A is for Abiding memory. Watching the latest Korea IL-2 trailer (see below) reminds me of the Airfix F-86 model that dangled from the ceiling of my boyhood bedroom for many years. The can of silver spray paint that gave this shrunken Sabre such a striking look was later used on a fictional scratch-built spacecraft constructed around a ginger beer bottle. As 1980s polystyrene cement wasn’t designed with pliant pop bottle Polyethylene Terephthalate in mind, said starship shed its scrap-box greebles with depressing alacrity and fairly quickly found itself serving as an air rifle target.

B is for Bitterly unfair

Line Clipper: Tennis Tactics is one of the cleverest and freshest turn-based tactics titles I’ve played in years. The fact that it’s only managed to garner two Steam user reviews in the nine months since it launched is positively grotesque. No wonder Golden Set Games haven’t got round to fixing the handful of minor bugs that occasionally cause a lost point or lifted eyebrow during mesmerising matches. No doubt they’ve abandoned game development in disgust and are now pursuing a more sensible occupation such as dandelion clock repair or moon rake manufacture.

C is for Configuration consternation

My first few hours with Ukrainian Fight Drone Simulator could have been smoother. As interested in inculcating as entertaining, this £25 pilot academy “built on lessons from the Ukrainian frontline” models a surprisingly wide range of military drone types, and comes with a sizeable sheaf of training exercises as well as a couple of game-like combat modes.

However – if my experience is any guide – configuration headaches are a potential hazard. Despite long sessions on the controller calibration screen, my trusty InterLink still isn’t working perfectly. Operating heavily laden quadcopters in complicated environments teeming with shotgun toters and EW devices is tricky enough; I could do without the extra challenge of weirdly unreliable switches.

D is for Demo imminent

Anyone fascinated by the huge railway guns of WW1 and 2, or the monster turrets that adorned warships like the Yamato and Lord Clive will probably want to take a dekko at the Iron Nest demo due later today. An upcoming first-person artillery sim with an althist setting and a similarly good-looking peer/rival, Iron Nest stars a 5000-ton shell spewer that walks rather than rolls.