Fracas is a world conquest game with quite primitive graphics (and a minimal soundscape) programmed in Visual Basic, with the source available from the developer, Jason Merlo. Merlo claims that it was inspired by Lords of Conquest, which he describes as "an EA Game" -- actually, it was an Eon game, published by EA in the mid-80s, and was essentially a digital implementation of their excellent boardgame Borderlands. (Eon, still sort of in existence, now operates Cosmic Encounter Online.)
A Student Showcase nominee at the '08 Independent Games Festival, Mayhem Intergalatic is a fast-playing space conquest game. My first thought was "Risk clone," but it isn't actually; although combat seems to be per the Risk combat algorithm, there's no concept of adjacency (any ship can move anywhere on the map, though trips to distant stars can take multiple turns), there are no cards, and a fleet can only make one attack per turn.
What it really is, is "4X lite"; your only real actions are dispatching ships to target systems, and upgrading your shipyards. Basically, upgrading a system's shipyards increases the number of ships it produces each turn, but doing so forgoes one turn of production.
Devil's Brigade Lux is apparently a promotion for some kind of TV show (people still watch TV, I'm told) about the First Special Services Force (aka the "Devil's Brigade"), a joint Canadian-US unit that served in Italy (and the largely irrelevant thrust into Southern France post-D-Day) in the Second World War.
But more importantly, from my perspective, it's another excellent Risk-like game from Sillysoft, who also created Lux Delux and Ancient Empires Lux -- but unlike those games, it's utterly free, since the ostensible purpose is to promote this TV show thingie.
A bunch of levels (not sure how many, as I haven't played through the whole thing as yet) Only one level that recreate the a battles faced by the FSSF -- and yes, this is Risk, so if you're looking for detailed simulations of the Italian Campaign at an operational level, this isn't it -- but hey, the historical tie lends some interest, and the actual gameplay is fun.
Nobody does Risk-like games as well as Sillysoft; Lux Delux, their flagship product, offers hundreds of different maps, along with a plugin downloader that can pull down hundreds more made by fans. Sort of taking the basic dynamic of Risk and doing everything possible to extend it into the Internet realm.
What Ancient Empires Lux (like its predecessor, American History Lux) does instead is provide you with a series of levels based on historical conflicts--along with notes on those conflicts--and lets you play them out.
From Apezone, developers of the excellent games Starships Unlimited and Battleship Chess comes this new title--an interesting combination of the tropes of the "4X" genre (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) and the mechanics of Risk.
Risk is, of course, a fine game, and has been the basis of some well-conceived computer games (notably Lux Delux); but it is so familiar a style as to be somewhat jejune. Starship Kingdoms adds a high degree of interest by incorporating technology development, putting production more directly under the players' control, and pitching the game as a struggle between two "major houses," with much of the galaxy controlled by neutrals who may join the weaker side in the mid-game.
An oldie-but-goodie, Risk II was implemented by Microprose, before they were taken over by Hasbro, passed onto Atari, and gutted... Still the best digital implementation of the classic boardgame. If you like this kind of game, do also check out Lux Delux.
Pax Galaxia starts out as intergalactic sumo wrestling. No, it isn't two prodigious BEMs (Bug-Eyed Monsters) trying to shove each other out of a gravity well. As the admiral in charge of a space fleet based in a given star system, you order your ships to hit certain force points in the galaxy and, ideally, drive your enemies progressively away from your end of the galaxy. In the tradition of other so-called real-time strategy (RTS) games, your opponents (artificial or human) are making the same kinds of moves at the same time. If you pay attention to your defensive lines, you can quickly push the enemy back and extend your "beneficent" influence across the simulated galaxy. If you aren't careful, your fleets and empire can quickly shrink to nothing.
Just about everyone who's a gamer has spent a lot of time hurling dice about and conquering the world in the classic game of Risk--and many of us have spent a lot of time playing it solitaire in one digital implementation or another, because it's a quick, fun way to kill fifteen minutes before your next meeting or the like. But when you come down to it, the problem with Risk in a soloplay environment, particularly, is that it's the same thing all over again. Same board, same AIs--and it does pall after a time.
That's the genius of Lux Delux. The game itself comes with a whole slew of different maps--along with a pretty decent random map generator. It also comes with a bunch of different AI "personalities" who play quite differently. And there's a "plugin manager" that allows you to download literally hundreds of fan-created maps from Sillysoft...as well as a map editor that lets you create your own. Plus, for coders, there's an SDK that allows you to create new AIs or random map generators.
Imagine playing Risk in real time, with new armies showing up continually and attacks occurring as fast as you and your opponents can order them. Or imagine a 4X space conquest game stripped down to the barebones essentials. With graphics that look like they come from a minimalist shmup. With games typically taking 5 minutes, and playable online against up to 11 other players...
Sounds wild? It is, and you've just imagined Galcon.
The Wonderful End of the World is a essentially a Katamari Damacy imitator for the casual PC market. Instead of being a tarball, you're a biped, walking with the arrow keys and optionally turning with the mouse, and as in Katamari, things you walk into adhere to you, increasing your size and ultimately allowing you to pick up larger things.
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