Medieval

Maybe I´m tapping into something fundamental about the human animal, but riding a bastard sword through a guy´s neck is fucking satisfying. It´s like the thwack of a Wii Tennis ball, the chime of a Tetris, the clink of gold coins being collected, the closing of a profitable trade; carnal base-hormones are triggered, edifying the beast, galvanizing the spine. This is core gameplay at its purest, an unceasing reinforcement exercise, like the thrust of procreation pushed on endlessly, taking lives away rather than risking new ones. Real visceral kind of fun, just like our ancestors used to have when they ran each other through with long swords over land and women, back in the day. When I made another pass on my horse and cut down two blokes in a row, I turned to my chica and said "this kind of thing happened a lot back then." At least, it feels like it should have.

The story of Rithmomachy is extraordinary; once considered the most intellectually compelling game of all, even more so than Chess, played by men of learning across central Europe, and rivalling Chess for popularity, it gradually lost appeal, and by the eighteenth century, had entirely disappeared, except as described in moldering tomes.

Rise of the West dates back to 1994, and looks as if it had been developed for Windows 3; it's a freeware implementation of Empires of the Middle Ages, Dunnigan's excellent boardgame which we reviewed a few days ago.

Jim Dunnigan is one of a handful of designers to have published in excess of a hundred games (it helps to run your own game company for a decade), and in my opinion, Empires of the Middle Ages is one of his best designs -- possibly the best of them all.

Hundred Years' War is a game involving dozens of players, played out over a period of months, in which each player represents a nobleman of France, England, or one of the surrounding countries--except for the four who represent the Kings of England and France, the Black Prince, and the Dauphin, and to whom most of the rest of the players report. There are two complementary sides to the game--the economic game, which you can play with occasional updates to your fiefs' orders every few days, passing on money and troops to your liege; and the military game, which is played out in realtime, with players on one side messaging each other to coordinate the movement of armies across France and England.

There's nothing like this anywhere. BUT. This is basically a pure-text game, and one that requires a serious commitment to play.

The Dark Legions is a surprisingly polished RTS game developed from a "lone wolf" developer--Marcell Baranyai did almost everything, from its 3D engine to its graphics and sound design, a pretty amazing effort.