Lords of the realm 3 is mainly regarded as a unworthy successor of the 2 installment in the series. But I think a lot of this believe feeds from the situation that LOR 3 did not fulfill the high expectations set in it after the good work of the 2 title. Which does not mean that LOR3 is a bad game. This situation of unfulfilled expectations making it difficult to judge the game by its real value. A problem not present for this evaluation as I played LOR 3 before the 2 part.
Decision 2, Decision 3 and Decision medieval. Why sometimes "less is more" also applies to computer games
Mies van der Rohe a prominent figure in the
modern architecture movement -a movement formed by the architects who desire to
renounce the use of useless ornament and incorporate new emerged materials in
their design- once claimed "less is more". From this origin the
"less is more" statement found its way also in the daily used
language of contemporary times (or at least in the German language) and in
other forms of life-style like minimalistic living.
This statement also stands true for the decision
online game and its sequels.
Decision plays in a small town overrun by
zombies. The player takes on the role of a survivor who decides to become a one
man army and wipe the city clean of the zombie hordes. To achieve this goal the
character reinstalls towers which increase the safety of the area, recaptures
factories which give resources and manually kills zombies in the dozens by
handpicking some of the offered weapons and skills presented by the game.
The Founder
I can not remember being so angry at a film in my whole life. And I am sure I am not alone with may thoughts about this films.
If someone has to sum up the film in on scentence it would be something like "The founder is the real story of how the today in the whole world known fast food chain started out". Especially the first scenes where the brothers who founded the first McDonald's are introduced and where it is shown how they perfected their ideas and never gave up even after some failures are really good. But that scenes include pretty much all the positive felling the film gives the audience.
If someone has to sum up the film in on scentence it would be something like "The founder is the real story of how the today in the whole world known fast food chain started out". Especially the first scenes where the brothers who founded the first McDonald's are introduced and where it is shown how they perfected their ideas and never gave up even after some failures are really good. But that scenes include pretty much all the positive felling the film gives the audience.
War Cube
Its not easy being a cube and being a war cube is even worse, but you know what is the worst of all, that you are sent back to an old kingdom, Your Old Kingdom! By mister I am so funny narrator and everybody knows you and that you were the king. But given the fact that in this kingdom everyone is a cube and the fighting makes great fun and the fact that you are kind of a king, even if your mighty kingdom is run down by barbaric red cubes, it is not that bad.That is kind of how the game of war cube starts, a small little combat game full of humor and all kind of medieval stuff. As already stated the game has good humor but I see the danger of this element becoming too powerful. In this state of the game the humor is hold back to an agreeable amount but if the game is going to define itself just through its humor, I may have to give it a bad review in the future.
Prison Architect
I am an architecture student so when i found out this game existed I immediately bought it because İ said architect and I wanted to become an architect. And I was astonished the core game mechanic combines perfectly with some thoughts and processes of an architects design work. For example the designing of the user’s movements how and when they move where and way and which corridors are more often used and which corridors are dead corridors. Or the main usage design and zoning which leads to deciding which areas are going to be prisoner free and which are going to be for visitors and then of course this zones need to be more secured and easier accessible, but also richer furnished and so on. All together it can be played as the simplified and fun added version of how an architect really works and achieving this alone is a huge success in my opinion.
Age of war 2
Sadly the good balancing of the first part did not make it into the second part. All different difficulties can be won in about 4-5 ages. And it is not the point of balancing to give the computer players more resources and XP points. Better would have been to teach the computer players the key mechanics of the game like the upgrading system, the tank/anti-tank situation and the evolving mechanic.
Age of War
But to start from the bottom Age of war is 2D, base strategy browser game where the aim is to recruit enough soldiers to destroy the enemy base on the other side of the map. To do this the player can chose between melee fighters, range units and tank type units. Throughout the game the ages change and while the player is fighting on dinosaurs and knights in the first part of the game in the later ages tanks and supersonic warrior take control over the battlefield. To give the player at least something to do apart from clicking the solider buttons, also special abilities are present which again change over time from an erupting volcano to an airstrike.
Tropico 3
A bit into the game I realized that this game has a good branching system according to different development opportunities on different island. Like farming and farm good development on big fertile islands, mining in the resource full islands, fishing and oil industry on island with a long shoreline. Moreover a good interconnection between different game mechanic like military, education and foreign relation is present.
The 3rd part of the series is still faithful to the Tropico charm where all your citizens have different names, backgrounds, needs, views and wishes. That makes the new electing system that more fun and makes it a good diplomatic addition to the game. Moreover the citizen happiness needs are again solved very well but I have to say that I feel the micro balancing was done better in Tropico 2.
Awesome Seaquest
Especially the late game phase gets boring because of a balancing problem. That occurs If you have 20 ships up to level 8 and one or two repair bots (which you will have after about half the battels). Then you are nearly invincible and the game gets useless. But prior to that bad ending phase the upgrading, leveling, money and research points gathering system works quit well as it is motivating to see everything come together.
A better battel system would help the game a great deal as the battels either requires no user interaction at all or just the clicking of one button in the right time. Other than that the 90 seconds "battel-pause" system is well thought out and something new as I have not come across other games that use this system. Unfortunately also here no real brainpower is needed (which is but acceptable as it is only the technical money collecting part of the game). But all together that leads to a game with no tactical depth what so ever and the easiest straight forward tactic will win the game for you.
Kokowääh
The Internship
Explaining my graduation project 2.1: 1/200 plan, living unit organization design, design development.
The independent living units were designed to take place in the larger tower. Here they could evolve around the courtyard opening. In the first few weeks this arrangement of living units around the courtyard was planned as a rectangular. Meaning that all the 4 sides of the courtyard are filled with living units. But after quiet a short time I had the feeling that there is a better, more beautiful and more architect like solution.
The improved idea was to arrange the living units in a U-shape. By doing this the badly situated north side earth faced units were eliminated and all the other units had direct connection to the sun at least some hours during the day. İn the higher stories of the building the U-shape was rotated. By doing this the feeling of a more open and comfortable space was increased as the sun could reach down into the courtyard and the whole body of the building was more fragmented. Also a more straight forward connection to the walking paths was created by bringing the blank side of the U-shape to the steep hill of the walking paths.
The relation of the outside walking paths to the living units was in general a very important part of the project. As you may see in the diagram the aim was to create not closed up, tube like corridors but opened corridors with light and space for elderlies to socialize, wait, talk and walk. Therefore most of the corridors have two components. The first one is the inside corridor where the inhabitants can reach to their private living areas and the second part is an outside equivalent to the inside park where on good weather days the elderly can also walk outside and make horizontal connections with the elderlies up or downstairs.
A definite problem while designing this rotated U-shape tower was the vertical circulation. A situation that was even more problematized by the different user profiles, the need of administrative spaces and community socializing. I already explained the need for community socializing in the first part of the series and about how I want to achieve it in the part before this. Just to explain the general approach to the vertical circulation I have to say that i tried to design it in the easiest and most simple way possible. But that is often times the hardest way to do it. Creating 5 staircases all around the building for every different user without considering the general design is easy but connecting all the users to 2 staircases whose situation is chosen precisely is quiet difficult. I am not going lie to you and say I found the best solution for this problem but from the plan views you can read what I thought was an adequate compromise for the project.
In the next part we are again going into more detail and look at the detailed drawings and design of the living units.
The improved idea was to arrange the living units in a U-shape. By doing this the badly situated north side earth faced units were eliminated and all the other units had direct connection to the sun at least some hours during the day. İn the higher stories of the building the U-shape was rotated. By doing this the feeling of a more open and comfortable space was increased as the sun could reach down into the courtyard and the whole body of the building was more fragmented. Also a more straight forward connection to the walking paths was created by bringing the blank side of the U-shape to the steep hill of the walking paths.
The relation of the outside walking paths to the living units was in general a very important part of the project. As you may see in the diagram the aim was to create not closed up, tube like corridors but opened corridors with light and space for elderlies to socialize, wait, talk and walk. Therefore most of the corridors have two components. The first one is the inside corridor where the inhabitants can reach to their private living areas and the second part is an outside equivalent to the inside park where on good weather days the elderly can also walk outside and make horizontal connections with the elderlies up or downstairs.
A definite problem while designing this rotated U-shape tower was the vertical circulation. A situation that was even more problematized by the different user profiles, the need of administrative spaces and community socializing. I already explained the need for community socializing in the first part of the series and about how I want to achieve it in the part before this. Just to explain the general approach to the vertical circulation I have to say that i tried to design it in the easiest and most simple way possible. But that is often times the hardest way to do it. Creating 5 staircases all around the building for every different user without considering the general design is easy but connecting all the users to 2 staircases whose situation is chosen precisely is quiet difficult. I am not going lie to you and say I found the best solution for this problem but from the plan views you can read what I thought was an adequate compromise for the project.
In the next part we are again going into more detail and look at the detailed drawings and design of the living units.
Knights of Honor
I think it is also important to state some other games published in this years to be able to make better comparisons and really look at games place in gaming history. Other 2004 releases are: Lords of the Realm 3, Settlers: the Heritages of Kings, Rise of Nations and Rome Total War (of course I only listed other strategy games). Moreover I think it is good to also state some milestone games in the strategy genre and their date of publish: Europa Universalis 3 2007, Crusader Kings 2 2012, Hearts of Iron 2009, anno 1701 2006 (in my opinion some of the most important strategy games for the genres development)
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