Wasteland Empires revisited

So I've been playing the FB game from Crowdstar called Wasteland Empires, and so far, I have to say I'm impressed. Of course there are a few things that could be improved, but this game is a beta, so enough people giving the creators feedback on these issues can only serve to assist at this point.

To start: the people are nomads, several generations beyond the devastation which ruined a futuristic society (not unlike the premise of Fallout, although Fallout's was the "future" of the 30's and 40's while this one seems to be the future of the 70's to 80's). Your people found an oasis, literally and figuratively; there is the wreckage of a sign which belonged to the Oasis Hotel and what was presumably a well or other water source just beneath the sign, long ago serving as mere decoration but now the heart's blood of a new colony. Your people decide to settle here and call this place "home."

The tutorial is essentially the first "Chapter," telling you how and what to build, how to scavenge the rubble to simultaneously gather resources and clear space for new structures. Characters who are supposedly part of your band of nomads tell a little story with comic book-style balloons in order to further the quest chain of that chapter. What irritates me about that is that they appear to give the last few lines of dialogue every time you load the game, so if you step away from the keyboard too long and it prompts you to replay, they pop up and those dialogue scenes can be fairly lengthy.

Most of the strategy I've experienced comes several flavors.

First, well placement. It's a big deal, because sources of water are the only structures that cannot be moved once placed, and require car batteries to complete, which you can only acquire by enlisting friends (so far I've needed three batteries per well, and you only get one battery per friend. The first couple of batteries are freebies, though). Since you have a limited number of batteries, you need to put them out at the edge of your oasis' coverage in order to maximize the footprint of your colony and allow the least amount of overlap.

Second, your deployment of offensive forces while in the raider colonies. You get to train 50% of your colonists as warriors, like scouts, crushers, spearmen, but whom ends up in battle is limited by your level. At my current reputation level, I get three squads of ten men to commit to battle. Most of the time I simply deploy them all in the same spot at the edge of the map where I can hit towers one-by-one without being aimed at by more than one tower, although that tends to bunch them up a bit for the scary boulder-throwers, which can knock out quite a few of my unarmored troops in one shot. But generally, if I cram enough folks onto one target, I can have it down before too many are lost. Once the towers are gone, there seems to be no more opposition to just bashing the crap out of the remaining buildings in order to scavenge supplies.

What I love: the feel of a real-time strategy in post-apocalyptic flavor. There's just enough cooperation required of nearly all the games written for Facebook, meaning that you have to invite your friends to play and they have to actually play the game (or at least log into it) in order to send the "gifts" you need to complete buildings. For instance, if I want to build out onto more territory, I have to place and complete wells. In order to complete the building of a well, I will need several batteries, and they can only be acquired when inviting friends into your gaming circle. Other items necessary for the completion of structures come directly as gifts (more cooperation), found when you attack the raiders' or other players' settlements, or when you scavenge the rubble around your colony.

What can be improved:
Get rid of the constant barrage of dialogues upon loading the game.
When placing a building, I am limited to the small window if I don't want to play full screen. Having the ability to move the screen about even when holding a building command would be fantastic.
The jumping from map to raider camp back to map then to the home colony is a bit cumbersome. Just have a function that will take you back to your own colony immediately after an attack.
There really does not seem to any sense of urgency. Even when, in the course of one quest chain, it says I was attacked, I was never attacked. Every battle at this point is offensive.

Overall, I've been entertained in a way that I have never been using a Facebook game. We'll have to see if it lasts.

Jumping on the RTS Bandwagon

So I'm tooling around on Facebook today to check out something my friends sent me, and I see this add for "Wasteland Empires." Anyone who know me knows that I get that "deer-in-the-headlights" look when anything remotely apocalyptic crosses my vision.* So naturally, I click.

What I found was a somewhat interesting beta for a real-time-strategy (RTS) game. Being a big fan of Starcraft and Warcraft (gotta love those orc Peons!) I decided I would give it a shot. So far, I've been pleasantly surprised. It doesn't play much differently in that the player is required to gather resources, build defenses and buildings which allow the next level on the technology tree to be built.

A short cut scene plays at the beginning to get you into the feel of the game, not dissimilar to the Fallout series of games. They find "Oasis," call it home and start building from there. The resources are in the rubble around the initial spot, and sending your colonists out to scavenge not only nabs you the materials you need to build but also the space in which to expand as well.

The sounds effects and soundtrack are great for a game built into a Facebook app. I'd even go so far as to compare them to the original Fallout as far as dreariness and appropriate feel for the game. Certainly better than the drek Inon Zur cranked out for FO3.

The drawings are comic-book style, alright but not spectacular. Some of the icons used for the resources don't fit the gritty and grimy feel of the rest of the "world" but this game is a beta so I'm being lenient. I would be happier to see the people wearing real items in lieu of armor instead of the ridiculous fallbacks to oversized skulls on their shoulders. Otherwise, decent effort for the concept art.

At the end of the day, what the makers of the game really want me to do is to give it Five Stars as-is, but I wouldn't. Not yet. Would I recommend it to my friends, however? Sure. A great little app is a great little app to pass the time while chatting on an otherwise boring social networking page.

*There was a time when I was sitting down to watch television and I saw ads for "Friday Night Lights." Not being the closest thing to a sports fan, I missed the few sports references and was a little bit thrilled with the creepo, wastelandish look. I bet you can imagine my disappointment.