Tom Chick

Planetfall: going fishing, losing touch with reality, and watching sports
, | Game diaries

Psi-Fish owned sectors are Abundant!  Psi-Fish make more Demands! Psi-Fish start at War with you!

So said the intel briefing for Angelus, a planet supposedly lousy with psionic extradimensional fish.  These fish have breached our dimension, bringing with them Void storms and deposits of cosmite.  Our empire’s Penumbra faction wants us to wipe out two Psi-Fish dwellings.  At which point, I’ve confirmed that we can declare “mission accomplished” and pack it in.  This isn’t going to be like the hopperhound fiasco on Virginia, where I ended up having to burn the whole planet because I misinterpreted my orders.  Which happens.  You can’t make an empire without burning a few planets.  But now we’re here to do a job and then call it a day, which will secure the Void Lure for our empire, which will let us recruit Psi-Fish during later missions.  “Capable Pets,” the Psynumbra told us when they named the mission.

So where are all the Psi-Fish at?

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Planetfall: Suppose they gave a doomsday and nobody came?
, | Game diaries

By order of the Wasila Combine — heck, let’s go ahead and make this a religious thing as well — and by the will of the Promethean god, we’re going to uncork our PyrX refineries (pictured) to flood the atmosphere with toxic gas.  Actually, I’m not sure if there’s a Promethean god.  It seems like there would be a Promethean god.  Or at least an ancient civilization that worshipped some god.  Whatever the theology or lack thereof, we’re erasing all life on the planet from within the safety of our own territory.  This will require a lot less micromanagement than doing it with armies.

500 energy and 50 operational points later — Planetary Purification ain’t cheap — it’s a doomsday party and everyone is invited!

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Planetfall: we need to talk about the M-word
, | Game diaries

I’m occasionally surprised to hear people who play sci-fi strategy games complain that they don’t want to build their own ships.  Since Master of Orion, this has been a fundamental part of the genre.  It was the cornerstone of warfare in Brian Reynold’s Alpha Centauri.  But it’s especially important in a strategy game that emphasizes tactical combat.  And being an Age of Wonders game, Planetfall emphasizes tactical combat.  In fact, I’d argue it’s a shell for tactical combat.  If you just want to scooch armies around a map and plop buildings into your cities, there are other games better suited to your preferences.  Planetfall, like developer Triumph Studios’ previous games, is for people who want to play detailed tactical battles set in the larger context of a 4X.  Some designers rightly understand that tactical combat can interfere with the flow of a grand strategy game.  But those designers didn’t make Planetfall.  People who love tactical combat made Planetfall.

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Planetfall: Jewal Gruvich and the Virginia Cull
, | Game diaries

In the years since Civilization VI was released by Firaxis, you could say it’s gotten a ton of post-release support.  If you consider “support” adding stuff rather than fixing things that don’t work.  The process has been fascinating.  Rather than adjust the design or the AI to make a game that actually works, Firaxis has instead piled up increasingly absurd ways to play, with no regard for balance, tuning, or even the principles of good game design.  Civilization VI has become a ridiculous, slapdash, and profoundly idiotic sandbox.  One of the folks on this site’s forum called it “Goat Simulator for 4X games.”  

And given that every Civilization since IV appeals to people who don’t care whether the AI can play the design, it’s a pitch-perfect approach.  I suspect it’s done very well for Firaxis.  They’ve correctly identified their target audience and they’ve given them what they want.

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing another 4X with pitch-perfect post-release support that includes perhaps the most dramatic change I’ve seen applied to a strategy game, short of a total conversion mod.  Age of Wonders: Planetfall was given a free update last November that introduced Galactic Empire mode.  It’s nothing short of revolutionary and as a result, Planetfall is now the definitive expression of Dune.  

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Do you know there are known unknowns in epidemic management game Raxxon?
, | Game reviews

When it comes to gaming the spread of infectious disease, everyone loves Matt Leacock’s Pandemic.  Not me.  I think it does a terrible job of modeling the outbreak, spread, and containment of an epidemic.  It’s all gamey abstraction loosely held together by a strained disease motif that makes no sense.  It’s not even a very good design.  It speaks volumes about Pandemic that for all its iterations — diseases, dikes, empires, cultists — the best version of Leacock’s design is about puppets and plastic models.

But then there’s Raxxon.

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Project Cars 3: forget it, Jake
, | Game diaries

The current weekly event in rivals mode encapsulates everything that’s right and everything that’s wrong with Project Cars 3.  It is Slightly Mad Studio’s genius and failing played out in a single lap.  It is simultaneously why I play Project Cars 3 and why I shake my head sadly so often as I’m playing it.

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Project Cars 3: new or used?
, | Game diaries

The career progression in most racing games is linear.  You start out with pokey road cars and gradually unlock events for increasingly powerful cars.  One day, you’ll get to hypercars and supercars and formula racers and various other Batmobile iterations.  But Project Cars 3 wants you to freely sample its wares.  So its career progression is a tree instead of a power curve.  A veritable jungle gym.

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