From newsletter I just received:
QuoteVISTA and HANFORD, CA., July 23, 2018 – Playdek, the award-winning digital board game developer and publisher, along with GMT Games, the board gaming leader for strategy and war games, today announced the launch of a long term partnership that will see Playdek developing digital adaptations of some of GMT's most beloved series of games, as well as key titles from their extensive catalog. The ultimate goal of the partnership is to bring the best strategy games and global favorites to hobby gamers worldwide, building a global community of online digital strategy gamers.
The first products announced to come from the partnership are Labyrinth: The War on Terror, from acclaimed designer and intelligence analyst Volko Ruhnke; Imperial Struggle, from Ananda Gupta and Jason Matthews, the award winning designers of Twilight Struggle; and the COIN Series line of games, created by Volko Ruhnke and expanded upon by other strategy genre designers. The first COIN game will be announced in the future, as will additional product lines to come from the partnership.
Didn't they try this before with Twilight Struggle and that collapsed?
Big news either way...
Some more tidbits here:
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/79199/app-news-gmt-and-playdek-form-partnership-bring-gm
That sounds like the same group that did Twilight Struggle on Steam. I almost bought it recently but the reviews were mixed and it sounds like they have abandoned the game while leaving some fairly serious bugs still in play.
there were a lot of hassles with the initial buggy software, and the compounding problem was that everyone was complaining to GMT but PlayDek was the problem
I hope this works out. Most of Twilight Struggle works fine, as an adaptation. The remaining bugs are in some of the DLC cards, which for whatever reason(s) Playdek abandoned.
Generally their adaptations are top-notch. Agricola is kind of a marvel on an iPhone. I've always hoped GMT would try again with someone.
The COIN and Twilightish series are good choices -- the engine on the latter has already been done, and so needs only the proper alterations and content. And other game systems are similar enough to TwiStrug's siblings, as cousins so to speak, for adaptations to be extra steps. And so on.
Quote from: Barthheart on July 23, 2018, 11:35:23 AM
Some more tidbits here:
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/79199/app-news-gmt-and-playdek-form-partnership-bring-gm
Labyrinth in Q4-18? Unlikely but I won't complain! :D
The AI is already built - it's the bots that already exist on the cards
Quote from: JasonPratt on July 23, 2018, 03:09:40 PM
I hope this works out. Most of Twilight Struggle works fine, as an adaptation. The remaining bugs are in some of the DLC cards, which for whatever reason(s) Playdek abandoned.
...
OK, I see that now after looking at the Steam forums again.
Quote from: bayonetbrant on July 23, 2018, 03:56:12 PM
The AI is already built - it's the bots that already exist on the cards
Exactly! Most of these games have bot rules already; the trick is just figuring out how to implement them on the game field.
They should hire gameleaper. O0
heh
Yeah I've never had any problems with Twilight Struggle on Android. It's a very well regarded game in mobile circles anyway. Don't think I bought the DLC cards so maybe that's the trick.
Playdek recently sold (?) the publishing rights for a bunch of their older games to Asmodee Digital anyway (in.c TS I think), so they should be free to focus on this. Personally, I'd love to see Pendragon in digital, although I'd take Falling Sky because then I don't have to buy the physical game for £80 :2funny: :'(
Here are three supposedly unresolved TS bugs according to the Steam forums:
QuoteAnd one more, I found that when the result of UK 1945 is 6, the SUEZ CRISIS is still in effect.
@gweis_pd I just found one more: when the result of VE Day is 6, BLOCKADE event is still in effect.
Non-Aligned Movement should be 2 ops ,not 1 op
I’m curious if these are still bugs or not. Not sure if any of them are game breakers as I have yet to play the game. Thinking of picking it up so I'm curious about these issues.
Edit - Here is a Steam guide on how to deal with quite a few bugs: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=817482888
Programmed solitaire games (like Fields of Fire) would be good to convert to digital.