{"id":27111,"date":"2013-10-22T11:38:03","date_gmt":"2013-10-22T18:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/?p=27111"},"modified":"2013-10-22T11:38:03","modified_gmt":"2013-10-22T18:38:03","slug":"battle-bulge-pocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2013\/10\/22\/battle-bulge-pocket\/","title":{"rendered":"Is that a Battle of the Bulge in your pocket?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>See that? If you&#8217;ve played Battle of the Bulge by Shenandoah Studios before on the iPad, that screenshot might seem a little odd. You might not be able to put your finger on exactly what is different. The combat boxes don&#8217;t look like that, do they? Sure, they are clean, well designed, and a model for conveying information to the player in a stylish and meaningful way. But did they patch the game or something? Well, yes they did.<\/p>\n<p>Battle of the Bulge was a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2012\/12\/28\/john-butterfields-battle-of-the-bulge-rejuvenates-an-old-rogue\/\">revelation<\/a> in wargaming when it came out just about ten months ago, but it was restricted to the iPad. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shenandoah-studio.com\/battle-bulge-2\/\">new<\/a> Battle of the Bulge 2.0, which you can just call Pocket Bulge, adds support for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It also demonstrates that Shenandoah is capable of getting every bit of efficiency possible out of a small screen. It bodes well for their future designs, and because I&#8217;ve been playing a lot of their upcoming game Drive on Moscow, I can tell you (spoiler!) that the lessons Shenandoah is learning about optimizing their interfaces are being well applied to future products.<\/p>\n<p>Bulge plays pretty well on the iPhone, which actually surprised me, because after playing it on the iPad, I couldn&#8217;t really imagine it getting much smaller. Shenandoah is designing their new Gettysburg game with the iPhone in mind from the start, which I have to admit worried me at first. The way in which Shenandoah was able to adapt Bulge to the much smaller form factor gives me some reassurance. Shenandoah is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shenandoah-studio.com\/pockettournament\/\">sponsoring <\/a>a tournament befitting a pocket-sized Bulge, using the pocket-sized Race to the Meuse scenario. As of this writing there are a few spots left. And if you go to the in-app purchases, you will find a free Player&#8217;s Guide* to help you with strategy, as well as a design guide describing the game&#8217;s development which &#8212; if you&#8217;re interested in game design &#8212; I have to say will be some of the best $2.99 you ever spent. And it&#8217;s on sale for $5.99 until October 24th.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve spent a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2013\/01\/10\/playing-the-odds-in-battle-of-the-bulges-bastogne-conundrum\/\">lot<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2013\/01\/28\/whats-the-deal-with-eupen-in-battle-of-the-bulge\/\">time <\/a>writing and thinking about Battle of the Bulge. And I&#8217;ve also spent a lot of time and energy thinking about and playtesting Shenandoah&#8217;s upcoming El Alamein and Drive on Moscow games. So when it comes to impartial observers, you probably need to take me off that list, although given my voluminous (internal) comments during the playtest, I still like to think I can tell the difference between good and bad ideas and implementation when I see them. But for the most part, I think that Shenandoah has got a lot of things going right now regarding traditional wargame design that are exciting to anyone who enjoys this type of game. What I&#8217;m trying to say is that if you&#8217;re following the future of wargame development, you should probably be following the progress of Shenandoah Studio.<\/p>\n<h6>*Full disclosure: I contributed to the Player&#8217;s Guide, so you&#8217;ll be reading some of my strategy tips. For free, though, so you don&#8217;t get any money back if you read them and lose anyway.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>See that? If you&#8217;ve played Battle of the Bulge by Shenandoah Studios before on the iPad, that screenshot might seem a little odd. You might not be able to put your finger on exactly what is different. The combat boxes don&#8217;t look like that, do they? Sure, they are clean, well designed, and a model [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1656,"featured_media":27112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is that a Battle of the Bulge in your pocket? - Quarter to Three<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2013\/10\/22\/battle-bulge-pocket\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is that a Battle of the Bulge in your pocket? - Quarter to Three\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"See that? If you&#8217;ve played Battle of the Bulge by Shenandoah Studios before on the iPad, that screenshot might seem a little odd. You might not be able to put your finger on exactly what is different. The combat boxes don&#8217;t look like that, do they? 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