Tom & Easy’s Play by Play: Zephon
Although I often think about going back to play Brian Reynold’s Alpha Centauri, lo, these many years later, I’m not sure I could. There are probably too many issues that would bother me. I probably wouldn’t be able to enjoy it the way I did way back in 1999. My rose-colored lenses might cloud over and fog up. Fortunately, I don’t need to replay Alpha Centauri because Proxy Studios has made Zephon.
Proxy is the studio who breathed new life into the Warhammer universe with Gladius, a canny fusion of real time strategy with turn-based grand strategy (read the review here). It was further elevated by the writing, if you cared to read it. Proxy’s Zephon carries forward both elements — the unique design and the evocative writing — but minus the trappings of the Warhammer IP, which no game needs and too many have. Instead, Proxy has imagined their own ambitious setting, in which Earth is alien invaded, an apocalypse happens, and unique factions dig themselves out of the requisite post-apocalyptic rubble. It’s a crazy melange of Alpha Centauri-esque factions and unique leaders, a Skynet-style rogue AI, a pissed-off lady Mad Max, and a peacenik alien spewing magical fungus around the map. And it works. Oh boy, does it work!
Of course, it doesn’t literally replace Alpha Centauri. The vivid personality of Firaxis’ seminal game exists independent of its design, at least in my memory and imagination. But that’s partly my point about Zephon: it’s not just a great design, it’s got personality. The kind of personality that simply doesn’t exist in many (any?) grand strategy games. I adore Old World, with its triple-layed approach to history, which engages my imagination in unique ways. But it doesn’t paint wildly imaginative pictures like Zephon, where the sci-fi world-building shows me things I never would have dreamed of, where monsters and ghosts and robots and dragons crawl among the ruins, where the interaction among the factions spins out a compelling sci-fi soap opera, where every game’s gotterdammerung is a thundering climax.
So I’m going to play it and write about it over the next several weeks, but I’m not going to do it alone. A friend named Jeff, who posts on the forum as “easytarget”, has been writing in-depth after-action reports of strategy games for the forum. Inspired by his threads, I approached him about collaborating. He and I posted parallel playthroughs of a historical strategy game called Imperiums: Greek Wars back in February, the idea being that we’d start from the same point and see how our games diverged. It was a way to examine the design as a sort of “dual multiverse”: here’s how the same game can move in similar but different directions. Here is an immediate example of replayability, where one player tries one thing while another tries another thing. Here are two examples of What Can Happen.
We had a great time, and we resolved to do it again. So here we are with Zephon, and even after this is done and dusted, our intent is for this to be an ongoing thing. To that end, we even came up with a name: Tom & Easy’s Play by Play. Okay, credit where credit’s due: Jeff’s wife came up with that. We both love how it rolls off the tongue, how it sounds like it could be an old timey jazz band or a traveling minstrel show. I’m seeing a circus font, written on a big red curtain hanging in front of a stage in 1930. Imagine the image at the top of this post, but made by someone with a talent for that sort of thing!
So, we hereby raise the curtain on the debut of Tom & Easy’s Play by Play, beginning with Zephon, a game we both love. We intend to each write two alternating updates a week, covering 15 turns of gameplay, seeing it through to our respective bitter or triumphant ends. Jeff will be posting his updates in the thread below on Tuesdays and Fridays, and I’ll be posting mine on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Give or take. As befits any old timey jazz band, traveling minstrel show, or ongoing AAR, we might get a little loosey-goosey with the scheduling. Stay tuned for Jeff’s initial post tomorrw. We hope you enjoy it!
Turns 1-15
Easytarget: Beginnings are exciting
Tom: I. Slow and Steady
Turns 16-30
Easytarget: Enforcers hot on the trail
Tom: II. Operation Neighborhood Watch
Turns 31-45
Easytarget: A reconnaissance in force
Tom: Northern Shenanigans
Turns 46-60
Easytarget: Events steering the campaign
Tom: Battle for Alphaville
Turns 61-75
Easytarget: Faster city growth
Tom: The Battle of Six Armies
Turns 76-90:
Easytarget: Not looking good for the Anchorite
Turns 91-108:
Easytarget: The End Times arrive
Turns 109+
Easytarget: Final report
