Quick Strategy Games
I'm as much a fan of good strategy games as I am of RPGs (in fact, that may explain why I have a greater attraction to more cerebral or turn-based RPGs than other kinds). I have a weakness for Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games - as my wife can probably attest, during the last two weeks of crunch mode at the Day Job, I found it very hard to jump right back into working on game development at night, and found myself either playing a flight sim or an RTS (or watching a video) when I got home.

I'm already anticipating lost productivity when Supreme Commander comes out next week.

Sometimes all I need is a "quick fix" - a little dose of exercising decision-making skills (hunting down a human opponent can be too taxing when I'm in one of THOSE moods) and I can get back to what I need to do (like writing a blog entry, or finishing my darn game!). I need an entire game which can be completed in just a few minutes. What are the options?

I can suggest a few. Of course, being who I am, I'm gonna recommend some good indie games. There are a ton of them out there, and I've only played a few, but here's what comes to mind:

FastCrawl is actually more of a roguelike RPG, but it is designed (on the quickest settings) to be playable from start-to-finish in less than twenty minutes. Like many other RPGs, the strategies include party formation against opponents, target selection, and resource management.

Slay is one of the best, quick (well, for "very small" islands) strategy games I've ever played. It boils down the concept of a wargame to its barest essentials. The graphics are almost ludicrously simple (it was originally designed to run on PDA's, IIRC), the game rules are likewise few and easy to understand. There is no randomness except for the AI's moves. Yet the game is very addictive and involving.

Empires and Dungeons is a "Strategy RPG" that's more like a boardgame. The strategy elements aren't exactly Chess, but there's the usual risk- and resource-management common to most RPGs. Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. The larger scenarios against three opponent knights can sometimes take a little while, but against fewer opponents a game can take as little as fifteen minutes.

For traditional strategy board games, there's the popular Internet Go Server on PandaNet for playing the ancient strategy game of Go against live opponents. Go is notoriously hard for AI to handle, but if you download the OpenGL Client, you can hook it into GNU GO for a pretty tough opponent against a beginner. Choose a smaller board for a quicker strategy fix - a full 19 x 19 board can take a while. Go has relatively simple rules, but the complexity is in the implementation and understanding how they are coming into play. And the AI Go player kicks my butt, unless I go for the easiest setting AND crank my handicap up. Unfortunately, it also gets kind of predictable, which is how I can beat it even on the "lamer" settings.

Styrateg is more strategy-oriented than E&S, much more of a turn-based wargame (with levels, loot, and stores where you can buy things). Again, nothing resembling hardcore strategy. It's still at only $12.95, so it's cheap. The game itself might take a while to complete, but each scenario is pretty short.

Flash Element Turret Defense is free, addictive, and a lot of fun. To be honest, I'm not really sure how long the full game takes to play... I THINK it can be fully played within about 20 minutes, but it's one of those games where you lose your perception of time while playing. That's just a LOT of creeps marching around the screen!

Outpost Kaloki offers some "Tycoon" management-style gameplay, and most of the scenarios are also pretty short. If you are done with the story mode, there are some stand-along scenarios to try out. And hey, it's only one of the Coolest Games Evar!

I've only played a little bit of Age of Castles - I wouldn't consider it to be an incredibly quick strategy game, but it is easily played in smaller increments. It's casual, non-intensive, and amusing (kinda like Empires & Dungeons, though I prefer the more direct approach of the latter game).

I haven't played Laser Squad Nemesis yet. I should be ashamed, but I haven't. It's primarily a multiplayer game, but apparently it has a single-player campaign. However, it's an indie game by the Gallop brothers --- the same guys who brought us X-Com (or UFO: Enemy Unknown in the UK). I keep telling myself that I've GOT to try this one out.

Master of Defense is another "Tower Defense" game, done indie-style with 3D graphics. This unfortunately suffers from scenarios which can get a little long with only very short breaks between waves of bad guys. However, unlike an RTS game, you'll never have to worry about the scenarios going into overtime in a stalemate situation. The monsters keep coming, and you either deal with them, or lose all your villagers. I don't think I've gotten good enough at this game yet to really appreciate it - it has very different strategies, from, say, Flash Element TD --- showing how different "tower defense" game really can be from each other.

The danger of these "quick" games is that since they are (somewhat) fast strategy games, it's very easy to play "one more game" - over and over again - and watch your entire evening dissapear.

Anyway, there's what I came up with. I'm sure I'm leaving a few out. What are some good ones that I'm missing? Any good "quick strategy games" out there that can be played to some level of completion (the end of a scenario or whatnot) in no more than 20 or 30 minutes?

(Vaguely) Related Junk
* New Game: Empires & Dungeons
* Design: Picking Apart Flash Element TD
* Game For the Weekend: Styrateg
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Labels: Free Games, Game Announcements, Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:03 AM (Permalink)