War of the Worlds

[steve58]

I'm not normally attracted to survival-types of games, but this one caught my eye.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1898920/War_of_the_Worlds/

[Gusington]

This has been in development for a while. War of the Worlds is one of my first loves and I can't believe a good game has not come out yet based on it...fingers crossed here.

[SirAndrewD]

This has been in development for a while. War of the Worlds is one of my first loves and I can't believe a good game has not come out yet based on it...fingers crossed here.

I really enjoyed Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds PC game waaay back in the day.  It was doing Total War style gameplay before Total War. 

Largely forgotten today.  It was largely forgotten then as well.

Someone did a YouTube video on it..

[al_infierno]

This looks cool but I fully expect they will be C&D'd by Paramount at some point in the future.  The original novel is definitely in public domain, but the visual design of the tripods, the sound effects it makes, and the snakey "probe" thing are pretty much lifted from the Spielberg film 1:1.  The "reveal" of the tripod in the trailer is also pretty much shot-for-shot taken from the movie.

I really wish indie devs with cool ideas would get smart and make their own "serial number filed off" IP instead of just copying and pasting famous movies and acting all shocked when they get served a takedown notice.

Also +1 on the old WoTW RTS, that game ruled though it always kicked my ass.

[Gusington]

I have to watch that video about Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds game...his musical version of it from the 70s (?) is one of my favorite things of all time.

[SirAndrewD]

I have to watch that video about Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds game...his musical version of it from the 70s (?) is one of my favorite things of all time.

A strangely forgotten game that came out two years before Shogun Total War and yet added the strategic layer and persistent land maps to the RTS formula.

Critics barely talked about it it and those that did seemed to not like it.  I was the kid that had a sub to PC Gamer and I don't think they even covered it, I was surprised to see it on a shelf and bought it on a whim. 

I still remember how early human units were utterly useless so I had to trade space for time and erected the "Manchester Line" of heavy fortifications supported by naval bombardment to keep the Tripods at bay.  Then it was holding them off with massive trench and artillery spam until I could actually develop my first tanks to take the fight to the invaders.   

Great stuff.

[Gusington]

Did you win a campaign?

I just watched the above video - I would buy that game from GOG right now.

And I too had a PC Gamer subscription, loved War of the Worlds and then the TW series and I have never heard of that above game. Crazy.

[SirAndrewD]

Did you win a campaign?

I just watched the above video - I would buy that game from GOG right now.

And I too had a PC Gamer subscription, loved War of the Worlds and then the TW series and I have never heard of that above game. Crazy.

Yeah, for both Humans and Martians. 

The Martian one was easier but the game did great balance by making to deal with a very small number of obscenely powerful tripods that you had to pretty much do everything with. 

Humans were VERY strong on defense if they had time to dig in and put up arty and bring their dreadnoughts and gunboats to bear.  Martians were offensive juggernauts but they had to terraform their areas with blood fields to build up and had small numbers.

[Gusington]

You had me at dreadnoughts. Did the game take place in 1898-ish? Could you control the HMS Thunderchild?

Even if you couldn't just say yes.

[SirAndrewD]

You had me at dreadnoughts. Did the game take place in 1898-ish? Could you control the HMS Thunderchild?

Even if you couldn't just say yes.

Yes, it's set in the 1890's.  The Thunderchild's spirit is VERY present in the game.

[al_infierno]

If you can't get your hands on a working version of the PC game, there's also a couple War of the Worlds board games that are basically exactly the same right down to having a tactical battle layer in addition to the strategic layer.  I believe there's one for England and one for North America.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/226631/war-worlds-new-wave

[Gusington]

^Ooh nice, thank you.

[Sigwolf]

It's probably worth noting that the only other game from these developers has been in Early Access since 2016, with decidedly mixed reviews.  Even if it doesn't get a takedown, it seems unlikely that it will ever be finished.

[Gusington]

 

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

There's also a series of solitaire board games from DVG called War of the Worlds: (country name).  I won a copy of the England set at a convention 4-5 years ago.  It's not a bad little game.  I never tried out any of the others in the series.  There's France, Eastern U.S.A., and Japan, I believe.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/237551/war-worlds-england




If you really want to take a deep plunge, you can try to get your hands on all the minis for a game called All Quiet on the Martian Front.  It was a kickstarter series that was rather infamous for the developer's meltdown.  He vastly underestimated development costs and kinda lost it near the end.  To his credit, he delivered on as much as possible but I think he took a real bath on the series.  Great looking minis though!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/142219/all-quiet-martian-front




There's also an offshoot of the World War I Wings of Glory minis game called Tripods and Triplanes.

It got solid reviews but never really caught on.  You can find many of the tripod minis on steep discounts at various online stores.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/208754/wings-glory-tripods-triplanes