Madrak1 - A Tour Of Trolls

Continuing on with my Tour of Trolls I'm going with our post-CID zero to hero star: Madrak1.

Fair warning, this is a long article because there's just so much to cover with this caster!

Pre-CID, Madrak1 was one of the worst casters in the faction. Post CID he's so amazingly good that it seems hard to think of a time when he won't be featured in most Trollblood Steamroller pairings.

He's not quite the (pre-nerf) Haley2 of Trollbloods, but he may well be our Rask.

Strengths

What makes him so good is pretty obvious:

Even Ground gives everything in his control area straight up +2 DEF and no knockdown, and it can be cast by his Blood Boon ability, which can proc off of his ranged attack.

His other two spells are also good:

Guided Hand: An additional dice to hit on a model/unit's next melee attack

Jackhammer: Target warbeast can make an additional melee attack.

Both of these spells are strong, though Guided Hand is really going to shine. Additionally both of these spells can be cast by Madrak1's all-but-officially-mandatory caster attachment: the Runebearer.

If this was all Madrak1 had, he'd still be in contention for a lot of lists, but he's got one of the most amazing feats for Trollbloods:  You can't charge models in his control area and all Trollblood models heal D3+3 damage.

I'll be honest, 99% of the time I've feated purely for the "no-charge" portion of the feat simply to deliver my army to have the alpha strike and it's gloriously powerful.  The healing setup can be a big deal, especially since things like Champions are obvious auto-includes with Madrak, where the feat near guarantees they will be fully healed if they take damage and spread it around via their Sanguine Bond ability.

Madrak1 also has Tactician for friendly warrior models in his CMD range, allowing for an amazing amount of flexibility in order of activations as well as clearing out your own models or unpacking what will inevitably be a troop heavy list.  Tactician in Trolls is simply amazing because of all the space the medium or larger sized based army takes up on the table.

On top of all this, Madrak1 still retains his old MK1 ability to use a scroll once per game that allows him to just ignore a damage roll.  With Even Ground up and under the Stone's Aura Madrak's defensive stats are insane: DEF 16, ARM 19, with 18 Damage boxes, tough with no-knockdown, and he can camp for transfers.

Key Pieces for Madrak1

More than other casters, a Madrak1 list seems to want specific pieces to really function.  Before I go into List Theory I want to lay out the pieces that I feel are must take options for Madrak which will influence what we can do in theory.

The Runebearer – Extending Madrak's control area from 10" to 12" with Arcane Repeater is absolutely necessary to get the most out of Even Ground and Madrak's feat.  Harmonious exaltation is clutch for those turns where you can't reliably proc Blood Boon to cast Even Ground, which allows Madrak to cast it himself for 2, possibly throwing out a Guided Hand if necessary, or just camping Fury.  The Runebearer can also be used to cast Guided Hand on a unit himself every turn if you wished, which helps with Fury management and getting things going before Madrak has to activate.  Suffice it to say you will always be taking the Runebearer with Madrak, but luckily he will be free due to theme benefits.

Bomber or Impailer – Madrak really wants the Far Strike animus to be able to shoot 12" with his axe to proc Blood Boon to cast Even Ground. I've played a fair number of games with Madrak without the Far Strike animus and my conclusions after the fact are that we should always have it.

Eilish Garrity – Madrak1 can make life an utter nightmare for your opponent in a variety of ways: Lots of single wound infantry that suddenly have very hard to deal with defensive stats, Champion bricks that are DEF16 in melee, the fact that you can run into position and deny charges onto your stuff. The way a lot of opponents will deal with this is via control, most of which is delivered via spells: Repudiate to deny a unit orders, Crippling Grasp to reduce their effectiveness, etc.  Eilish solves this problems by removing offensive upkeeps from your models, freeing them up to be able to run or charge in.  If he isn't doing that, then he's busy giving Puppet Master to Madrak who can much more reliably kill a model with his thrown axe to proc Blood Boon.  It's hard to dedicate 5 points to this model, especially since he can't be free as a Minion Solo, but he's worth it to guarantee Madrak can play into a lot of matches he'd otherwise struggle in due to control elements.

Fell Caller – This is more of an honorable mention than a pure necessity, but for most lists I've played with Madrak, you need a Fell Caller.  Most of the time at least one or more of your units will need Pathfinder before they have it (ie. Champs + Skaldi only get it on the charge, Fennblades via mini-feat), or +2 MAT to tackle opposing high DEF models.  I can see a Skaldi+Champs and Double Fennblade list that can play without the Fell Caller, but other builds with a second unit of Champs, or Longriders, or Kriel Warriors are going to want the Fell Caller to at least maneuver around terrain on the approach.

Band of Heroes – This is where Madrak1 wants to be played.  It's arguable that Madrak could be in Storm of the North, but the main benefit from that is getting to upkeep your spells for free on Northkin units, immunity to cold on all your Warrior models, and two snow drifts.  The problem is that Madrak1 has no upkeeps, immunity to cold doesn't really matter, and you lose access to the strongest benefits in Band of Heroes: Remove from Play on all melee attacks, ignoring Tough on all melee attacks by Warrior models, and the extra 2" of deployment for what will inevitably be a Troop based army.   Fennblades seem very strong with Madrak which are only in BoH, but I can possibly see trying to go for a hard DEF skew with Northkin Raiders, Champions, and Fire Eaters in Storm in the North – but it just seems like it's easier to counter.

List Theory

There are so very many ways to build Madrak1 that the mind boggles, and there are some key decisions you need to make which will influence your list:

Double or Single Champion Units? This will strongly dictate which way the list will go.  Double Champion units gives you two problem units for your opponent to deal with, but it's obviously weaker against lists that can easily deal with DEF16 Champion units in melee.  This will dictate what else you can take in the list, since it's mutually exclusive with double Fennblade units, at least if you want to take the important solo's needed to run the list.

Bomber/Mauler or Min Beast Points?  If you're going to use minimum points, the light package with Impailer and 2x 9 Point Beasts of your choice is the safest bet.  In this case I think I'd go with an Impailer, Bouncer, and a Pyre Troll so that Madrak can get up to PS18 under the Strength Aura of the Kriel Stone if he needs to do some heavy lifting.   I'm personally much more of a fan of using a Bomber and a Mauler to round out the beast package, even though it cuts into your unit budget to spend the extra 5 points over Madrak1's beast points.

My List:

I'm going to go through the list I've used for our last Scrum (a Steamroller tournament run 1 game a
week over a month) where I paired Madrak1 with Kolgrima.  This is a list where I tried to squeeze in as much value as possible, but in doing so I went without the Far Strike Animus.  I've come to realize that this is a mistake and so am going to list variants I want to play going forward in another section below.

Trollblood - More is More

Theme: Band of Heroes
3 / 3 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army


Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain - WB: +29
-    Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0
-    Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 15 (Battlegroup Points Used: 15)
-    Earthborn Dire Troll - PC: 14 (Battlegroup Points Used: 14)

Eilish Garrity, the Occultist - PC: 5
Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Stone Scribe Chronicler - PC: 4

Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
-    Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3
Trollkin Champions - Leader & 4 Grunts: 16
-    Skaldi Bonehammer - PC: 0
Trollkin Champions - Leader & 4 Grunts: 16


THEME: Band of Heroes

The big change I found in this list was exactly how good Kriel Warriors are with Madrak1.  Taking two units of Champions and two units of Kriel Warriors is just too much for most opponents to deal with reliably.  Against many opponents, you can just run in and jam your way to a scenario victory, keeping them out of zones while you rack up points.

Kriel Warriors main problem is having low MAT and POW.  While Madrak doesn't fix their POW problem, he does make them hit very reliably with Guided Hand, which lets them chew through opposing enemy infantry nicely.  The Stone Scribe Chronicler can be very good here, with Heroes Tragedy to knockdown anything that kills one, though most of the time it didn't really matter much.

In the end, what seemed to matter the most with this list was exactly how hard it was for opponents to actually just kill Kriel Warriors.  At DEF 14, ARM17 vs. guns and ARM19 vs. melee, I was comfortably able to just run them into opposing infantry or even put them in walk+attack range while under Madrak's feat and without getting boosted damage rolls, the small amount of attacks that hit just bounced off the armor.

Literally every tough check a Kriel Warrior makes is utterly demoralizing for your opponent, especially if they're trying to just clear them out to score scenario VP's.

The best part was that they're literally there just to jam, anything they kill is a bonus. They deliver the Champions and beasts extremely well, and stop a lot of armies just dead in their tracks.  

My Results

The only list pairs I had to avoid dropping Madrak into during our Scrum was Vlad1 Rockets which has enough volume of attacks to chew through all of my guys. In fact out of all the games I've played with Madrak1 post-CID (with many more lists than the one above), I've only lost literally one of them - it was a case where I made a mistake and left Madrak in range of a teleporting Warpwolf where I could have just moved to the back of a zone, not even cast Even Ground, and won on Scenario.

Madrak is a scenario and attrition monster in this list. You can jam opponents out on scenario AND back it all up with hard hitting stuff that is very tough to deal with for a lot of opponents.  Like all Troll lists, it really likes to go first, but it can handle things pretty well going second.  The extra turn to just dump Fury on the Krielstone and run as far forward as possible with the Kriel Warriors is a big deal: this version of Madrak is much slower than the alternative builds with Fennblades or Long Riders.  Basically I'm trading speed for bodies and having two heavies and two units of Champions.

Future Changes

In hindsight, I've had some games where I got lucky to avoid assassinations, and a lot of this was related to the fact that the list has almost zero ways to reach out and touch people, or deal with any kind of sniping out of problem models.

This is why I intend to switch to the following list now that our tournament is over:

Trollblood - Bombs 'n Kriels

Theme: Band of Heroes
3 / 3 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army


Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain - WB: +29
-    Trollkin Runebearer - PC: 0
-    Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 19 (Battlegroup Points Used: 19)
-    Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 15 (Battlegroup Points Used: 10)

Fell Caller Hero - PC: 0
Eilish Garrity, the Occultist - PC: 5

Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 5 Grunts: 7
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9
-    Stone Scribe Elder - PC: 3
Trollkin Champions - Leader & 4 Grunts: 16
-    Skaldi Bonehammer - PC: 0
Trollkin Champions - Leader & 4 Grunts: 16
-    Trollkin Sorcerer - PC: 3


THEME: Band of Heroes

I'm not sure about the Sorcerer on the second unit of Champions, but its 3 points left over and fills out the list. It could easily just swap to being a unit of Swamp Gobbers to help protect line of sight to Madrak since the main way he seems to lose in the matches he's targeted for is getting assassinated.

The main losses are 4 Kriel Warriors and the Chronicler to pick up a Bomber and to me it definitely seems worth it.  You still have two screens for the Champs and beasts, and the loss of 4 Kriel Warriors should be made up for by the Bomber and Madrak's improved ranged output.

This all said, I have to admit I may want to swing around and start trying a faster list, akin to what I played when I started Madrak1, before I got a deal from a friend selling his old Trolls to double up on a few of my units where you run one of everything: Longriders, Fennblades, and Champs.  You can squeeze all of that plus Eilish, a Bomber, and a Mauler into 75 points and it worked well enough before I started experimenting in other ways.  I may go back to that if I find being too slow with the Kriel Warriors isn't as good against a wide variety of the field. In fact, if you're coming back to Trolls from MK2 when you possibly didn't own 2 units of Champs, Fenns, or Kriels, this kind of list would be a great place to start.

Conclusions

There are just so many ways to play Madrak1 and he is so incredibly powerful for Trolls as a faction that it's hard to see him coming out of list pairs for both power and fun reasons.  While I think Band of Heroes is his best place, there is definitely a way to run him in Storm in the North or Power of Dhunia, though probably not Kriel Company (which is more a fault of the theme than of Madrak).  The only worry I have is that he may be too good, and may stagnate our pairings a bit. That said, it is nice to always have as a kind of question/answer that can be slotted back into Troll list pairs as we go forward into MK3. 

Schrodinger's Review

So, Endzeitgeist posted his review of Sexual Predators over on his blog.

There's a few things to say about it, so I'll just dive right in...

Apparently, not having the numbers on a map is a big deal to virtual tabletop gamers.  I knew about secret doors, labels saying "this is a trap right here", and obvious icons like the nuclear hazard symbol, but didn't know that an unnumbered map was even more useful to those folks.

But now I do thanks to Thilo's review and Sexual Predators has an unnumbered Crimson Dwarf map as of last night.  FYI, I'm not so high up in my emerald tower of tentacles that I won't listen to fans of my work.  If you guys want something, first ask me if I can provide it before cursing at the darkness.

Next, I'd like to discuss the title.  Yes, Alpha Blue is a sexual game, Predators is the name of the movie I was referencing and showing in the cover image, so Sexual Predators seemed like the perfect fit.  Indeed, I was also trying to be provocative... but not actually offensive.

For one, the main adventure's antagonist actually is a sexual predator, and the PCs struggle against him and what he represents.  Any RPG title that mentions dungeons or lairs or keeps is inevitably about entering someone else's home, slaughtering them, and stealing their belongings.  I get it, there's a reason we don't title scenarios "Home Invasion Butchery & Theft."  That's an ugly thing to dwell on and we have a host of rationalizations to assuage any negative view of our selves or our characters' actions.  Nevertheless, that darkness is in there.

Sure, there's some deeply unpleasant, not to mention morally repugnant, things associated with "sexual predators;" however, like most English words and phrases, there are a variety of meanings.

Here's the "sexual predators" wiki page and it mentions the really bad stuff like human trafficking.  But it also mentions having to hunt for your sex partners or habitually seeking sexual situations that are self-serving or exploitative.  And it's not always "toxic masculinity" displaying "problematic" behavior towards women.  As we all know, the female of the species can be deadlier than the male.  So, the title is apt in several regards.

I just want to make it clear that when I titled that Alpha Blue scenario Sexual Predators, I wasn't trying to pull off a Tournament of Rapists.  That's a line even I don't want to cross.

Lastly, Endzeitgeist posted his review of Sexual Predators on rpg.net yesterday morning.  Since then, the listing on rpg.net has disappeared, reappeared, and occasionally disappeared with no explanation. When I check the review page (like just now), it shows up.  But the main page shows there are no reviews for Friday, that OSR reviews will resume on Monday.  Likewise, there's no thread in the review board of their forum.

So, it's like the Sexual Predators review both exists and doesn't really exist on rpg.net.  Hence the title of this blog post, Schrodinger's Review.

I'll end by mentioning the continued polarization of the entire world that seems to increase every single day.  It's gone far beyond politics.  It's in everything, and I don't think we can ignore it any longer.  It's gone from existential crisis to palpable atmosphere of fear and hatred and irreconcilable differences.

While I'm fucking sick and tired of it, I can't simply pretend that it'll go away on its own.  Deep, foundational divisions don't get better over time, they only get worse until substantive repairs are made.  And I don't see that happening anytime soon.

VS

FDA Codeathon

The FDA is asking coders to develop an app, see the details of the event here

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-opioid-naloxone-app-20160919-snap-story.html

 In a bid to stanch the death toll of the nation's epidemic of opioid drug use, the Food and Drug Administration is calling for the development of a cellphone app that could quickly bring lifesaving medication to the rescue of a person in the throes of a potentially deadly overdose. 

To get app designers going on their submissions, the FDA will host a "code-a-thon" on Oct. 19 and 20. Final submissions are due to the agency by Nov. 7. 

 

The submissions will be assessed for innovation, usability, functionality and adaptability by a panel of judges from the FDA, the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The highest-scoring entrant will receive an award of $40,000. And all entrants may apply for Small Business Innovation Research grants from the National Institute of Drug Abuse after the competition is over.

Game 107: Curse Of Enchantia - Introduction

Written by Alfred n' the Fettuc

The English game development studio Core Design is first and foremost known for the Tomb Raider series, being the creator of one of the biggest franchises in video game history (and solely responsible for the rise of Eidos Interactive, their parent company, that would still be active as far as 2009, where it was purchased and absorbed by Square Enix). However their story begins much earlier than that with another cult classic: Rick Dangerous. This Indiana Jones inspired platformer was one huge hit during the Amiga golden days (and one game I really loved despite being utterly incapable of going past the fifth screen or so). Also responsible for other (less cult) classics such as Impossamole, Heimdall and Chuck Rock, the studio saw the rise of adventure games as an opportunity, and basically decided to get their shot at the genre that was printing money for Lucasarts and Sierra in the 90s.

Art by Rolf Mohr, who would become the concept
artist for the Telltale Batman series, among other things.

Curse of Enchantia credits show three names in the Game Design department : Robert Toone, Ian Sabine and Chris Long. Moby Games tells us that Toone would become later lead programmer on XCom 2: War of the Chosen, Sabine would become lead programmer on Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones and that Long would become lead programmer on Herdy Gerdy for PS2 (Yeah I know, less glorious but still). What it especially shows us is that none of them would ever work on another adventure game after this one. They would not be back in the team of Core Design second attempt at the adventure genre (1994 game Universe), a fact that is not especially reassuring.

Various reviews from the time being are pretty enthusiastic about the game, deeming it "best adventure game on the Amiga", Amiga Power even going to the extent of writing "...with a few tweaks here and there could have easily beaten the Monkey Island and the like". The more recent reviews, however, are way harsher with the game, deeming it "nearly unsolvable" due to illogic puzzles and badly designed action sequences (gloups). The game seems to be trying new things, mainly with the fact it's totally dialogue-free (whether this is a good or bad thing we shall see) and its interface (and as history has shown, a new interface tend to be more often than not a VERY bad thing).

The game is universally applauded for its graphics though, so that's at least one good news.

My previous experience with the game was a short one. I remember being charmed by the graphics (and the fact that, as a non-English speaker I didn't get many options for adventure games in 1992) but I also remember abandoning the game pretty fast during an underwater section because I couldn't figure out anything about the puzzles… We'll see if I'm able to go further on this try (let's hope so!)

The story, as told by the manual, tells us that the mysterious and magic land of Enchantia is being governed by a band of evil witches, and that the inhabitants are suffering under their dark reign. One of the witches outshone the others in her malevolence and depravity (sic) and came with a devious plan to obtain eternal youth. It then tells a very convoluted and unnecessary backstory about how the witch trapped the other witches in order to put a spell on a field in another dimension (ours) in order to trap a young male child (something that was apparently non-existent in their dimension, which leads me to believe I would be interested to know how said inhabitants were still alive. Maybe we have a Children of Men-type substory? Or maybe I'm reading too much into it). Anyway, after a long struggle and conflicts amongst the witches, the result is that Brad, our hero, was playing baseball with his sister Jenny and ZAM! He disappeared from the baseball field to reappear in a prison cell.

The story as told in-game. I can't help but think that the simpler version is better.

The classic, almost cliché, story of a young kid being suddenly trust into a fantasy world always works, reminiscent of stories like Alice, Oz or The Neverending Story. It's a story seen many times in video games, probably because it's an easy metaphor for the player exiting his usual world and being plunged in a world of wonders and excitements… (or boredom and badly-designed shenanigans…) We see that again and again in video games like Ultima, Simon the Sorcerer or Monkey Island 2 (albeit in a very twisted and reverse way in the latter…)

So here we are : humble baseball player Brad is now trapped into a dungeon cell, held upside-down by manacles. It's time to try my shot at this game, and we'll see for ourselves if the strange interface, the dialogue-free world and the weird puzzles add up to something interesting or if I'm about to experiment a long nightmare in the lands of Enchantia…

"Polp"

Star Control II: Summary And Rating

            

Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters

United States

Toys for Bob (developer); Accolade (publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS, 1994 for the 3DO console; later fan ports to other platforms

Date Started: 23 March 2019

Date Finished: 14 May 2019

Total Hours: 47
Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)
Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

      

Summary:

Star Control II takes the ship-by-ship action combat of the original Star Control and places it solidly within an adventure game of epic proportions. In a galaxy of more than 500 stars and 3,000 planets, a captain must build alliances, find artifacts, mine minerals, and coerce information from alien races so that he can ultimately throw off the yoke of the Ur-Quan Hierarchy and free Earth and its allies from slavery. Gameplay comes with a lot of lore and plot-twists, but every so often it reveals its origins and requires the player to defeat enemy ships with selections from his own armada, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities. Although the sense of an open world and a nonlinear plot both end up being somewhat illusory, the game is still fun and memorable.

****

        

In the comments for my winning entry, several readers have offered descriptions and text that occurs when you try some of the game's alternate strategies, such as surrendering to the Ur-Quan, provoking the Orz, or selling your own crewmembers to the Druuge. Most of them are either dead-ends or offer such harsh consequences that you'd best not do them in the first place.

One thing I was curious to check out is what happens if you wait out the game's time limit. The Melnorme originally told me that the Earth would be destroyed in January or February of 2159, but my actions in the game managed to delay the apocalypse by almost two years. As I sat in hyperspace and watched, nothing much happened until November 2159, when the Supox and Utwig returned to their original systems, much diminished. 

          

No one remains but the Ur-Quan.

         

Around the end of 2159, the Kohr-Ah won the civil war and started to circle the galaxy, destroying each sentient race in turn. Some of their ships reached Earth in April, but they weren't here to destroy Earth just yet. I fought a few dreadnoughts and the horde moved on. The Arilou, Umgah, and Zoq-Fot-Pik were all gone by June 2160, the Supox and Utwig a month later. By October 2160, the Ur-Quan fleet had reached the "southern" end of the galaxy and destroyed the Yehat. Finally, in November, I received a broadcast from the Ur-Quan notifying me of Earth's destruction, and the game was over. My ship was parked right next to Earth at the time, and I was hoping I'd see a bunch of dreadnoughts approaching it, but alas, it wasn't quite that detailed.

             

The "bad" ending, unless you're a big Ur-Quan fan.

          

If I hadn't cheated a bit during the game by reloading when an expedition proved a waste of time, I probably would have run into issues with the time limit. Watching the slow destruction of every race, along with the intelligence that they possessed, would have been mildly horrifying. But apparently you can still win the game at any time during this process, with nothing altered in the endgame sequence.

I confess that the last bit bothers me a little because it's indicative of the approach taken by the game as a whole. When I started playing Star Control II, it gave the impression of an open-world game with multiple narrative possibilities. But it turns out you have to follow a few paths in a relatively specific order, and most of the choices turn out to be illusory. Oh, it certainly does better than the typical RPG of the period, I hasten to add. It was just a bit disappointing to find that open exploration isn't really rewarded. If you're lucky enough to stumble upon a key location amidst all the planets in the vast galaxy, you probably won't be able to do anything because you haven't bought an important piece of information from the Melnorme first.

I have similarly mixed feelings about the game's approach to the alien races and racial characterizations. On the one hand, I enjoyed the variety. When you're making a game (as opposed to shooting a film or television show), you have the freedom to make some interesting races without worrying about the CGI budget. I appreciated that there were no "bumpy forehead" aliens except perhaps for the Syreen.

           

I could have done with less of this.

         

I also don't fault the game for broad characterizations. It's a longstanding trope of science fiction and fantasy to paint races with a broad brush: the wise elves, the logical Vulcans, the proud Klingons, the evil orcs, and so forth. You rarely have time to explore the detailed characteristics of an entire culture. It's perfectly acceptable that Star Control II decided to highlight one major attribute of each race, such as cowardice, depression, loneliness, and greed. When it did go into more detail, such as in the case of the Ur-Quan and the Syreen, the detail was generally good, and it was rewarding to unlock those stories. I also appreciated the consistency of characterization. The Spathi locking themselves under their own slave shield amused me to no end because it was perfectly in keeping with the Spathi personality--and, in hindsight, 100% foreseeable. 

But I also felt there were too many moments of outright goofiness and parody among the racial interactions. The Orz, the Pkunk, the VUX, the Umgah, and the Utwig mostly just exhausted my patience. I couldn't help but think how the same races with similar characteristics might be handled with less silliness. We don't have to look very far to find an example. Starflight and Starflight II had some of the same broad racial characterizations, but rarely crossed the line into outright slapstick. I felt the stories and plot twists of those games were much better, too.

Nonetheless, I understand why Star Control II is regarded as the better game: it's all about the combat. I wasn't any good at it, but I can see why people like it. Until I played it, I wouldn't have thought that a single choice--what ship to pilot--could have so many tactical implications. There are 14 ships that can join the New Alliance and 13 potential enemy ships, resulting in 182 potential battle combinations, and each has completely different tactical considerations. (With the Super Melee application, you can fight any of the ships against any of the others, for 625 possible combinations.) Slowly mastering the strengths of your ships and learning the weaknesses of the enemy ships is a huge and rewarding part of gameplay. Later in the game, when you have to fight multiple ships in a row, there are strategic implications for what ships you send into combat first and which you reserve for later in the battle.

            

The typical outcome of my combats.

          

Still, the nature of combat, plus the lack of "character development," really makes this a non-RPG, which means it might not do so well on the GIMLET as an RPG. I played it as an exception. I don't want to hear any future comments along the lines of, "Well, you played Star Control II, so to be consistent, you should also play This Game." The point of exceptions is that I don't have to be consistent with them.

As to the GIMLET:

1. Game World. Star Control II manages to check most of the boxes in this category. It has a rich, detailed backstory, an open world, a clear place for the character and his quest, and an evolving game state that responds to the player's actions. (I particularly like how the starmap continually updates to show the dispositions of the various races.) The plot and its twists are original and interesting. The only fault I can find is that there isn't much to see or do in the open universe. I wish the creators had seeded more planets with optional encounters and finds, perhaps replacing the system by which you purchase all your technology upgrades from the Melnorme. Score: 8.

2. Character Creation and Development. Alas, there is none of either except for the ability to name your own captain. Even if you regard the ship as a "character," it doesn't get innately better so much as it gains better equipment. Score: 0.

3. NPC Interaction. Another strong point. I've given my thoughts about the NPC personalities, but I should add that even goofy personalities are better than we get from the typical RPG of the period, which is no personality (or even NPCs) at all. I wish there had been more honest variety in dialogue options instead of one that's obvious, two that are stupid, and one that's evil. The Starflight games did a better job giving the player real "options" when talking to different alien races even though they came in the form of "stances" rather than specific dialogue choices. 

I should also note that most NPCs aren't individuals but rather representatives of their races who somehow know the previous conversations the player has had with other representatives. But the game otherwise hits most of the criteria for a high score here, including a plot that advances based on NPC interaction. Score: 7.

            

My thoughts exactly.

             

4. Encounters and Foes. The game has an original slate of foes (ships) that require you to learn their individual strengths and weaknesses. There are otherwise no real "encounters" in the game that aren't also NPC dialogues. Score: 6.

5. Magic and Combat. I can't give a high score here because my scale is about RPG-style combat and the various tactics and strategies that draw from attributes, skills, and the player's intelligence rather than his dexterity. Still, as I discussed above, the choice of ship and the way you plot long combats create some important tactical and strategic decisions. I just wish combat had only been about ship versus ship. The planets, which show up suddenly as you switch screens, were unwelcome guests. Score: 3.

          

The asteroids, on the other hand, I didn't mind so much.

        

6. Equipment. All of the "equipment" in the game is ship-related rather than character-related, and it all applies to the flagship, which a good player arguably does not rely on. I wish there had been opportunities to upgrade the other ships in the fleet. It would have been tough to offer meaningful options with so many of them, but even just generic attack or defense improvements would have been nice. Beyond that, it's fun to figure out how to best make use of the limited modular space on the flagship, particularly as new options come along regularly. Score: 3.

7. Economy. There are really two economies in the game: the "resource unit" economy that lets you build a fleet and equip your flagship, and the Melnorme "information" economy that depends on bio data and Rainbow World identifications. I found both rewarding enough for about two-thirds of the game. Score: 7.

8. Quests. The game has one main quest with a few options (though, as I mentioned before, a lot of the options are illusory) and side-quests. There's only one ending. Score: 4.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Inputs. I don't have many complaints in this category. The graphics are perfectly fine for the scope and nature of the game; the sound effects are fun and evocative throughout; and it's hard to complain about the interface of a game that supports both joystick and keyboard inputs and lets you customize the keyboard. I had problems in combat despite these advantages, but I don't think I can blame the game.

I do have one major issue, or several related issues, that fits into this category. The dialogue is delivered one line at a time in a huge font. You can hit the SPACE bar after each bit of dialogue to see a transcription in a smaller font that you can barely read. Either way, if you don't make your own transcriptions or screen shots (which must have been tough for an era player), the dialogue is lost once you leave the screen. In most cases, you can't prompt the NPC to speak the same lines again, and there's no databank in which to retrieve it as there was in Starflight II. Thankfully, I took copious screenshots, but they're a cumbersome way to review previous dialogue and I think the game should have offered a better system. Score: 6.

            

This text is better than nothing, but it's still not very easy to read.

         

10. Gameplay. I give half-credit for non-linearity. The game is more linear than it seems when you start, but you still have a lot of choices about the order of your activities. I also give half-credit for replayability. As I mentioned earlier, many of the "options" seem illusory, and a replaying player might find himself swiftly on familiar paths, but there is at least some variety for a replay. The hourly total is just about right for this content, and while I had difficulty in combat, I still managed to win with an acceptable number of reloads, so I can't fault the difficulty. Score: 7.

That gives us a final score of 51, surprisingly close to the 53 I gave both Starflight and Starflight II, which had actual characters and character development. But reviewing those games, I'm reminded how awful combat was, and how many issues I had with the interface. I'm thus comfortable with the rating. 

             

The ad makes it seem like the game's enemies are the Umgah.

         

There are plenty of players, however, who would consider a 51 an insult. Star Control II still continues to make "best games ever" lists compiled by various publications. In a March 1993 preview in Computer Gaming World, Stanley Trevena liked the game enough to put it on his "top ten list of all time." "It is not often," he says, "that such a perfect balance is struck between role-playing, adventure, and action/arcade." In the November 1993 issue, they gave it "Game of the Year" in the adventure category (or, at least, it tied with Eric the Unready). Dragon gave it 5 out of 5 stars. It's rare to find an English review out of the 90s, though for some reason European reviews tended to put it lower, in the 70s.

The 3DO version from 1994 has some significant differences from the DOS version. It has an animated, narrated introduction and cut scenes plus voiced dialogue for the conversations. (My understanding is that the open-source Ur-Quan Masters would use some of this voiced dialogue but re-record others.) Some readers encouraged me to play this version specifically because of the voices. I'm not sure I would have liked it better. There's really just too much dialogue overall. Some of the voices are good: I appreciate the Vaderesque bass of the Ur-Quan, the lispy enthusiasm of the Pik, and the weird Scottish accent the creators gave to the Yehat. For some reason, they decided the Shofixti was a bad English translator of a 1970s Japanese kung-fu movie; the Orz, Spathi, and Utwig are just annoying; and the Umgah is the stuff of nightmares. The Talking Pet is the worst, with some ridiculous southern "Joe Sixpack" accent. I was also disappointed by the Syreen, who sounds like Doris Day rather than . . . well, honestly, I'm not sure what would have done justice to the Syreen. How do you blend a fierce Amazonian and a seductive vixen in a single voice?

Star Control II left a satisfying number of mysteries, such as the fate of the Precursors and why they seemed (to the Slylandro) to be nervously searching for something. We never learned about the Rainbow Worlds or why they (apparently) form an arrow pointing to the "northeast" of the galaxy. We never learned what the Orz did to the Androsynth, what the Orz really are, and how they relate to the Arilou. I was disappointed that we never found out why the Ur-Quan destroyed historical structures of humanity, including some places we weren't even aware of. I was disappointed to find that most of these questions are unanswered in Star Control 3 (1996), although we do apparently learn that the Precursors genetically modified themselves so they would have the intelligence of cows, thus protecting themselves from a race that periodically harvests the energies of sentient races. I think the creators missed an opportunity by not making the Precursors actual cows. There could have been a Gary Larson tie-in and everything.

          

The creepy cover to the game's sequel.

         

The direction of Star Control 3 reveals some of the background drama between developer Toys for Bob (authors Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford) and publisher Accolade. According to Reiche and Ford, Accolade gave the developer such a limited budget that they had to essentially work for free for half a year to create a quality game. Accolade would not increase the budget for the sequel, so the original creators refused to develop it, and the job went to Legend Entertainment instead.

In 2002, authors Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford made the source code available for free, and some fans used it to create The Ur-Quan Masters for Windows, with multiple releases starting in 2005. It has since been ported to multiple additional platforms. The effort also led to the creation of the Ultronomicon, a Star Control II wiki.

The Star Control trademark passed to Infogrames when it purchased Accolade in 1999; Infogrames soon rebranded itself as Atari. When Atari filed for bankruptcy in 2013, its assets were sold. Stardock Corporation managed to acquire the Star Control license and produce Star Control: Origins (2018). Set 26 years before the original Star Control, the game would seem to retcon when Earth first encountered alien life. During development, Stardock claimed to be in contact with Reiche and Ford, and were developing the game along their vision, although they couldn't technically participate because of their Activision contract. If this relationship was ever friendly and cooperative, it soon became otherwise when Reiche and Ford announced they would be creating Ghosts of the Precursors and Stardock started selling the first three Star Control games on Steam. Both parties counter-sued each other for copyright and intellectual property violations, and Steam removed the Star Control titles (including Origins, at least temporarily) after receiving DCMA takedown notices from Reiche and Ford. As far as I can tell, the litigation is still ongoing.

           

Combat in Origins has improved graphics but seems to adhere to original principles.

       

Toys for Bob still lives as a subsidiary of Activision, and Reiche and Ford still continue to direct the development of its games. I don't think we'll see them again, however, as none of their titles are RPGs. (For more on Reiche and Ford, see Jimmy Maher's excellent coverage of Star Control II from this past December. My favorite part is when Reiche gets fired from TSR for questioning the purchase of a Porsche as an executive's company car.)

I am often dismissive of calls for remakes, usually considering them to be the products of dull, dilettante gamers who can't handle any graphics more than 5 years old. But I would like to see, if not a remake, a modern game that has the basic approach of Star Control II (and, for that matter, Starflight)--perhaps even one that realizes it better by offering truly alternate plot paths. We have plenty of games (although, in my opinion, not enough) that allow us to explore open worlds; have any so far allowed us to explore an open universe? Perhaps that's what we'll get from Bethesda's forthcoming Starfield.