I’d love for the ‘Funded by UK Government’ claim on the Parliament of Hell demo title screen to be true. If some of my tax quids are going to be spent financing video game development then the games in question really need to be as amusing, handsome, sharply written, and steeped in obscure British history as this one.
According to Combat Mission: Afrika Korps’ unforgiving internal adjudicators, history’s first parallel PvE play-by-comment CM contest ended in ‘minor defeats’ for both teams. I need to turn to the less judgmental bespoke scoring system laid out in the launch article to determine which team gets the gold gong, and which the silver.
In the final turn of the 2024 CM Olympiad neither team lose AFVs to FPV drones, do battle with undead Berber warriors, or unearth, with mortar bombs, the northern entrance to a fabled trans-Saharan tunnel.
Using the following clues (the map above is purely decorative) in combination with Street View, work out my location.
Last night, Uncle Steam, noticing I was at a loose end, whispered in my shell-like: “Players like you love Black One Blood Brothers”. After I responded with a sceptical “Is that so?”, he realised he still had work to do. Grabbing my lapels and pulling my face close to his, with a hint of menace he urged me to “Imagine Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon with modern graphics, drones, amazing weapon customisation, and an absolute gem of a mission generator”. This I duly did.
This week’s handmade co-op puzzle won’t defox itself. If you’re a dab hand at quizzes, lateral thinking, and search engine sleuthing, why not help out.
If you played the original Radio Commander, the Radio Commander: Pacific Campaign demo is sure to stir memories. Unfortunately, not all of those memories are likely to be happy ones.
The older I get, the more abandoned game projects I leave in my wake. During the past fifteen years I’ve started work on dozens of video games and – if you ignore this trifle – failed to finish every single one of them. Am I proud of this record? Of course not. The thought that the fruits of so much effort – so much reflection and experimentation – are now gathering dust on forgotten hard drives, cuts me to the quick every time I think about it.