Interviews & Features

Interviews – Authors

• Django Wexler

Interviews – Games

• Pricing AI War and Tidalis: Chris Park of Arcen Games speaks
• At the Gates Q&A, with Jon Shafer
• Age of Wonders III Q&A, with Lennart Sas
• Guns of Icarus Online: Adventure Mode Q&A, with Jess Haskins
• Europa Universalis IV, with Thomas Johansson
• Race to Mars, with Szymon Janus
• The Occult Chronicles, with Vic Davis
• Dominions 4, with Johan Karlsson and Kristoffer Osterman
• Hearts of Iron IV, with Dan Lind.
• Offworld Trading Company, with Soren Johnson.
• Guns of Icarus Online follow-up, with Howard Tsao.
• Oriental Empires, with Bob Smith.
• Crisis of the Confederation, with Gregory Hayes.
• Kim, with Jeremy Hogan.
• Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter, with Wael Amr.
• Arcadian Atlas, with Taylor Bair
• Stars in Shadow, with Sven Olsen and Jim “Arioch” Francis
• Shadow Empire, with Victor Reijkersz

Storytelling in Games

• Storytelling in Games: An Introduction
• Storytelling in Games: “What’s it all about?” Or, the Importance of Gameplay Mechanics
• Storytelling in Dominions 3 (guest post at Flash of Steel)
• Storytelling in Star Control II: Playing space detective
• An extraordinary life: storytelling in Fallout 3
• The price of heroism: storytelling in X-Com
• A history of heroes: storytelling in Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
• Love, hate, and stories: the visual novels of Christine Love

Guides

• The Beginner’s Guide to Wargame.

Issues in Games

• Conquest, Plunder and Tyranny: Explaining Dubious Morality in Strategy Games
• Designing victory conditions: lessons from Company of Heroes, Rise of Nations and Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy
• Pricing niche strategy games: Matrix, Shrapnel and Paradox
• Total War? Only for the undiplomatic: the lessons of Shogun 2
• Tactics X-COM: Jagged Ogre Chronicles, or a guide to squad-level strategy/tactics/RPGs
• What five games say about violence
• Rome II, the Total War series, and what makes a good 4X game

Gaming Retrospectives

• A game that could have been: Emperor of the Fading Suns
• Persona 3: Portable — the retrospective verdict
• Armageddon Empires: lessons from a five-year-old indie game

Games of the Year & Gaming Year in Review

• 2010 — Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale, developed by EasyGameStation and localised by Carpe Fulgur
• 2011 — Total War: Shogun 2, developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega. (Runner-up: Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, developed and published by Square Enix.)
• 2012 — Analogue: A Hate Story, by Christine Love; Wargame: European Escalation, developed by Eugen Systems and published by Focus Home; and XCOM: Enemy Unknown, developed by Firaxis and published by 2K Games.
• 2013 — Wargame: AirLand Battle, developed by Eugen Systems.
• 2014 — New game: Crusader Kings II (with expansions), by Paradox Development Studios. Old game: XCOM: Enemy Within, by Firaxis.
• 2015 — Total War: Attila and Nobunaga’s Ambition: Sphere of Influence.
• 2019 — Dragon Quest Builders 2, Total War: Three Kingdoms, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses
• 2020 — Not ranked
• 2021 — Humankind
• 2022 — Terra Invicta (early access)
• 2023 — The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (with Jagged Alliance 3 as runner-up)