Week 5

Game Review(s)

-          Pocket Tanks

Pocket Tanks is a turn-based strategy war game with a maximum of 2 players. But what makes it special are the ever-expanding packs of weapons that do weird and wonderful things. Ever blown up half the map with a single shot? Ever made water spout from the ground in a fountain-like fashion? Have you EVER shot through a mountain to hit your opponent? If you answered no to any of those questions, then Pocket Tanks is the game for you!

The game is controlled via the mouse, for navigating menus, buying weapons, and controlling your tank as you battle against the computer opponent. Controls include move, weapon selection, changing the power of your shot, changing the angle of your barrel, and fire. All these controls are characteristic to most 2d side-to-side shooters (for lack of a better genre description).

The theme is war, one tank versus the other, in a desperate struggle to gain the most points through expert marksmanship, while simultaneously preventing their respective opponents from gaining points. This battle takes place in a limited space that can either be flat, a mountain, a plateau, or a valley, all of which is entirely destructible. Hitting your opponent with weapons will gain you points, and hitting yourself will you lose you points, and believe me, it’s easier to hit oneself with a weapon than one might think. The player with the most points at the end of the game after exhausting all of their weapons is declared the winner, and the player is prompted to play again, or quit the game.

Alongside the fun and challenging gameplay, the arena is bathed in a beautifully relaxing, but at the same time tense soundtrack, and a true testament to a complete gaming experience.

-           Total Annihilation

Now THIS is a game

Total Annihilation was the ultimate RTS (real time strategy) game of its time, and is an extremely enjoyable experience still to this day. Control vast armies of tactical bots and vehicles, lighting fast aircraft, punch-packing artillery, fleets of ships and submarines, and the all powerful Commander.

This is, undoubtedly, one of my favourite games of all time, and the best RTS I’ve ever played. Controlled via both the mouse and keyboard, the game mechanics involve examination of the environment, creation and movement of units, and the construction of structures for various purposes. It also sports some of the greatest soundtracks of any RTS (in fact, any) game on the market, courtesy of the extremely talented composer, Jeremy Soule.

Total annihilation’s theme is that of a futuristic conquest real time strategy game, where the Arm battle against the Core armies for complete dominance. The game play is similar to the popular Age of Empires games of the same genre, with both storyline and death match play modes. There is a multitude of maps to play the game on, maps that are themed according to the different planets that the armies battle on, ranging from lush, green, and Earth-like, to dry and desolate wasteland planets, to planets made entirely of metal!

The game offers an engaging bird’s-eye-view of the battlefield, with the option to toggle limited sight for increased mystery in gameplay (also like Age of Empires), and the point of gameplay varies depending on which mode you play in. Death matches are simple, destroy the enemy’s Commander, or LEAVE NO ONE ALIVE, the latter usually being the more fun of the two. Story mode is a bit more challenging, as both you and your enemy will begin with units already out, the enemy, usually having the upper hand. The player eventually progresses to the enemy’s home world for one final battle for universal dominance. But in either mode, there are various degrees of unpredictability. No two games are ever the same, even on the same map. Not being able to see your opponents out of range of sight makes it even more difficult.

Narrative of Total Annihilation, and I quote:

“What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines, escalated into a war that a decimated a million worlds. The Core and the Arm have all but exhausted the recourses of a galaxy in their struggle for domination. Both sides, now crippled beyond repair, the remanents of their armies continue to battle on ravaged planets, their hatred fuelled by over four thousand years of total war. This is a fight to the death, for each side, the only acceptable outcome... is the complete elimination of the other.”  

Game Design

This instalment of the journal is a follow up from Week 4, anything listed here is subject to massive change. It will also most likely replace and/or merge with our existing territorial acquisition game.

After adding the chance card locations and playtesting the game, we have found it to play out successfully, with a winner being declared every time. We also made the following changes:

-          ID card only needed to finish the game, not location access

-          Turned all possible positive/negative chance spaces into chance cards in a deck

o   When a player lands on a chance space (constant location on the game board) they draw a card from the deck and its effect comes into play

-          Players must roll a 1, 3 or 6 on the die to find their ID card when on a university location

-          Players cannot backtrack on the same route

o   But, you can when leaving a university location