I was on holiday last week enjoying the Normandy countryside with its rustic pace, cheap vin rouge and total absence of any computerised technology. As such, I return with a mere two relevant observations:
1) French supermarkets tend to stock a shitload of PC games, with at least as much shelf space as the PS3 and Xbox 360. In fact, the very first hypermarche I visited had a massive Starcraft 2 stand. A supermarket. This is heartening to see when even HMV, one of the UK’s largest high street digital entertainment retailers, no longer sells them in-store.
and 2) I have nothing to talk about in this week’s post.
Unless I can cobble something together using but the wisp of an idea. Perhaps if I hit the keys really hard when I type a decent article will emerge.
It relates to a board game I bought over there, this one:
Hellas is a game about warring Greek factions and their battle to control the archipelagos of ancient Greece. It involves two players (the girlfriend was delighted to oblige as my fearsome opponent; and by delighted I mean grudgingly willing to indulge me if it would mean I left her alone to read a book in the sun for a while) who must win by controlling 10 cities. Each city is represented by a hex and the game board is generated by randomly placing the hexes as the game progresses:
You can fight with your armies to capture your opponents cities or use ships to explore and place more hexes. (In my copy the idiot publishers had supplied two bags of ships and no bags of soldiers so I had to use those coloured bead things instead – French shopkeepers being as they are and flatly refusing refunds, especially to foreigners who lack the necessary linguist knowledge to persuade them otherwise by calling them unreasonable cunts in their mother tongue)
In addition there are bonuses supplied by the God cards which offer various advantages and make the game unpredictable and poker-like as you keep an eye on the cards your opponent has played and what may remain in the decks. In short, it’s a compelling little game providing about an hour’s frantic play in a delightfully compact package. It’s part of the Kosmos collection of intentionally simple two player games, and this got me thinking.
Why are there not more computer games that offer a similar level of entertainment for two or more players?
Unusual, cheap games tend to be synonymous with unplayability and bug infestations but if the developers were to concentrate on paired down graphics, a simple turn-based interface and above all a solid game mechanic then we could all be enjoying fun and interesting morsels; digital equivalents of the low price range little board games like Hellas. And like board games, you should be able to pick up a copy containing all you need to begin playing, namely another licence to give to your opponent and/or a hot-seating function.
If you think about a game like Frozen Synapse, it’s possible to see how a very simple idea can provide some excellent, low-commitment entertainment; Cyanide’s Blood Bowl shows that even a ropey computer game can be saved if it posses a substantial core mechanic. And with Ubi’s RUSE on the horizon, we see a game that operates in a very board-gamey way, with the RUSE cards resembling a characteristic board game device. Solium Infernum is essentially a board game – but we need titles that can provide as much quick fun as it does gruelling depth.
It’s wonderful that the PC can present spectacular and complex gaming experiences but I think there’s a huge market for simple games at a low price with manageable graphics and a compelling mechanic. With the prevalence of cheap, mid-spec computers and fast internet connections there should be a game out there for everyone. Walk into a decent board game shop and there will be: hundreds of little worlds within which to compete or co-operate, with an economy to the design that’s often missing from PC titles – and these are games that will work, both mechanically and technically; however unusual they may sound there’s little risk in the investment, unlike purchasing interesting, obscure PC games which ten to one will have something fundamentally wrong with them. As well as everything else the PC games industry embodies, it should basically be a massive board game shop, and at the moment I don’t think it is. Why?
There, I think I just about got away with it. Next week: substance.
Board games? Pfft. Shoddy net code, no in game tutorials, no single player campaign, keyboard support is crap, DRM is shocking – you need so much stuff to play, and no mute button for other players.
Yes, but they do offer photorealistic graphics and near perfect motion control.
I didn’t think you were a graphics and gimmicks type of guy. This explains a lot.