Wartime

Wartime is a two-player space-time warfare game for players of all ages and hairstyles. You can play it by clicking the links below. The browser version requires Unity Webplayer, but all versions require another human being.

Download Wartime for Windows

Play Wartime in your browser

Download Wartime for Macintosh

 
Wartime was made in… 7 days? It was supposed to be made in 7 days, but free time is hard to find these days. Just like Super Nirvana Xtreme, it was made for the Experimental Gameplay Project. The theme of August and September was Time Manipulation, meaning that the game of course features the sci-fi staple of time travel.

This game was very fun to make, and I wish I had more time to do balancing (and a proper menu). I was already familiar with Unity before, but decided to use it anyway to try out an input recording plugin. That I threw out because it was not deterministic enough, and wrote my own instead. Anyway, 3D is pretty nice. I hope you have fun.

Teaching board games

Board game evening. You have invited a few of your friends to play the latest game, fresh off the counter at your local game store. Tonight is the night; the end of a months of hype and waiting. You have read through the rules feverishly, all that remains is explaining the rules to your fellow players. You start going through the rules in a well-ordered and structured way. Still, it is not long until you get attacked by questions: “How do I do this?”, “What does this thing do?”. People start zoning out, or having tower-building competitions with the game components. With great patience and perseverance, you explain all the rules. Finally, you can start playing. Not too long into the game, you execute a brilliant strategic move. All should be in awe of your wit and intelligence, seeing the game played by an expert such as yourself.

“Wait, what? You can do that?!”, says one of the other players. The words hit you like a bag of bricks to the face.

So, what went wrong? I have explained the rules of quite a few games, to players of varying levels of board game literacy. And it is hard. Even so, I have compiled a few tips and tricks to help avoid some of the problems of a poorly explained game. As I compiled this list, I also made some parallels to video game tutorials, but I will save those thoughts for later.

The calm before the storm.