Game Review: Slay
So this is one of my favorite little games for passing time. If your work place doesn't block the site, check it out here. Buy it!
What's the game about? Well its all about conquering everything! I seem to like games that involve taking over territory (Slay, Go, and a cool board game called Java).
My Slay Theme: Evil
I modified the original medieval and an oriental theme for characters, selected my own colors, made my own houses and castles - now Cairn Pile and Monoliths! So that's what you see in the pictures!
Note: the board is based on hexagons, which is very cool.
So each hexagon is territory space, you get money for having it. With your money you can buy men from your Cairn Pile (aka deinen haus). Men, Cairn Piles, and Monoliths all guard the 6 spaces around them. So placement is key to victory.
2 = Pion - the smallest of your attack forces, they can only capture unguarded spaces.
6 = Ramrod - with his spear and hypnoshield he defeats Pions and Cairn Piles.
18 = Genie - this guy need no stinky lamp to overpower Ramrods and Monoliths.
54 = Zombie - (now with swords!) just in case there are too many Genie, Mr Zombie can dine on their magical flesh!
To get a Ramrod you combined two Pions. Add a third Pion and you get a Genie. You get the combination idea. But make sure you have enough territory to support their costly upkeeps or all your men will die! This is also a good strategy to defeat your opponents.
Land with trees on it produces no money, so have your men cut them down. Palm tree start on coastal territories and grow like wildfire. Stop them before they choke the life out of your lands!
The left side of the game shows you some helpful things. A mini map on top. The blinky red dots are where you can take action. The middle show who's turn it is and is where you buy men and monoliths when you have selected a territory (white highlighted area in monolith picture). The next one down shows relative strengths of the different countries.
The game is turn based so you can play it at your leisure. I recommend starting up a friendly game (more than 1 human player) and then playing over email. Take your turn, save it, and then email the save file!
The game comes with tonnes of maps for you to play on, 4 difficulty levels, and easily customizable themes. The size of the map will determine how long your game lasts, as will the difficulty. One thing that makes maps hard, even on the easier levels, is the fact that your territory is pseudo-randomly placed. Each map will always start you off in the same places, but sometimes this positioning is very bad. Each board give advantage to one of the countries (usually not yours).
So the real challenge is beating them all on different difficulty levels. Below is part of the challenge screen (the default game type that you see when you load up the program). I've been working on beating all the levels (the little trees) on Clever. Sometimes if my placement is real bad I have to beat it on Stupid, but sometimes when I get lucky I can beat it on Very Clever. The difficulty is noted by the type of man. The number he holds up is the number of turns it took for me to reach victory.
Tip: if your opponents offer submission, take it because you'll beat the map in fewer turns!
If you ever want to play via email give me a shout!
In other news: The Coalition of Highly Evil Avian Posses (CHEAP) released a statement to the effect that the Bird Flu Pandemic is planned to begin on November 24th.
What's the game about? Well its all about conquering everything! I seem to like games that involve taking over territory (Slay, Go, and a cool board game called Java).
My Slay Theme: Evil
I modified the original medieval and an oriental theme for characters, selected my own colors, made my own houses and castles - now Cairn Pile and Monoliths! So that's what you see in the pictures!
Note: the board is based on hexagons, which is very cool.
So each hexagon is territory space, you get money for having it. With your money you can buy men from your Cairn Pile (aka deinen haus). Men, Cairn Piles, and Monoliths all guard the 6 spaces around them. So placement is key to victory.
2 = Pion - the smallest of your attack forces, they can only capture unguarded spaces.
6 = Ramrod - with his spear and hypnoshield he defeats Pions and Cairn Piles.
18 = Genie - this guy need no stinky lamp to overpower Ramrods and Monoliths.
54 = Zombie - (now with swords!) just in case there are too many Genie, Mr Zombie can dine on their magical flesh!
To get a Ramrod you combined two Pions. Add a third Pion and you get a Genie. You get the combination idea. But make sure you have enough territory to support their costly upkeeps or all your men will die! This is also a good strategy to defeat your opponents.
Land with trees on it produces no money, so have your men cut them down. Palm tree start on coastal territories and grow like wildfire. Stop them before they choke the life out of your lands!
The left side of the game shows you some helpful things. A mini map on top. The blinky red dots are where you can take action. The middle show who's turn it is and is where you buy men and monoliths when you have selected a territory (white highlighted area in monolith picture). The next one down shows relative strengths of the different countries.
The game is turn based so you can play it at your leisure. I recommend starting up a friendly game (more than 1 human player) and then playing over email. Take your turn, save it, and then email the save file!
The game comes with tonnes of maps for you to play on, 4 difficulty levels, and easily customizable themes. The size of the map will determine how long your game lasts, as will the difficulty. One thing that makes maps hard, even on the easier levels, is the fact that your territory is pseudo-randomly placed. Each map will always start you off in the same places, but sometimes this positioning is very bad. Each board give advantage to one of the countries (usually not yours).
So the real challenge is beating them all on different difficulty levels. Below is part of the challenge screen (the default game type that you see when you load up the program). I've been working on beating all the levels (the little trees) on Clever. Sometimes if my placement is real bad I have to beat it on Stupid, but sometimes when I get lucky I can beat it on Very Clever. The difficulty is noted by the type of man. The number he holds up is the number of turns it took for me to reach victory.
Tip: if your opponents offer submission, take it because you'll beat the map in fewer turns!
If you ever want to play via email give me a shout!
In other news: The Coalition of Highly Evil Avian Posses (CHEAP) released a statement to the effect that the Bird Flu Pandemic is planned to begin on November 24th.
Transmitted at 11/04/2005 06:20:00 AM
2 Comments:
That seems highly complicated... you should find some real work to do at work instead of playing games!
By
Kathryn, at 11/04/2005 8:59 AM
It's really not hard... your little bubble pop game is just difficult, but is time based so it stresses you out more. My is turn based, I play a turn, do some work and then if I start to feel sleepy or something I play my next turn. It keeps me focused.
By
TYSEN, at 11/04/2005 9:04 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home