Monthly Archives: April 2024

Thoughts: Planet Crafter

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My existence on this earth has been a hard one so far. I have been put here with the sole purpose of playing every single game about terraforming ever made, and while some of them haven’t been too bad none of them have tackled the core concept of transforming a planet from barren wasteland to lush paradise well at all. Surviving Mars was way more interested in being a mediocre city builder than it was any terraforming elements. Terraforming Mars is a literal board game adaptation, and necessarily limited by that fact – your terraforming activity is limited to placing a very limited number of ocean and forest tiles onto a map. Per Aspera is… not good, would be the very short version, and the longer one is a 6,000 word angry rant. Last year’s Terraformers is probably the best attempt I’ve played so far, fusing a terraforming game with a simple 4X that still allowed it some satisfying mechanical depth, but the games tended to finish early before you completed the terraformation process and so it still felt like there was something missing. Which sums up my experience with these games in general, really; I play them all in the hope that they’ll scratch the itch, but they all end up disappointing me in one way or another.

I mention this all so that I can put the next sentence in its proper context: Planet Crafter is not disappointing. Planet Crafter is the first game about terraforming that I’ve played that’s actually sold me on the fantasy that I’m terraforming.a planet. And, weirdly, it’s done it by being much more mechanically light on the terraforming than even Terraforming Mars – instead, the bulk of its effort is spent on showing the player how the environment changes around them as their Terraforming rating improves. And this is an approach that pays off in spades.

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Apocalypse Begrudge Tempestuous: A Solium Infernum Diary

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Solium Infernum! An all-time classic game of treachery, backstabbing and deceit, where up to six archfiends battle for control of the empty throne of Hell. The original 2009 version was designed and coded by a solo dev called Vic Davis and burned brightly in certain corners of the internet before fading away shortly afterwards; however, it clearly made an impression on somebody because this year has seen the release of one of the most inexplicable remakes in videogame history: an all-new version of Solium Infernum, with 3D visuals, overhauled game mechanics and a dedicated server for handling asynchronous multiplayer games.

(I say it’s inexplicable because a remake of a 14 year-old indie game which had a pretty niche playerbase even in 2009 doesn’t really have much of a chance of making its money back. I would love to have sat in on the greenlight meeting for that one.)

I wasn’t originally intending to buy the remake. I played Scrofula in the RPS game, so I have extensive prior experience of just how much brainspace Solium Infernum can take up as you plan and scheme and collude with and against the other players while trying to clamber to the top of a pile of skulls. I didn’t think I had that kind of time any more. But then my friends all decided to hurl themselves headfirst into the abyss, and I was curious about the remake, and so five of us ended up spending a three week period in March tearing strips out of one another. And the more I played it, the more I got into it, until I eventually decided to record the latter half of the game for posterity in another diary.

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Apocalypse Begrudge Tempestuous – Part 5

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This is Part 5 of a 5-part diary of a Solium Infernum multiplayer game. For Part 4, go here. For full context, see the contents post here.

Turn 45

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Apocalypse Begrudge Tempestuous – Part 4

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This is Part 4 of a 5-part diary of a Solium Infernum multiplayer game. For Part 3, go here. For full context, see the contents post here.

Turn 40

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Apocalypse Begrudge Tempestuous – Part 3

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This is Part 3 of a 5-part diary of a Solium Infernum multiplayer game. For Part 2, go here. For full context, see the contents post here.

Turn 35

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Apocalypse Begrudge Tempestuous – Part 2

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This is Part 2 of a 5-part diary of a Solium Infernum multiplayer game. For Part 1, go here. For full context, see the contents post here.

Turn 29

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Apocalypse Begrudge Tempestuous – Part 1

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This is Part 1 of a 5-part diary of a Solium Infernum multiplayer game. For full context, see the contents post here.

To start us off, let’s get a look at the competition.

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