Dune II, WarCraft, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, and Empire Earth--real-time strategy games have always been about warfare and conquest, right? How could you possibly do a peaceful RTS?
That's the challenge a team at Michigan State University set themselves... and quickly found that their inspiration outgrew their dreams, attracting contributors beyond the university, becoming an Independent Games Festival finalist in 2006--and expanding from a freeware student project with a handful of levels into today's commercial game with 45.
Mudcraft is no high-end high-poly high-budget high-def extravaganza; it's a simple, pleasant, goofy, fun little art game that engages you and brings you back for one level more. And yes, you come to care a good deal more about the mud people than you do about, say, the minutely-detailed soldiers of a big-budget RTS title; you feel a pang when they melt into the mud or dry into brick when you could have saved them, while some spearman from another game exists to die.
How do you do an RTS without violence? It's not that hard; half of RTS gameplay, after all, is resource extraction and construction. Combine that with natural threats rather than enemies to slaughter, and you have a compelling game--and one with the potential to appeal beyond the grognards who delight in mastering the intricacies of waypoints and combined arm tactics who form the hard-core of the RTS audience.
RTS gamers will find Mudcraft of interest, for the way it makes you think about what's really fundamental to RTS play--but so will more casual gamers, including those who have no idea what "RTS" means, because it's just plain fun. You might even find that your family actually wants to play this game, even if they have no interest in joining you in Age of Mythology.
Mudcraft is cute. It's fun. And it's--just well done. Give it a shot.
