Making games

One of my long-time passions has been tabletop and role-playing games. I’ve played various games since at least high school, and continue to play to this day.

One of the exciting things I’ve been involved with is the development of the Purgatory game and No-Class gaming system by my friends over at Broomstick Fighters (Facebook Page). Purgatory is a weird-west style game with Cthulhuian overtones, and the No-Class system is a new take on the mechanics of role-playing.

It turns out that I also develop my own games, though they are in various states of disarray. If you’re interested in keeping track of my progress, you can watch here, on my gaming page (Facebook page), or head over to my Engima22 Productions Unlimited site (it’s woefully out of date, so be patient).

Game on.

DLH

Games I’ve been playing

My gaming has gone mostly mobile and casual these days. I don’t have the time to invest in sitting for hours playing PC games, and my attention span at the moment doesn’t support PC gaming anyway.

That said, I do have a bevy of mobile games I’m playing on my iPad. Of course, the ever-present issue with mobile games is that they always want your money, but I find that playing less frequently and less intensely covers over quite a bit of that.

Right now, my main go-to game is Start Trek Fleet Command. If you want to “win” you have to pay, but I enjoy the base-building aspects of the game without paying.

In the same vein is Star Wars Commander. The base-building aspect of this game is better than Star Trek Fleet Command, and it’s easier to advance without paying. That said, the campaign and PvP aspects of the game get tedious to me.

Speaking of tedium, there’s Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. Don’t get me wrong, this game is easy to play without spending a dime, but the gameplay can get repetitive and dull very quickly.

The same can be said for Star Trek Timelines. This game has a lot of potential, but the gameplay is often inscrutable and repetitive.

Rounding out the five games I regularly visit is Pixel Starships. This is a kind of silly, straightforward game of building a starship and attacking other players. Still, it has limited playability as you spend enormous amounts of time gathering resources to upgrade your ships.

Of course, my reviews beg the question, if the games are tedious, why play? The short answer is that they only become tedious if you play for more than, say, five minutes at a time. Played casually, these games are a welcome distraction and are worth that much investment.

What games are you playing right now?

Happy gaming.

DLH