The Glade 4.0

Starting a thread, because nobody's talking about it here.

So there's a new game upcoming that is a pretty intriguing entry into the strategy genre. It's a tactical squad combat game, and turn-based. But the turns are executed simultaneously, in real time. It's currently in beta, and in a format familiar to many MMO vets, if you pre-order the game, they grant you immediate access to the beta, as well. The game's already well-featured, and is definitely in a playable state.

There are 5 types of squad members, based on their weapons. Machine gunners, who are kind of the baseline; shotgunners, who are quicker to react and fire, but have very short range; snipers; rocket launchers, who can destroy walls and cover; and grenadiers, who can perform bank shots with their short range explosives.

During the planning phase of each turn, you assign orders to each of your squad members, using a system of waypoints and a variety of other orders which allow you to direct your squad to aim in a direction other than the one they're moving, add pauses or delays mid-turn, focus on or ignore specific enemies, ignore all enemies on sight in order to keep moving, and other actions.

There's no randomization once the game starts. Who-shoots-who is determined by how quickly they're moving, what kind of cover they have, who sees whom first and whether they're facing the right direction, etc. So every game is repeatable based on a given set of orders, with no variation. So it all comes down to the orders you give, and how well you both plan and direct your own team, as well as how well you anticipate the other player's orders.

In what I consider a pretty classic indy fashion, the graphics are minimalist but polished and informative. It uses a kind of wireframe style for the environment, and simple mono-color sprites for units. The stylistic message is clear -- it's all about the gameplay, and pitting you against your opponent with as little distraction as possible.

Because of the turn-based nature of the game, it supports asynchronous play. You can play multiple games simultaneously, switching between them as your opponents submit their turns' orders. In an hour or so of play so far, I find I can keep up with 2 games at once well enough. In addition, since the turns are submitted server-side, it appears that the game will support almost a PBEM feel just fine, where players can log in to submit a turn at their leisure if they don't mind stretching a game out over a longer period of time. Might make it a good way to play with board members, if anybody else gets into it.

The game supports directly uploading the final match results to YouTube, which I tested out on my first game with my step-brother. Both of us were essentially fresh out of the tutorial, and the game took about 15 minutes to play with us hemming and hawing over our decisions and fidgeting with the still-unfamiliar interface. As you can see, in terms of how many moves are made, it tends to be a very short game. This isn't a Civilization when it comes to turn-based strategy multiplayer. It feels more like multiplayer matches in an FPS like Counter-Strike or Rainbow Six in terms of match length, perhaps appropriately. However, since each turn is 5 seconds of real-time action, the firefights tend to be over in much less than a minute.



I'm really rather smitten with the promise of this game. When I read about it in PC Gamer, it caught my interest. When RockPaperShotgun previewed it glowingly, and pointed out it's got a 30% discount off it's already tantalizing $26 price tag (which includes a copy to send to a friend!), I jumped at it. Splitting this game to make it nine bucks and change was definitely money well spent. I'm a big fan of strategy games, but get bored with resource collection and building armies. So anything where I can get thrown in with a fixed squad and told to make the best of it scratches my itch perfectly.

I'm kaffis on their matchmaking system. I'm unsure whether they'll be integrating into Steam's matchmaking later, or whether they're just using it as a distribution platform. Lemme know if any of you decide to give it a try.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Another game. This one took me about 6 minutes to play, I think. This one amused me because it highlights how weird a game with a lot of rocketeers can be. They're not my prime choice for killing; they're much better providing support by opening up line of sight to good cover positions for your machine gunners, snipers, and providing unexpected breaching opportunities for shotgunners.

I'm pretty sure the enemy rocketeer fired while ducking, is why he blew himself up behind the cover.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

For sale on Steam. Actually, on sale, too. $20 gets you two copies, I think at the end of the weekend, it goes back up to $25 or $26.

Find a buddy, and drop a dime each on it. It's totally worth it.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Demo now available. Steam's offering 50% off through Monday.

Try it, people!

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Due to some weird happenstance ... I own this game and have yet to play it. You should also yell at DFK

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Oh. He's not interested. So ignore my request, and gift your other copy to a friend.

Also, start a game up with me. I get email updates for new turns, so I'll submit a turn when I get home, etc. There's a reason it's awesome this game supports asynchronous play.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Looks cool. DLed the demo and will have to give it a try.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.