Armageddon Empires - an Indie tbs/card game hybrid.

[El_Cid]

Its a postapocalyptic tbs based around a card based system(like the old magic the gahtering series), with some rather excellent art work.

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=37115

The thread about it at QtT that I first found about it on.

http://www.crypticcomet.com/games/AE/armageddon_empires.html

The direct website for the game - you can download the demo here etc.

It's kind of a work in progress with the author keen to address some of the issues in the initial release. Most seem to be UI related rather than game play issues. It looks really good to my mind, the art is great and the concept very interesting imho.

Anyway as decent TBS games are hard to find I thought a few people here might be interested in having a look at it.

[El_Cid]

Just to say the author has updated the demo so it now has a 30 turn limit(used to be 20) and some cool new features.

It's still a work in progress, but a nearly complete one so it's worth keeping an eye on.

I had my first game as the machine empire yesterday(yeh i'm still with the demo, but very close to getting the full game), and it was great fun - they have some cool cards!

[El_Cid]

Did anyone try this? Care to share your thoughts?

[mactbone]

I really like it even though I've never played this kind of a board game or any kind of card games (consequently I suck at deck creation).

Apparently he sped up the dice rolls before I got it, but it still seems slow to me, especially when you're at the initiative roll with more than two factions - a decent amount of the time two of them tie and then it's a roll off.

For me I like a nice turn-based game that I can play for an hour or two and get what I want. I've played a couple massive games but recon isn't easy and moving massive armies across the map takes a while with the AP limits. Although, thinking about it now I probably should've just had more armies and converged them on any enemies I found.

I have seen that the guy who made it's got a nice blog and he's working on addressing issues but there are times I feel like he's a speaking to a specific community - do you know if there's some forum that he's active discussing the game?

BTW, this just confirms that it's not about "teh shinny" but about nice art direction for me. The units are easily identified and have detail and character - it's very nice.

[El_Cid]

Ref the site where he is discussing the game, that would be the quartertothree link I gave in my first post.

But be careful when going there, I've twice had my PC sabotaged after posting on that forum, so just 'lurk' if you do visit.

Also he has his own forums at the main website for the game, that might be a better place to discuss and post things about the game.

I'm not that experienced with deck building either, and it's why i was rubbish at the old magic the gathering pc game i think. Still the mechanic does work quite well, so after playing this game I think i could be a fan of these type of games.

And your right about the art direction over the need of heavy duty 3D. Good 2D art done well is imho, way more suited to a tbs type game. And the art in this game is perfect for the games apocalyptic theme.

The main issues still seem to be UI related, I think we have to click way too many buttons for each type of game action(combat in particular), but this is all stuff the author is aware of and seems to be addressing.

If i wasn't such a tight arse and also didn't have past experience of paying for a 'nearly' complete game, then I would have bought the full game after my first week of the demo.

Still as it is, even from my jaded viewpoint, this game does deserve serious attention. Here is a guy making a great game that isn't trying to shaft his customers, and for that he deserves some success.

If only the mainstream would employ these principles then who knows what amazing games we could be playing?

I'm looking forward to the outcome of this game and what it could be once the UI has been streamlined a bit more. It's very hard to know what i'm missing just by playing the demo, still i'm a tight arse like i said

[mactbone]

I did buy it - more because I was frustrated that I couldn't finish a game and I have disposable income than anything else.

It Alt-Tabs very easy and there's a Windowed Mode (I'm not sure if you can adjust it but it was 800x600) which is how I get through some of the more boring bits - just surf the interwebs while playing.

The AI needs some work but they can do a decent job. Always starting at the bottome of the map is another thing that should be addressed since I always know that the other factions are somewhere up north. I haven't checked but I don't think you can fight two of the same kind of faction. These are all small complaints though. For a 20 dollar DL and only 10 more to get a disk as well it's worth it. It probably won't drive you nuts but it's great to have a nice TB game to get into for a couple hours at a time.