Slashdot Mirror

I sure don't have high hopes for this one. At least the tv-series has a small chance of getting the characters and drama right. [Assuming the networks don't decide to remove the incest and childkilling, and so on.] But I highly doubt videogame developers are going to focus on anything but violence, violence, violence with this. Doing anything else is going to require some thought, effort, and risk-taking as the primary draw of ASOIAF has much more to do with character interactions and political intrigue than straight up and up killing things.

It'll probably end up similar to the three hack n' slash Lord of the Rings games on the Xbox - Gameplay might be fun, but you could remove the setting entirely and not make a difference. Personally, I think the best style for this game would be something more akin to King of Dragon Pass.

Don't forget HeroQuest, the latest fantasy RPG set in the extraordinarily detailed world of Glorantha. Wily old veterans may remember RuneQuest, the first Gloranthan RPG (circa 1978 - 1995) and perhaps the closest rival to D&D/AD&D in the early days of role-playing. Others may have tried the A Sharp's Gloranthan computer game King of Dragon Pass.

I'm an old RPGer and I'm playing my first HeroQuest PBEM (play by email) campaign. Frankly I think Glorantha is a blast. Jaded role-players ought to give it a once-over.

King of Dragon pass http://www.a-sharp.com/kodp/ is a game based on the imaginary world of Glorantha http://www.glorantha.com/ in which a lot of religion/religious practice is taking place: sacrifices to gods, re-enacting of myths (heroquests). Moreover it is a pretty good game, ait focuses more on story than on technical achievements, and the images (hand painted) are beautifull. It is very hard to describe this atypical game. Give it a try.
(note that I endorsing this game just because I like it, I am not related in any way to the makers
of that game)

Some of these may be from this year, but since they're from smaller companies don't get that much publicity they're easy to overlook.

Malfador's Space Empires IV (Gold version due in February or so, but the original is darn good), published by Shrapnel. It's a 4X space game, and focuses very heavily on depth and customizability versus flash. Want to replace the tech tree wholesale? Customize your race to be lousy at combat, but rake in the resources and trade? Create a system type featuring unusually powerful black holes? You can, if you like. It's been out for a while, but the publisher and developer are still supporting it.

Illwinter's "Dominions" is a fantasy 4X, that some have compared to Master of Magic. Ritual magic, combat spells, item construction, combat formations, god customization, 14 very different (not mirror-image...) races to choose from... Also still in active development -- e.g. I've gotten helpful responses regarding bugs and questions sent via e-mail, and they're still patching to fix bugs and add features.

Battlefront's "Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord" is fairly old -- "CM: Barbarossa to Berlin" might be out sometime next year -- but still very good for 3D WWII tactical (up to Battalion-sized, say) warfare, with a nice WEGO system. It's very, very detailed, although you don't really have to memorize armor slopes... CMBO is not in active development anymore since they've been busy on the sequel, but the forum community is still active.

All three of the above support both solo- and multiple players (CMBO only two at a time, Dominions 14, SE4 not sure what the limit is if there is one).

There's also A-Sharp's "King of Dragon Pass", which seems intriguing. I can't comment on this too much since I've only seen the demo, but a (the?) dev has been spotted on USENET answering questions about it occasionally. It might be of interest to Runequest/Glorantha fans in particular.

The demo reminded me vaguely of the old Hammurabi decision-making game, if for some reason anybody remembers that (e.g. "101 BASIC Computer Games"). Of course, this one is FAR more complicated...

Just as with movies, television, board games, books, or any other form of entertainment, any attempt on the part of the "creatives" (writers, artists, programmers, et. al.) to define some sort of spectrum of acceptability is doomed to failure.

One, the creatives don't hold the purse strings, and the marketing people and various VPs of this and that are really the ones in control.

Two, even if the creatives did have control and could stipulate exactly how their games are developed and what hardware/software they're targeted for, the artificiality of a set of deterministic rules for the act of creating entertainment is doomed to fail.

I could see these rules being applied, but in a different way. If the VPs actually grokked the concept, some bold company might actually decide to go after a broader slice of the market by deliberately aiming their games at a stable platform that wouldn't require constant hardware and OS upgrades.

The bottom line is always money, and the folks who hold the pursestrings will only agree to change their habits when it offers them the promise of increased profits.

Don't get disheartened, though. Creativity has a way of seeping past constraints. For example, if you haven't seen it yet, check out A-Sharp's King of Dragon Pass, which is an excellent example of innovation in gaming.

The best way to encourage innovation in gaming is to vote with your pocketbooks, because that's what the game companies will understand.