Fire & Maneuver “was hell for us to develop”

You have to admire the brutal honesty on show in the 25-minute post-mortem video embedded below the break. According to studio head, Griffin Johnson, Armchair History Interactive embarked on their first wargame without a clear plan and proceeded to make a string of classic beginner’s mistakes.

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Cut Off: Road to Dunkirk

What a pity there wasn’t a Battle Academy fan amongst the sixteen Bellecour École students who made Cut Off: Road to Dunkirk. The free two-level vertical slice is handsome, très friendly, and refreshingly Gallic, but absent morale and fairly insignificant terrain undermine its wargame aspirations.

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The Iwo Jima Paradox (Part 1)

Three things you probably already know about Iwo Jima. 1) It’s a small volcanic island 750 miles south of Tokyo. 2) In early 1945 it was the scene of a fierce and costly five-week battle between US and Japanese forces. 3) While cinematic recreations of said battle are often memorable and exciting, hexy interactive ones tend to be decidedly dull affairs.

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A Streetcar Named Desire? Thoughts on Tramcity Hakodate

Four things you possibly didn’t know about Hakodate. 1) It’s a port city on the island/prefecture of Hokkaido. 2) In 1934 it was devastated by a fire that killed 2166 people. 3) In 1976 a MiG-25 Foxbat piloted by Soviet defector Viktor Belenko landed at its main airport. 4) You can beetle through its streets in Tramcity Hakodate, a new £13 Early Access tram sim with old-fashioned graphics, great audio, decent physics, and unusually truthful traffic lights.

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Let’s mark/mock some menu screens

Seldom mentioned in reviews, main menu screens are, of course, the most important aspect of any game. I’m sure I’m not the only one who instantly uninstalls a new purchase if I don’t like the main menu artwork, then hunts down the person or persons responsible, and maims them using a thematically-appropriate weapon or tool.

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Train and tram sim tidbits

Thanks to a gifted layout artisan called Rinston, owners of railway modelling sim Rolling Line can now drive Lilliputian locos around a stylised recreation of Half-Life 2’s City 17.

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