This will probably be hard to read and understand if you haven't played Viticulture and Agricola. They are very popular, so many people have videos explaining both games. I mostly want to talk about what I like about them, and not if they are good or not. Both are excellent, but very different in implementation.

I don't own many "worker placement" games, nor do I plan to acquire many more. This probably has to do with how I think about the two mechanics that generally define the genre: action spaces, and turn order management. I'm going to talk about Viticulture's take on these mechanics, obviously, but I also want to compare it to Agricola, the other worker placement game I've played a decent amount of (although it has been years since I last played Agricola).

Viticulture's worker mechanic works a little different than Agricola's, as well as other games that I have not played, but know a little bit about via various YouTubers and episodes of TableTop. A common occurrence in worker placement games is worker management. You generally start with half or slightly less than the maximum number of workers available to you, and through specific game actions, you can train additional workers, in order to take more actions for the rest of the game. Spending the early game training extra workers ensures allows you to just do more than opponents. Too few workers may result in just getting overwhelmed by a superior economy.

Training new workers is generally a costly action, though. A common drawback is "feeding workers". In Agricola, every time you go to harvest your farm, you also have to feed your family of workers. Many other game systems are wrapped around feeding. Your farm in Agricola has crops and animals, and if you build ovens and fancier ovens, you can leverage them to feed your family more efficiently. Scoring is dependent on amassing a lot of stuff, so being able to use as little as possible to feed helps bump up your score. Failing to feed brings a massive penalty. You also need a bigger house to allow for more workers, which can be very expensive if you build improvements in a bad order.

Viticulture's worker mechanic is far simpler. First of all, they have no sort of tax associated with them, such as Agricola's feeding. You simply pay the cost to train one, and it is yours for the rest of the game. Money management is very dynamic in Viticulture; having a large pile of money does not do much. In fact, having large piles of anything is not always lucrative. Viticulture is more of a race to the finish, compared to many other Euro games which often have a set number of rounds and emphasize maximizing your score in the meantime. Having a set number of rounds means you cannot surprise somebody and end the game earlier than they anticipated, which is a feature of games I've grown to appreciate, since it also comes with the ability to prolong a game by playing defensively.

I don't think I prefer one worker system over another, but Viticulture's is much easier to integrate into other game systems, since it is almost independent of every other system.

Action spaces in Viticulture are much more static than Agricola's. Viticulture's board actually has multiple spaces for workers to be placed for each type of action, making it very hard to block people from doing what they want. It also does not slowly grow over time. Agricola (and other games I presume) starts with basic actions, and over time, more and more actions are added to the board, allowing more diverse choices. Generally this makes the early game very crowded, since none of the spaces are redundant. Viticulture never really gets more or less crowded.

All worker placement games I'm aware of have boards that have scarce space for workers to go. If you go train a worker, that generally means that your opponent is going to have to go without taking that action. Think of a grocery store with only one of every item - you should probably wake up early to get what you actually want. In board games, that means being the first player to act in a round. I REALLY enjoy Viticulture's implementation of turn order. The "Wake Up Chart" is filled with nice bonuses of your choice, everything from extra cash, extra cards, or even extra victory points can be had. Greater rewards have the downside of putting your farther down in turn order, which means you may not get to do what needs to be done that round. Every game I've played has been close, and turn order management was a big part of that. Being first in the rounds that everyone is trying to trade in all of their cards for points is extremely important.

I've come to really enjoy dynamic turn order in games. It is surprisingly flexible in its applications. Splotter Spellen publishes games that generally tie turn order to prosperity. Viticulture and other worker placement games tie it to opportunity cost. If you are in no hurry to do a specific action, you can take a more powerful bonus. One challenge Viticulture's turn order system has is the first player token. Having the first player token means you place your pawn on the Wake Up Chart first (the thing that actually determines turn order). Every round, the first player token passes to another player. This can lead to uncontrollable situations where you have no chance to ever get a good place in turn order. For example, if you need to cash resources in for points next round, but you have the first player token in the current round, that means you will place your pawn on the Wake Up Chart last in the next round. Of course, this can be circumvented with a lot of preparation, but that can be an uphill battle for some people.

(The Tuscany expansion has a slightly different turn order mechanic, but as I have not played with that board yet, I won't talk about it)

As a final note, I never thought I would be so impressed by a generic looking piece as I am by the grape/wine token beads. They are a masterful piece in so many ways. They are transparent, so you can still read the number they are covering up, while even magnifying it a little due to being round on the top. Being rounded on the top also means that you cannot stack them, which helps teach players that you cannot have multiple wines and grapes of the same value. Even if they tried, the beads would give them a hell of a time representing it on their player board. Since one side is flat and the other is rounded, they don't seem to roll all that well, which means that as long as they don't bounce along the floor, they shouldn't fall underneath furniture or other annoying places.

I feel like writing about board games.

Board games have been my gaming focus for the last few years. In a way, physical cardboard has always been my focus, in gaming, and in life. Magic: The Gathering dominated my youth - I would spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about the game, even though I never really pursued higher competition than traveling an hour to the big city to try and win some Dual Lands. It shaped my whole being: how I socialize, what I do for entertainment, my college majors, my anxiety. I always gravitated towards gamers, which I regret to a point. But most of that regret actually comes from video games. Physical games have always been a brilliant experience for me.

So I want to pay some tribute to the games that mean a lot to me.

Except Magic. I don't know if I'm ready to dive that deep and write an autobiography.

------------------------

Twilight Struggle was one of the earlier board games to be added to my collection. It had everything to do with hype. I am not a history buff. American History largely goes in one of my ears and out the other. I am also not a "War gamer". At least not yet. I like complex games, but I don't like complex rules - games should be complex because the decisions are complex.

BoardGameGeek has been instrumental in helping me make purchasing decisions, and Twilight Struggle is one of the highest rated board games across the entire site, and provided the proper motivation to buy the game. I confused critical acclaim with compatibility: if this is truly one of the great board games, I will surely like it, theme be damned.

Twilight Struggle is a game of Cold War events, and cards that depict those events. The players play the part of the two global superpowers of the time, US and USSR. The board is a world map you would find in any classroom, with an abstract overlay that describes the state of the world during the Cold War. Countries have a stability number- the higher the number, the more difficult it is to exert your influence there. Highly stable countries slowly move back and forth between one player controlling it, and the other player putting a few more points into it to temporarily remove that control. Low stability countries are susceptible to more wild swings. "Coup" is a common action that either player can take. After playing a card and rolling a die, influence from the other player is removed, and sometimes your own influence is added if you happen to roll high enough. This has an additional effect beyond just controlling that country - it can remove a player's ability to act on huge areas of the board.

The easiest example of this can happen right from the first action. Iran is a country controlled by the United States player at the beginning of the game, as part of the initial setup. It also happens to be the only country that the US player controls in that area of the board. If the USSR player manages to remove that influence (which they can very easily do, using a high value card as well as the fact that they perform the very first action of the game), it essentially gives Western Asia to the USSR. The US player can respond with a Coup of their own, but another system in the game* also gives the USSR the chance to respond with yet another Coup, and also the last Coup allowed to happen in the Middle East.

*DEFCON Status is a space on the board that, as players approach nuclear war, more regions of the board lose their ability to be Coup'ed. DEFCON usually changes after a Coup happens in a particularly important country.

The act of playing Twilight Struggle is unusually brutal. It is ultimately a game about managing a hand of cards, and minimizing risks. Many times, a card you play will also do something good for your opponent, and vice versa. You have to time your cards properly, and misdirect your opponent so they have less chance to thwart your plans. Every turn has around 200 legal moves, so a large burden is put on evaluating those moves to find the one that you absolutely need to do now.

One game, I began a round with intentions to pour everything I had into Asia. I knew my opponent would do the same. However, my hand I've been dealt gives my opponent a powerful strike against my European countries. Even if I gain control of Asia this turn, when we inevitably turn our eyes back to Europe, my hopes of victory would surely be lost. So how much time can I really focus on taking Asia?

Score cards are the glue that keeps your brain together in this massive puzzle of a game. When you are dealt a Score card as part of you hand of eight cards, you have to be ready to fight. By the end of the turn, that Score card must be played - failing to do so results in an instant loss. So when you have the European Scoring card, it shapes your entire strategy that round.

When should I score Europe? Should I try and squeeze in a few more points, but risk losing more if my opponent matches my plays with stronger cards? Or maybe I should get it out of the way before it spirals out of control, take a small loss, and turn my attention to other regions?

Score cards are a blessing and a burden. Knowing that a region will be scored with 100% certainty is an informational advantage. However, it effectively reduces your options in how you exert your influence on that region, because all Score cards do is score points. That means one less card to help shape the world to your liking.

This ends up being my favorite part of Twilight Struggle. The cards may be the same every game, but Twilight Struggle is artistic in that you get a fresh mix of them every time, and the value of the cards change drastically. Some games start at a roaring pace, with multiple regions getting scored right away, turning the gaze of both player to maybe just one region. The result is a brutal fight that results in no winners - the board certainly changes, but not to the net benefit to either player.

I love Twilight Struggle because it is about making the best of bad deals: everything I do is going to help my opponent no matter what I do, but I'm going to minimize the damage to the best of my ability. It is about winning the small fights without losing sight of the bigger picture. Strokes of genius are rewarded just as much as mistakes are punished. It is a true test of skill and logic.

I don't get Twilight Struggle to the table very often, usually from too many players or just other games. But I don't have to play it to love it: reading online strategy is fascinating, and the game system is so cool that I just like talking about it around my nerd friends that have never touched it. I see it as everything a game should be: thoughtful and rewarding. It also works on many other levels, but being rewarded for a well fought battle with a smile and a deep discussion of strategies after it is over is what I value most.

If you don't want to play Twilight Struggle, I understand completely. But I think you should at least be aware of it, as I feel it is a very good example of a game that is as good as it could possibly be. Every part of the package is masterfully crafted. And for all its abstraction and dry looking components and themes, it mostly boils down to a game that is about making sure your numbers are bigger than their numbers. I believe anybody can play Twilight Struggle for that reason.

Card games are my favorite type of game. This usually means physical cards, as digital card games are a more recent thing. I started playing Magic: The Gathering over a decade ago as just a kid, completely on accident, and I've been flicking cards back and forth in my hands ever since.

But in recent years, I've found that while Magic is still the eternal king of the world, there are other games that are absolutely fantastic, and worth investing in(investment levels vary). Some are physical, some digital, and I love them all. I'm not going to put all the games that I am digging these days, as some of them are still new to me, and I want to give them more time to figure out exactly what they offer.

Android: Netrunner

I have been really into Android: Netrunner lately. I learned the game using a borrowed copy of the Core Set, bought my own later that week, then bought the deluxe expansions, then another Core Set to get more copies of those cards. After buying the Data Packs a dozen at a time, I now have nearly every card in the game (I'm missing only the most recent "The Underway" and two packs that went out of print before I went on a buying spree).

The main mechanic of player interaction is "server running". I won't explain it here, as it has a lot of lingo that I would have to explain. Fantasy Flight Games has a solid tutorial video on YouTube that can do that better than me. But I love the way the servers are set up in the game, and how it is so different from most games out there. Android: Netrunner isn't about cards fighting other cards, and then those cards dying. It is about concealing information, and having the proper tools to either put up impenetrable walls to protect your stuff, or having the right weapons to break those walls open, depending on what side you are playing.

It is also refreshing in how it handles resources: card advantage isn't really a thing like it is in so many other games, and the game supports hyper aggression and glacial paced decks, while always starting quickly, with very few boring turns.

Android: Netrunner is more about you playing your opponent, rather than your cards matching up against their cards. Sure, having a lot of cards means that the resulting deck will be more efficient, but sequencing, bluffing, and timing are at a premium here.

I shouldn't be surprised that I love Android: Netrunner. Original Netrunner released in the 90s, designed by Richard Garfield of Magic: The Gathering fame.

I recommend Android: Netrunner to anybody who enjoys building decks, and strategically deep games.

Yomi

I have spent a lot of money on Yomi over the years, mostly because I am fascinated by the design. It is not a game where you customize your deck- you pick your character (there are 20 to choose from), and that character's deck will be the same for everyone playing that character. It is a refreshing change of pace for me, as it I don't ask myself "How do I make my deck better?", but "How can I use card X better?" or "How do I play this character better in this matchup?"

The game itself is a combination of a lot of familiar and clever elements. Every deck is arranged like a standard 52 card poker deck, with two jokers. That means that there are 4 of each of the 13 unique cards in the deck. Other values on the card are also tied to the poker value of the card, as a way to more easily remember all the cards, which is good when you start getting deeper into the game.

Yomi also uses a Rock/Paper/Scissors mechanic to determine combat, but each character's options are valued differently. Attack and Throw cards have a speed value on them, and faster attacks will beat faster attacks, faster throws beat faster throws, obviously. This means if you are playing a character with fast throws, but slower attacks than your opponent has, you need to weigh your options differently. And each of the 20 characters play incredibly different. It is surprising to everyone I have ever taught the game, how much the game changes when you change characters.

Yomi has always been in a weird spot as far as games go though. If you want every character in the game, you'll be spending about 200 dollars, give or take. One character is about ten dollars. So, I've seen people look at Yomi as a $200 board game, and they just scoff and laugh at it. The thing is, Yomi scales really well with budgets. All you need is any two decks to start playing, about $20. And since it isn't a customizable game, that character you bought for $10 is the same as the top players in the world's character. If you wanted to play in a Yomi tournament (I wish they were a thing), you could go from not having a deck to entering the tournament on an even playing field (deck wise) for $10 + entry fee. This is unheard of in any card game. Even Android: Netrunner asks for about $40 to assemble enough cards for a tournament legal deck, but you will probably get crushed.

Every character is designed beautifully, with so many small details in every card, that the strategy goes much deeper than it seems at first. Yomi doesn't force you into a particular playstyle as dictated by your character- you can play more aggressively or passively, judging by how your opponent is playing.

I recommend Yomi for fans of interesting competitive games. It is kinda weird, but it is so unique and so damn well designed that I've thrown a lot of money at it. It deserves to be a lot more popular than it currently is.

I've been giving First Person Shooter mechanics a lot of thought lately. With my favorite subgenre, FPS-Z, filling up with small and interesting looking games, and my general interest in game mechanics, I thought I would go through the list of features that are pretty standard and familiar to anybody who has played a shooter in the past decade or so. I'll sprinkle in other sections that I feel need addressing, as the genre has certainly changed a lot, and recent developments need to be looked at as well.

FPS has had a strange trajectory in terms of how they have been designed, and their current design DNA is very different from what was considered "standard" in the late 90s and early 2000s. Some of the mechanics that have crept into the genre and made a seemingly permanent home, I believe, do not pull their weight, and I believe are often included in games, just because other popular games are including it as well. This does not directly lead to badly designed games, but I believe that it does lead to the genre becoming incredibly boring and stagnant, if not addressed.

This blog post is in Early Access, meaning that I will be filling in blank sections as I go, and will certainly update it erratically for at least 12 years. And no refunds! I will probably aim for one section per day, given I have the time.

Sprint

Short and Sweet: Sprint often leads to combat being only about aim and reflex, rather than aim, reflex, and smart re-positioning, and can lead to poor designs in maps.

Sprinting in FPS games started popping up more and more, I believe, after Gears of War, and Modern Warfare the following year. Gears was the first poster child of the Xbox 360, and set a lot of standards for the console, and Modern Warfare added a few other things that appear on this list. Games that didn't have sprint before, like Halo, now do. Most games, as far as I can tell, just take sprint as a given. They want players to get back into the action as soon as possible, so it becomes a natural addition. "Realism" is also a common reason to see sprint in a game. Halo is actually an example of sprint not being a given, and in Halo's case, there is a strong feeling in segments of the community that sprint does not belong in the game whatsoever. (Reasons for this range from how sprint changes rules of engagement, map design, and match pacing)

However, in my opinion, sprint is by far the most boring movement mechanic ever implemented in FPS games. It promotes taking linear pathing, and is usually paired with a slower base movement speed, which results in player interactions that are more homogeneous. With a slower base speed (because most games don't let you shoot while sprinting), player movement during a gun fight is nonexistent, and it becomes more about just aiming and reaction times, and not smart movement. This bleeds into other sections, like Aim Down Sights and PvP Duel Times.

Sprint doesn't have much of a downside. In nearly every game I play or watch, if a player isn't aiming down their sight or actively shooting, they are sprinting. The cost of lowering your gun is so low, it may as well not even be there. I don't see many people carefully turning corners in order to gain a real advantage in the first second of a fight.

So why not just remove sprint, free up a button, and increase the base player speed? The reason sprint can exist is that it allows players to move at a speed that normally would likely be a problem otherwise. If a player has a high movement speed, and can strafe back and forth quickly, aiming becomes a crapshoot for a lot of players. It can be even worse if there is an elevation difference- being in an elevated position makes player models seem to move in a more 3 dimensional space (Left and Right, closer/further, and also up and down. Level encounters don't have up and down unless a player jumps, but that hardly counts).

Map designs can suffer as well. Modern Military Shooters are generally spread out and flat to begin with, so in order to make certain distances seem correct to the designer (for example, how far should the flag stands in CTF be in terms of seconds to capture?), the map space becomes stretched out.

Regenerating Health

I think that overall, I like regenerating health as the standard in FPS. But I think that health kits still have a place in a lot of games. Any game where it takes a long time to frag a player, should probably not be using regenerating health.

I believe it is more important for developers to understand their game in other ways, and how regenerating health affects the gameplay loop. I don't like incentives to play very passively for the majority of the game, and both styles of health management can cause that, just in different ways. FPS games should be more about aggressive tactics, making players move around the map, and also towards each other.

Average Time of PvP Duels

I really dislike games with very low average kill times. Duels in FPS games should be more than a twitch, a strafe, or a spray in their general direction. Fast fragging times lead to what I would call a false sense of interaction, where there isn't any room to outplay the other player. It becomes more about shooting first, and in some games, having better internet.

I also dislike most one shot kill weapons, especially ones that you can spawn with. They are generally one dimensional, and even if they are situational, the reward for putting yourself in that situation is high. This includes a lot of sniper rifles. I know excluding snipers from a game would confuse everybody, but I'm not a fan of one sided interactions(other player may not be able to fire back unless they have a sniper themselves).

Aim Down Sights

I don't have a problem with ADS aiming, but I do have a problem with how it is implemented in some games. ADS generally creates two firing modes. ADS aiming is generally always the same, but the "hipfire" mode is what changes. In some games, hipfire is a joke, while in others, it is on par with ADS aiming. Another thing that commonly happens with ADS aiming schemes is when you pull up the iron sights, your moving speed gets capped lower than normal. My favorite thing about FPS games is the combination of movement mechanics and aiming mechanics, so I do not like the idea of a zero sum scheme (less movement for more aim).

ADS also inherently makes the control scheme more complicated. If the game actually presents the hipfire versus ADS options as a real tactical decision in the heat of the moment, that complexity is probably worth it, but if the correct choice is to always ADS, then the system is just making what was a one button action into a two button action.

Multiplayer Communication

Many Similar Guns or Few Unique Guns

Team Sizes

Mod Support

Business Model

Player Progression Systems

Hitscan VS Projectiles

Jetpacks in non FPS-Z games

Number of Weapons Held

Lots of old FPS games let players hold everything they picked up, and then Halo popularized restricting weapon options (in this case, restricting to "any two weapons, but no more"). Other games throughout the decades have used many different schemes, but they can all be generalized by how much restriction they put on players. This concept is also loosely tied to how weapons are acquired (picked up on map versus loadout screens). Basically, the more weapons a player can hold, the more complicated the gameplay can potentially become.

-One weapon (maybe a sidearm): Player is basically relegated to playing a very specific role. If they pick a sniper or a shotgun, they are making a very deliberate sacrifice in weapon range. These type of schemes need tighter balance to work, because players will try and find the best "all around" weapon, and if that kind of weapon exists, gameplay can become less diverse. Niche weapons are riskier to put into the game, because any kind of extreme oddball of a weapon runs the risk of becoming a liability (In Halo, imagine somebody with only a Plasma Pistol versus a Battle Rifle, and how their options differ during a game).

-Two Weapons: This is a nice sweet spot, because the game system can be very restrictive, but the player still has a lot of ability to overcome weakness in their loadout. The basic scenario is selecting a "main" weapon (probably the player's favorite weapon), and then selecting a weapon that compliments it, either by being good where the main weapon is bad, or synergizing in a particular way (not common, but imagine the Plasma Pistol again).

-Three or more Weapons: Diminishing returns probably makes an appearance after the 4th or 5th weapon is included. At this point, the player can probably amass enough weapons to cover every situation. It becomes less of knowing what kind of weapon before you need it, and just knowing what to use at a given time. Weapon switch times becomes more important here - too much time, and the game appears to be punishing players trying to use all of their weapons, and too fast, and the optimal way to duel other players becomes very hectic and complicated.

Map Design: Open or Segmented?

I consider myself to be somewhat of a Bungie fanboy. More accurately, I am a big Halo fanboy. I don't get into the lore all that much, but I really like the mechanics featured in all the modes. I enjoy how multiplayer can be enjoyed in so many ways, from hardcore competition, to completely stupid minigame maps. Many a LAN have started with Team Slayer on Guardian, and end with "Duck Hunt", which in my case involved Gauss Hogs and people being forced out of an elaborate cannon. (I only mention that because after some research, my beloved Duck Hunt may not be what everyone else plays)

So the day before Destiny came out, I wasn't freaking out like I usually do when it comes to new games, because I was still trying to figure out in my head what it was supposed to be. It also helped that I play PC primarily these days, so I had no means to play the game besides take a 20 minute drive to my sister's house to play on her husband's sweet TV.

I shouldn't dwell on Destiny too much- I played about half a mission while I was waiting for everyone to get back inside to start playing 7 Wonders. But Destiny, along with other recent games, like TitanFall, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, have made me realize that FPS may be going in the direction that I have been hoping it would for the past couple years.

There are a LOT of shooters that didn't have jetpacks before, now featuring jetpacks. There is a reason for it too- Jetpacks are awesome in first person shooters. They offer movement on an axis that usually gets the short end of the analog sticks, and open up tons of cool ways to construct levels. Everybody has probably dreamed of how great it would be to jetpack to work (assuming your place of living has weather that allows it [not Minnesota]).

Not all is grand in this new, and hopefully growing trend.

The biggest problem I have with almost every single game that sports a jetpack as a significant part of the core movement system, is that they are usually just glorified double jumps. Not only that, but they are often worse than a double jump would be, since traveling in a smooth, predictable trajectory has been known to be lethal to the user in more than one billion dollar franchise. All these jetpacks do is lift you off the ground more than you could before. If the level designers really wanted to, they could set up ledges to hop on everywhere, and just remove jetpacks. Or maybe go a step further and add a bunch of staircases, so players don't even need to jump.

Adding jetpacks to existing franchises isn't just a "one and done" thing either- existing players have expectations on game flow of their favorite game. In Halo Reach, for example, the jetpack was up there as one of the most controversial additions to the game. The competitive crowd basically despised it, because it disrupted conventional Halo map control strategies. No longer were players restrained to specific paths to travel throughout the map, which made it hard to lock down on an opposing team in 4v4 game types. It didn't help that Halo Reach had a handful of classic maps that players were very comfortable with, and have been for a long time. All of a sudden, players could come out of places that there was no reason to watch before. Nobody was rising like a phoenix from the middle ring in Sanctuary, but with the jetpack, that ring was more or less a playground.

Even for people who don't read about manipulating spawns for fun and profit, jetpacks can cause some issues. The nice thing about a hallway is that there is a wall, a ceiling, and very clear entry points. This aids greatly in helping new players figure out what the hell is going on. Their heads don't need to be on a swivel. In jetpack-centric games, ceilings are the first thing to go. Players are coming at each other in all three dimensions, which makes things much more complicated.

Running in all the wrong directions

Jetpacks aren't the only thing that I think sucks about a lot of FPS games. I've grown to loathe sprint buttons. In basically every game, pushing sprint causes you to lower your weapon, therefore disabling your ability to interact in the game until you stop sprinting. This is compounded by the fact that many games force you to snap into iron sights in order to hit anything farther than the reach of your fists. A genre that once was about running and gunning, is now about running AND THEN gunning. Sprinting and 'ADS' go hand in hand these, leading to completely separating arguably the two most important parts of a shooter.

In my opinion, the actual shooting is by far the least interesting thing about shooters. Usually, it is just a dexterity test that can be improved with practice, but doesn't require much strategic thinking. I'm okay with that being the case, but when there is a large emphasis on the firing of a gun, with elaborate sights, different firing modes, and being forced to slow down to use it at all, I find that to be incredibly boring.

In contrast, interesting movement mechanics not only can take great dexterity, but also end up being very strategic. Quake strafejumping is probably the easiest example. It takes a little practice to get a little bit of speed from the technique, but with enough practice, strafejumping can make players go extremely fast- even around corners! TitanFall is a more modern example, and gets the privilege of being a game that has mechanics that I am both criticizing and praising in the same blog post. Titanfall's wall jumping links the game's glorified double jump translate into both forward velocity, and with some help from the map, vertical ascension.

SO DOLD, IF YOU DON'T LIKE SPRINTING, IRON SIGHTS, OR JETPACKS OR ANYTHING, WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN SHOOTERS????

Well, I'm glad you asked.

The first two videos are your standard montages, for the games Legions: Overdrive and Tribes: Ascend. Both games feature deep movement mechanics that require both technical skill and strategic thinking. To emphasize this, the third video is a playlist of videos featuring nothing but various flag capping routes, on a single map. Players in Tribes Ascend could spend months on just skiing around the map and hitting flag stands from all sorts of angles. Routes were optimized and redone with new setups, to compensate for things such as where they found that the enemy snipers were setting up camp, or to use a particular hill to hide their approach. Cappers were innovating for years after the game came out. All without shooting any players. The twenty odd minutes in that playlist is the end result of probably thousands of hours of work from maybe a few dozen individuals.

I like games where all the mechanics come together to become more than the sum of their parts. In games like Legions and Tribes, incredible moments happen all the time, as a result of how the weapons work, and how players move about the map. They require a ton of teamwork to pull off a successful flag heist, but also allow for creative and talented individuals to make magic out of a dire situation. They reward hard work both in practicing the weapons, but also the movement.

In summary, I need sleep now, and I'm really disappointed with new games, but also disappointed that games I do like got robbed of a chance to become great. I'm not one to edit blog posts to death, as long as they are not a pain to read, and I'm sick of typing. I have a lot more to say, but I don't have the words for it right now. I'm just sitting here, wishing that I could have ordered pizza before all the places closed.

Stupid weekdays.