V is for Verbose sleuthing. It’s a fairly safe bet fans of The Case of the Golden Idol and The Rise of the Golden Idol will enjoy the Confidential Killings trial. The game’s short but tangled whodunnits are set in late Seventies Hollywood and are solved by accurately filling-out crime summaries using words collected from crime scenes and witness statements.
Thanks to a much appreciated submission from a reader, Roman spent most of yesterday afternoon amongst squabbling sparrows, overdressed bumble bees, and peripatetic marbled whites rather than at his desk. My colleague added the odd word to the following hive foxer but the majority of it is the work of guest foxer setter, Colonel_K.
Q is for Quick stogie card. Significantly larger and younger than all previous occupants of this slot, the thirty cards that make up ‘Soldiers of Waterloo’ were issued in 1995 and came in packets of Castella cigars. The text on the reverse of the card pictured below includes the story of Kenneth McKay, the plucky piper who, at the height of the battle, marched around the outside of the Cameron Highlanders square playing Cogadh no Sith (War or Peace).
L is for Largely forgotten rally sim. The first video game worthy of the tag ‘simulation’ wasn’t a flight sim but a 2D side-on recreation of the sport that’s currently monopolising the THC idiot box. An attraction at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s annual exhibition in 1958 and 1959, Tennis for Two was played with custom-built controllers and used an oscilloscope for a screen.
F is for Flying pencils added to Scramble. Slitherine’s thoroughly 3D BoB wargame has some Schnellbombers at long last. While the new Do 17s must run the gauntlet of player-controlled Spits and Hurricanes, there’s no danger of them suffering the fate Feldwebel Johannes Petersen’s Do 17 suffered on August 18, 1940. During an attack on Kenley, Petersen’s flying pencil had a fatal encounter with a Z Battery, one of WW2’s most outlandish anti-aircraft weapons.
A is for Affordable angling games. It’s not too late to grab a price-slashed piscatorial plaything on Steam. Ending in approximately seven hours’ time, the emporium’s nearly-over Fishing Fest includes two of my current fishy favourites, Ultimate Fishing Simulator (£2) and Fisher Online (£7), and well-received newcomers such as Cast n Chill – a £10 side-scrolling charmer with fifty catchable species and thirteen stunning backdrops – and Intergalactic Fishing – a £3 top-down curio with innumerable procedurally generated lakes and fish types.
Using the following clues (the map above is purely decorative) in combination with Street View, work out my location.
If you frequent certain forums at Matrix Games, Subsim, and Reddit you may have come across posts written by today’s interviewee, ‘BlindGuyNW’. As his online handle suggests, Zack wargames by ear and touch rather than eye. In many battle sims this approach is simply impractical, but not in all.