Nice Panzer General-like Turn-Based Strategy

From Slovakian developer Lonely Troops comes a well-conceived turn-based wargame with something of the feel of the Panzer General series, but set on a Dune-like desert planet in the throes of an emerging war. It features a nicely intuitive interface (and a good tutorial to teach you to use it), well conceived missions, and good quality music. Fans of games like Massive Assault will find a lot to like here--and gamers who like thoughtful strategy rather than the frenetic action of the RTS will enjoy it, too.

Homage to Galagalonia

As George Orwell might have said but did not:

"What joy it was to be there in 1981, with the Revolution yet young! When one came straight from England the aspect of the arcade was bracing and startling. Attendants and gamers looked at you in the face and treated you as an equal. Nobody said 'Senor' or 'Don' or even 'Usted'; everyone called everyone 'Comrade' and 'Thou,' and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos dias'. From every machine blared the sounds and sights of this new revolution. I had come with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the game at once because in that atmosphere it seemed the only thing to do. Our training was cursory, almost comical in its ineptness, but soon I found myself on the front, commanding a small craft against the Fascist alien onslaught..."

It takes one minute to know why Wik & The Fable of Souls is an award winning game. It takes ten minutes to know you want this game. What you might not know is "Wik" has a large following. There is a game home page and a forum with tips and answers to any questions you might come up with. You can download the wonderful music to play independently of the game to add to your music library. There is even a "unsupported level editor" so you can add to your game. Not only that, there are others who have already played the game and you can download the master pack that allows you to extend your play. But, those are things that you might wait to do.

Venture Africa is a Hoot. Also a Roar and a Neigh.

Yes, Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa is a "tycoon" game--but quite different from others of the genre. The objective isn't to build a business, but a balanced ecosystem. For example, one level's objective is to have some number of lions in play--but to get that many, you have to build up your zebra population so there's enough prey to support your lions. And to support that many zebra, you need to plant enough bushes to sustain them.

Yet it also isn't a hard-core simulation in the style of Sim Life (and thank goodness); it's a simple, straightforward game with pleasantly animated African wildlife, and a tutorial system that anyone who can read (and this is a good game for kids) will find good and sufficient. Contrariwise, it's a tougher game to win, even on "Easy" setting, than most casual games (many of which can be won by a monkey clicking randomly).

Good abstract strategy games are very hard to design, because they depend at their core on a small number of easily learned mechanics that breed a high level of strategic complexity--think Chess and Go. Wu Hing is a nicely polished such game--reminiscent of the work of Sid Sackson and Alex Randolph (the finest American boardgame designers of the mid-20th century).

Wu Hing is played on a hexagonal grid; each player (you and the AI) has a "hand" of tiles, replenished as tiles are played. Each tile represents one of the five classic Chinese elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water). A mandala displayed at the upper left of the screen explains that each element can "create" one other element, and also "destroy" a different element. (Think of this as a variant on rock-paper-scissors, with five rather than three elements, and with two outcomes--"create" or "destroy" rather than a single one--"beats".)