Freeware Game Pick: Balance of Power: 21st Century (Chris Crawford)
Balance of Power: 21st Century places you in charge of the US straight after the 9/11 bombings and asks you to make numerous decisions about the welfare of the world. It's a storybook style game where all goings-on happen in text form. Every decision you make has a consequence and it's up to you to decide how to play - either be an evil dictator and scare every other leader into submission, or be kind and generous and win their approval.
It's a simple setup but there's plenty to try out, ranging from preventing nations from firing nuclear missiles to setting off some of your own. A balance needs to be struck between using force to keep the more hostile nations at bay, while staying friendly with those who may be able to offer help.
The game is a pretty mixed bag which will seem cool to some and rather boring to others. It definitely has potential and maybe if it were taken a little further (visuals, charisma etc) Balance of Power could be really quite nice. Give it a play and see what you make of it.
Source: IndieBird
Comments
Why does that name sound familiar?
Posted by: Anonymous | March 30, 2009 1:38 PM
Which name, Chris Crawford? He did found the GDC (it originally started out in his house) and he wrote the first book on game design back in 1982 and all.
Posted by: Paul Eres | March 30, 2009 3:12 PM
That was pretty interesting. I only played a short game (I think it needs some tweaking since to solve my only problem, I dropped a nuke and then retired and still did ok!) but it's a pretty interesting concept.
Posted by: Chetyre | March 30, 2009 3:22 PM
Hopefully, Chris Crawford won't read this. :D Especially the line where it says "and maybe if it were taken a little further (VISUALS, charisma etc) Balance of Power could be really quite nice".
Anyways it's an interesting storyworld, but I think it's definitively not the best you can achieve with Storytron engine. I am looking forward to other storyworlds.
Posted by: Miroslav Malesevic | March 30, 2009 5:09 PM
Really positive to see some results finally!
There's definitely a lot of mileage in toy grammars. I think they'll be able to stand on their own, but I do think they'll get a lot of bang for their buck when they're weaved into more conventional mechanics (GTA style open worldy stuff) as a meta-language for any given game.
Posted by: Aubrey | March 30, 2009 5:50 PM
Apparantly your nation doesn't approve of a leader who nukes everyone in sight.
Posted by: Tzsak | March 30, 2009 6:15 PM
I actually got the sentence : "You agree to shoot up a mall in Peoria." on the right side of the screen... I think there are some bugs floating around in there.
Fun game though... I dig it.
Posted by: Tim | March 30, 2009 7:59 PM