V2V

V is for Very hexy. Today’s round-up is heavy on the honeycomb. All four games mentioned below either insist military units capable of moving due North and South are incapable of moving due East and West, or military units capable of moving due East and West are incapable of moving due North and South. As commentators that harp on about this distracting genre quirk have a nasty habit of disappearing without trace or perishing in mysterious accidents, I’d like to point out, personally I have no problem whatsoever with hexagonal movement.

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U2U

U is for Unlikely combination of UBOAT and Papers, Please. Of the three sub games mentioned in today’s dispatch, False Echo is the hardest to classify. An in-development solo project from a dev who previously worked on franchises such as Blitzkrieg and Men of War, FE will cast us as U-boat cryptography officers in a not-quite-WW2 conflict. Inside the game’s side-on convoy molesters, the Kapitan might call the shots, but as it’s the player that decides, with the help of an Enigmatic cipher device, which incoming orders end up in his hands, it sounds like we’re going to have considerable…

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P2T

P is for Periscopic peak. Purchasers of Modern Naval Warfare, a military-grade modern sub sim due to enter Early Access later today, will encounter a learning curve shaped like “a mountain not a hill”. Publishers Matrix Games have taken the unusual step of filling an entire Steam page post with home truths about their potential Dangerous Waters displacer. A 200-page manual, time-consuming engagements, an interface “crowded with acronyms” and “designed for functionality and realism, not necessarily ease of use”… you can’t say you weren’t warned.

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J2O

J is for Judicious jugular slicing. If the Red Recon: 1944 trailer (see below) tempts, try the demo while you can. Available until Thursday, the single-mission taster for Varangs’ upcoming Commandos-like launches in Russian. Tap this menu button to access language selection.

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E2I

E is for Exceptionally elastic engine. No-one could accuse Lado B da História of lacking ambition. The Brazilian YouTubers behind a library of short WW2 history documentaries are working on a wargame-cum-visualisation tool able to sim warfare of all eras. War Room: Tactical Sandbox’s tantalising trailer raises as many questions as it answers. How will this João-of-all-conflicts handle fog-of-war, weather, and line-of-sight? Will the AI be sufficiently lithe and sophisticated to offer realism and challenge in a multitude of time-frames?

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Regular Romanesque puzzles?

If there’s an appetite for it, Roman will set a weekly Romanesque brainteaser every Sunday from now on. The free web version of our hexy/lexy word game isn’t as smart or substantial as the full Monty, but is more convenient. Click here, and assuming you’re using a PC or tablet (thus far I’ve been unable to get it to work with phones) you should be playing within seconds.

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