Simulatia and Grognardia can be awfully dour places. In realistic military and vehicular fare, frivolous details tend to be rare. While the lack of the whimsical and the extraneous arguably isn’t surprising given the development demands elsewhere, I love encountering stuff like Door Kickers 2’s gratuitous gas hobs and aerofly RC’s mischievous molehills in my digital playthings.
One fine day in Bucharest, someone at KillHouse Games thought this splendid thought: “If we’re going to have gas cookers in our Door Kickers 2 mission spaces, then occasionally, when the operatives burst in, they should find a burner or two on those cookers blazing merrily. As there’s no telling what grub the bad guys might be preparing, we really need to make all four burners on a hob individually lightable”. The tactical impact of sixteen* possible hob states? Zero. The impact on mission atmosphere and credibility? Incalculable.
* Many more when you factor in saucepan and frying-pan combos!
I’ve flown model aerodynes at aerofly RC 8’s Grassau airstrip countless times, but until a week or two ago hadn’t noticed that the pair of modest molehills to my left were in-sim hazards. When crafting a 3D collision mesh for this particular panoramic photograph, IPACS bothered to add small, prop and landing gear imperiling tumuli in those spots – an act of acute fussiness that warms my cockles far more than it ought to.
Another sim that has put a smile on my chops recently with touching attention to detail is LiftOff: Micro Drones. The first time I purposely flew a mini quadcopter into the battered scarlet football abandoned in a corner of Melon Pan Park, I really didn’t expect the ball to roll as a result.
Similarly, the first time I landed a tiny whoop on one of the park’s raised seesaw seats, I didn’t expect to see my view sink after alighting. If, as the old saying goes, tiny things please tiny minds, then clearly my mind is hoverfly sized.
A testament to the improbable power of whimsy within sims is the fact that one of my oldest and most vivid IL-2 Sturmovik memories is watching that pencil on the TB-3 navigator’s table rolling back and forth as the corrugated giant maneuvred.
Cornerites, what are your favourite frivolous flourishes in sims and wargames?
Tiny things please tiny minds! That explains so much!
Most things that come to mind are actually game menu screens or touches, which have already been covered at length.
I will say that being able to hear church bells from a nearby town in Red Baron 3D added a lot more to the experience than I would expect it to. Suddenly I thought, “Hey, there’s probably people living in these clusters of polygons!”
I wish I had tried out the Devastator back in my IL-2 days now. I definitely would have got a kick out of that pencil.