Tag: turn-based strategy

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Chaos Reborn, from the maker of X-COM, is playable now

Chaos Reborn, the latest entry into the tactical turn-based strategy genre from Julian Gollop, creator of the X-COM series, is now available for early access Steam. The current lineup of features in this boardgame-meets-Magic: The Gathering title is austere, as only online multiplayer is available. However, each of the modes not yet unlocked show a text explanation, with one glimpse highlighting possibly the game’s most interesting feature. While players start as a lowly apprentice wizard, through hard work and effort, they can attain the first social rank, “Wizard Lord.” From there, they can ascend further by collecting “artefacts,” winning multiplayer…
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Mighty Tactical Shooter; the lovechild of shooters and tactics and might

We don’t know how a 3-way lovechild works but just trust us on that.  The idea is that this strange, beautiful creature inhabits the shell of an old-school shooter in the time-tested tradition of Gradius and R-Type, two games you can see shades of here. But, then there comes the part where time freezes and you enter commands from two cones anchored to your spaceship and a hexagonal grid overlaying the map. Yes, it is that rad. And then there’s a bunch of variables at work involving gravity fields and bullet trajectory and physic-y stuff. It would take some learning…
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Jeopardy! knave Arthur Chu meets his match: bad ’80s hair metal

The Jeopardy! prodigy Arthur Chu, who bent the rules but did not break them, has had his win streak snapped at 11 games. A particularly lousy night answering trivia landed him in 3rd place in the final round, with little to no chance for shenanigans. Judging from the list of questions Chu got wrong, apparently pop music, the Spanish Inquisition, and contagious diseases aren’t his forte. “In this 1988 hit, Poison lamented that every rose has one of these.” Even I know that one.   When I wrote about Chu a month ago, he was riding high, employing a devious strategy…
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The creator of XCOM has a new strategy RPG and it sounds spectacular

Back in the 90s, Julian Gollop created a little property called XCOM, easily only one of the most influential strategy games ever. So it’s worth paying attention to his upcoming strategic fantasy Chaos Reborn, which is about to hit Kickstarter, and promises to be an absorbing, hexagonal, and beautiful turn-based affair.  If not, maybe the wizards will convince you. Yes, wizards—those long-bearded, robe-wearing men of the crystal talisman. While you may be thinking that sounds like typical Tolkienesque stock, the differentiator here is that wizardry isn’t a tired aesthetic but a deep, mechanical obsession. As you can read about in…