Game Announcement: Battle of the Sands

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 5, 2013

As long-time readers are very familiar, I’m a big fan of Knights of the Chalice, by Heroic Fantasy Games. Often my favorite games are the ones that I dismissed and sorta ignored during development.  Then when it released, I heard what people were saying about it, played the demo, and then bought the game all in the same day.  And I was hooked.  I consider it one of the “must play” indie RPGs out there. I’ve been anxiously awaiting a sequel, and to be fair I was somewhat disappointed to learn that the developer was making a real-time strategy game prior to the sequel.

Now, I should confess here that I am an RTS fan, too. If you go back along the list of games that I’ve put the most number of hours into, you’ll find that RTS games tend to top the list. One of my favorites of 1992 was a game called Siege, by Mindcraft (coincidentally, also a game that would later be called an “RTS” produced by a company best known for its RPGs). So I don’t have anything against RTS games. It’s just that I was hungry for more Knights of the Chalice…

Anyway, the good news is that the Heroic Fantasy Games RTS, Battle of the Sands, is now out!

Battle of the Sands

The game is rooted in older, simpler titles, like Dune 2000.  While I haven’t played much, it does feel like more of a “pure” RTS. In effect, it feels like Craig Stern’s approach to tactics RPGs – it’s far more deterministic and straightforward, and beating the AI feels a little like solving a puzzle, or playing a game of chess. There’s more to it than that, of course.

As in KotC, the AI seems to be pretty brutally efficient.

Anyway, again, from what I’ve played, it seems like it’s one of those games that’s pretty easy to learn (unless there’s a lot more to it than I’ve seen), but challenging to master. That’s how it’s supposed to be, right?  The demo is free to check out for yourself, which you can get from the link above.

Have fun!

 

 

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