendar year gets included. Our editorial team helps group some of the categories together, but if you nominated it, it’s here somewhere.
We divide our categories into tabletop and digital games, with miniatures normally included with the tabletop games. This year, however, we had no nominations for any miniatures games or products. Within each of the digital / tabletop branches, we break out some separate categories, but we always include an “overall” category for each, pitting every nomination against each other.
Without further ado, here are your winners of the GrogHeads 2013 Readers Choice Awards:
The tabletop world saw nominations into several categories, include Wargames, Strategy Games, Magazine games and scenarios, Expansions, Reprints, and the ever-coveted Overall category.
Consim Press’ The Hunters hammered the competition for the Tabletop Wargame of the Year, with only A Distant Plain, even garnering double digits as A Distant Second. The Ogre Designer Edition brought up the third place tail.
Competition in the Tabletop Strategy Game of the Year was a little more heated, with the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game narrowly edging out the much-anticipated Firefly Board Game to take the title. Eldritch Horror nailed down third place. Continue reading
as always, click images to enlarge
In Part 19 we saw Oberto defeat the pitiful armies of the Duchess of Amalfi, watched the Duchies of Capua and Genoa go up for grabs, and witnessed the King of Sicily lose to the Muslims, thus weakening his realm. In Part 20 Oberto employs the most efficient Chancellor in the Kingdom – ever, gets told off by the Emperor, and realises the errors of his kindness.
Its official, Oberto gets to don the Golden band of Power in all his state photos. Death to the Count, long live the Duke (we get a fancy new flag too)
Oberto considers stripping Carla of her title, but too many vassals will get grumpy, and having just adopted them, now is not the time