One good reason to keep visiting the Corner while Roman and myself are pretending to be game developers is you might stumble on a competition like this one. January has been pretty eventful for MicroProse Mk II. Last week, sword-and-sandal wargame Strategos launched to considerable acclaim. Yesterday, someone beefy took a sledgehammer to the chocks holding Task Force Admiral on the slipway.
TFA hasn’t been greeted with quite as much positivity as Strategos (Some early adopters are disappointed by the lack of battles in the first Early Access build) but once Drydock Dreams Games address that scenario shortage, the red thumb reviews are sure to dwindle.
Amiral Crapaud and Co. have built an engine capable of simming WW2 flat-top clashes with unprecedented realism. Not only that, but their malleable recreations of engagements such as Coral Sea and Midway look ravishing. The idea that a wargame this groundbreaking, scholarly, and gorgeous won’t end-up cherished by gamers who value veracity is almost unthinkable.
While I’m currently too busy grappling with Dijkstra’s algorithm to devote time to this balmy, palmy newcomer, I suspect some of you would relish a chance to refight one of WW2’s most important and close-run battles. £28 at present on Steam, Early Access TFA could be yours for absolutely nothing if you can manage to find the twenty Battle-of-Midway-related things and people hidden in the hexagonal wordsearch below.
In unusually generous mood, my Chief Foxer Setter, Roman, has highlighted two of the twenty answers to get you started. Send me (tim at tallyhocorner dot com) an alphabetical list of the others eighteen by midnight GMT Feb 4, and your name will go into the hat for the draw. On the morning of Feb 5 I’ll draw three names from the hat. Each winner will get a TFA Steam activation code.
Never tackled a ‘hive foxer’ before? They resemble traditional wordsearches. Every hex in the puzzle is used once, and words can curl and zigzag but never overlap. Here’s the solution to a River Thames-themed one by way of an example.
Best of luck!
(No answers in the comments, and only one submission per person, please! )
