Category: Strategy and War Games

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Sid Meier & Will Wright GAME DEVELOPER:Firaxis GAME PUBLISHER:Electronic Arts Copyright 2002, Firaxis Good movies are made by good directors, not big-name studios (although certainly the studios’ deep pockets are necessary to fund ambitious projects). Hence, blockbusters from Disney, Miramax, Universal or any other studio would…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:John White GAME DEVELOPER:Deep Red Games GAME PUBLISHER:MicroProse Copyright 2000, Hasbro Interactive Risk II is an excellent example of how a computerized version of a popular boardgame should be done: keeping the original elements intact while adding elements that are only possible on the computer. In…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Bill Levay GAME DEVELOPER:MicroProse GAME PUBLISHER:MicroProse Copyright 1999, Avalon Hill Iron Blitz Edition is THE proper computer version that does justice to the classic board wargame, released years after the disappointing (and very buggy) first release by MicroProse. Wargamer.com says it all about what makes this…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:Nihon Falcom GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2002, Nihon Falcom Vantage Master Online is a fun fantasy wargame from Japan’s Falcom. Like Lord Monarch before it, VMO is a freeware Windows release of Falcom’s console title that was reasonably popular in Japan. Best described as “Fantasy…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:Lasersoft GAME PUBLISHER:Lasersoft Copyright 1990, Lasersoft Lin Wu Challenge is a lackluster Mahjongg game from Lasersoft, a German developer. Like numerous other solitaire Mahjongg games, your goal is to remove 2 matching tiles at a time to clear the pile. The gameplay is very…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Terry Hastings GAME DEVELOPER:Villa Crespo GAME PUBLISHER:Villa Crespo Copyright 1993, Terry Hastings Ruckus Poker and Ruckus Roulette are two of the best entries in Villa Crespos long line of casino games that found their heyday in early 1990s. Marketed as full-price commercial titles rather than as…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Terry Hastings GAME DEVELOPER:Villa Crespo GAME PUBLISHER:Villa Crespo Copyright 1992, Terry Hastings Ruckus Poker and Ruckus Roulette are two of the best entries in Villa Crespos long line of casino games that found their heyday in early 1990s. Marketed as full-price commercial titles rather than as…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:NZP GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2002, NZP Good Neightbors Solitaire is a catchy little solitaire, in which the objective is to pair off and remove all the cards in the 52-card deck. You can remove any pair of cards of the same rank, provided they…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:NZP GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2002, NZP Four Corners Solitaire is a fun solitaire game that takes its name from the opening layout, in which each suit is assigned its own exclusive corner on the table. Each corner has an Ace in the middle, surrounded…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:NZP GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2002, NZP One of the best solitaire games I’ve ever come across, 35 Card Solitaire is an excellent PC version of a challenging solitaire game that requires more skill than it may at first appear. The object of the game…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Kasamsun Suwannachit GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2001, Kasamsun Suwannachit Slave and JubMoo (catch the pig in English) are two most popular parlor card games in Thailand. The games are similar in that each players moves depend on the previous players move, and both good memory…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Kasamsun Suwannachit GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2001, Kasamsun Suwannachit Slave and JubMoo (catch the pig in English) are two most popular parlor card games in Thailand. The games are similar in that each players moves depend on the previous players move, and both good memory…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Sid Sackson & David McCammond-Watts GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 1999, David McCammond-Watts Focus (a.k.a. Domination) is a fun and unique board game invented by Sid Sackson, the legendary creator of Diplomacy, Acquire, and dozens of other classic board games. Bob Claster, maintainer of the one…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:William Hileman & Philip Case GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 1986, William Hileman International Bridge Contractors is a great version of the 1979 BASIC games coded by Philip Case for the TRS-80 computer. The game was recompiled and expanded with more features by William Hileman and…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:David Nemecek GAME DEVELOPER:Gemtree GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2000, David Nemecek Ants is a fun card-based strategy game with interesting gameplay mechanics, but is unfortunately too easy to warrant repeated play. The game is a freeware remakes of Arcomage, the card game from 3DO that is in…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Dion Kurczek GAME DEVELOPER:Silicon Commander GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 1999, Silicon Commander Proliferation is a great game of nuclear conflict set in the near future. The premise: “[nuclear capability worldwide] has escalated, and many smaller states now possess tactical nuclear missiles. The state of affairs has polarized…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:Cryo Interactive GAME PUBLISHER:Cryo Interactive Copyright 1999, Cryo Interactive Not to be confused with the more recent MMORPG of the same name, Black Moon Chronicles is a fun fantasy real-time strategy game based on “Chroniques de la Lune Noire,” a French comic series of…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Carolyn Moyer GAME DEVELOPER:Digital Playground GAME PUBLISHER:Digital Playground Copyright 1996, Digital Playground Water Wonder is a unique computerized board game based on the actual board game of the same name. Designed primarily to teach kids about different states of water (steam, liquid, and ice) and how…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Remco de Korte GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 1997, Remco de Korte Norow is a unique boardgame where you must occupy as much squares on the board as possible without having more then two squares in a row. The official rules: “…the game itself is very…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Remco de Korte GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 1998, Remco de Korte Witches is a unique and wacky chess-like strategy boardgame. Your goal is to move your witches onto the magic pattern on the magic kitchen-floor in order to win the yearly contest for the leadership…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:EdenSoft GAME PUBLISHER:Incredible Simulations, Inc. (ISI) Copyright 2000, EdenSoft The first and unfortunately last entry in EdenSoft’s ambitious “Victory in the East” wargame series, Red Thunder is a good operational-level hex/turn-based wargame for die-hard wargamers. The year is 1944. The Soviet Red Army is…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Dan Cermak GAME DEVELOPER:Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI) GAME PUBLISHER:Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI) Copyright 1987, Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI) One of the earliest accessible wargames, Colonial Conquest from Dan Cermak/SSI is a fun strategic simulation of 19th Century Europe attempting to dominate the globe. Released for most…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Andrew Sispoidis & Pete Sispoidis GAME DEVELOPER:Heliotrope Studios GAME PUBLISHER:THQ Copyright 1997, Heliotrope Studios Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain is a competent sequel to Pax Imperia, a classic 1993 Macintosh-only 4X space strategy game. Although the original Pax Imperia is an ambitious game that came very close…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:Masaya GAME PUBLISHER:Treco Copyright 1990, Treco Warsong is an easy but fun turn-based strategy/RPG game – a popular genre on console systems that never took off on the PC (we see a lot of strategy and RPG games, but not often both genres in…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:TechnoSoft GAME PUBLISHER:TechnoSoft Copyright 1989, TechnoSoft Ask anyone you know what the first real-time strategy game is, and 99% will probably say Dune 2. But not many people know that the honor actually lies with a SEGA Genesis game called Herzog Zwei, the 1989…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Mark Bloom GAME DEVELOPER:Capstone Solutions GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 1993, Capstone Solutions Speculator is a decent, tongue-in-cheek game of real estate acquisition. In this turn-based game, your goal is to end up with a higher asset value at the end of the game than your 3 competitors.…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:DMA Design GAME PUBLISHER:Gremlin Copyright 1999, Gremlin It’s quirky, it’s fun, and it’s baaaaad. As you could expect from the same team that designed Lemmings series (DMA Design, which was bought out by Gremlin), Tanktics is a uniquely designed and fun to play strategy…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Jamie Wiggs & Arvee Garde GAME DEVELOPER:Fever Pitch Studios GAME PUBLISHER:UBI Soft Copyright 2001, UBI Soft Games like Homeworld reinvented the real-time-strategy genre by making the setting a previously untapped localespace. It wasnt long before other developers, and publishers, would realize the potential of such a…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:David Rosenbloom GAME DEVELOPER:Eidolon GAME PUBLISHER:Eidolon Copyright 1994, Eidolon One of the most unique computer games ever made, Millennium Auction is a fascinating “auction simulation” that is set in the year 2006, but it could very well have been at modern-day Christie’s it seems that the…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Adam Stevens GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 1998, Adam Stevens Monopoly is a great text-only version of the famous Parker Brothers board game that offers many more options than most commercial versions of the game. The most amazing thing is that Adam Stevens, the designer, manages…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Bob Lancaster GAME DEVELOPER:MicroLink GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 1991, Bob Lancaster Between 1987 and 1990, Bob Lancaster wrote 6 games that he released under the name of “MicroLink,” a PC user group he belonged to. All the games boast simple, ASCII-character graphics, but the excellent gameplay and…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Bob Lancaster GAME DEVELOPER:MicroLink GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 1989, Bob Lancaster Between 1987 and 1990, Bob Lancaster wrote 6 games that he released under the name of “MicroLink,” a PC user group he belonged to. All the games boast simple, ASCII-character graphics, but the excellent gameplay and…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Bob Lancaster GAME DEVELOPER:MicroLink GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 1990, Bob Lancaster Between 1987 and 1990, Bob Lancaster wrote 6 games that he released under the name of “MicroLink,” a PC user group he belonged to. All the games boast simple, ASCII-character graphics, but the excellent gameplay and…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Bob Lancaster GAME DEVELOPER:MicroLink GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 1987, Bob Lancaster Between 1987 and 1990, Bob Lancaster wrote 6 games that he released under the name of MicroLink, a PC user group he belonged to. All the games boast simple, ASCII-character graphics, but the excellent gameplay and…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Reiner Knizia GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2000, Games on Board Through the Desert is a good PC version of Durch Die Wuste, Reiner Knizia’s classic board game of tile placement. (one of the three games collectively known as his tile laying trilogy – the others…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Heinrich Wolf GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2000, Heinrich Wolf Take It Easy is a solid PC version of a little-known board game of the same name that is published by FX Schmid in Germany. In the game, up to four players (any one of which…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Benjamin Guihaire & Claude Soucie GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2000, Benjamin Guihaire LOA2D is a great computer version of Lines of Action, a fun but little-known abstract board game invented by Claude Soucie and described in the book “A Gamut of Games” by legendary board…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Vadim Anshelevich & Piet Hein GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2000, Vadim Anshelevich Hexy is an excellent Windows version of Hex, a fun but little-known abstract board game I used to play a lot with friends in college. As explained on MazeWorks’ Hex page, the game…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Kurt Van den Branden & Kris Burm GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2001, Kurt Van den Branden Gipf for One is an excellent PC version of GIPF, a fascinating abstract board game invented by Kris Burm in 1997. Like the board game, the objective of Gipf…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Peter Turcan GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2001, Peter Turcan Battalia is the most recent game designed by Dr. Peter Turcan, a passionate historical wargamer who pioneered the use of realistic 3D terrain and real-time gameplay in computer wargames in the early 1990s. Although the most…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Ariel Jacob GAME DEVELOPER:Global R&D GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2002, Global R&D Catapults is a fun Connect-4 variant for Windows that introduces some interesting features to the traditional concept. There are 2 modes in the game: classic and real-time. In classic mode, two opponents take turns placing…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:Toolworks GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2001, Toolworks Pentagrama is a fun beer-and-pretzel turn-based wargame that combines traditional turn-based strategy gameplay with boardgame elements in a very innovative way. The best way to describe Pentagrama is probably to say its your average star-shaped, wooden peg solitaire…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Jeff Gamon & Steve Leney GAME DEVELOPER:Mindscape GAME PUBLISHER:Electronic Arts Copyright 1998, Mindscape Warhammer: Dark Omen is a superb sequel to Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat, Mindscape’s first real-time tactical strategy game based on the Games Workshop’s popular tabletop RPG franchise. The game boasts superior…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Tea-Gon Kim GAME DEVELOPER:HQ Team GAME PUBLISHER:HQ Team Copyright 1997, HQ Team Seven Years War is a decent WarCraft II clone that is, a real-time strategy game – based on the Seven Years War, the period between 1592 and 1598 A.D. during which Japanese shogun Toyotomi…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:John Klein GAME DEVELOPER:SoftDisk Publishing GAME PUBLISHER:SoftDisk Publishing Copyright 1989, John Klein 21 for 1 to 4 is a very simple blackjack card game for 1 to 4 players (as the name implies). Nothing much to say about this one, except that its worth mention as…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:John Slaydon GAME DEVELOPER:Random Games GAME PUBLISHER:Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI) Copyright 1998, Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI) Soldiers at War is one of SSI’s last published games, a valiant attempt to capture the feel of WWII in a squad-level game similar to X-COM. The game is a…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Higo Yoshiyugi GAME DEVELOPER:Freeware GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2000, Higo Yoshiyugi The MathDa is a challenging and refreshingly unique board game for 2 players (computer player is available) with a simple premise: place numbered tiles with values between 1 to 25 on the board until there is…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:Anonymous GAME PUBLISHER:Freeware Copyright 2002, Anonymous Nantonaku Majyan is a fun freeware Japanese Mah Jong game for up to 4 players, any of whom can be computer-controlled. If you have never heard of it before, multiplayer Mah Jong is a popular tile game that…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER:Sid Sackson & Howard Shulman GAME DEVELOPER:Anonymous GAME PUBLISHER:Anonymous Copyright 2002, Howard Shulman Bazaar is an excellent shareware PC version of Sid Sackson’s outstanding board game of the same name. Bob Claster, maintainer of the Internet’s best website about this prolific game designer, says it all…

From the Database of Home of the Underdogs GAME DESIGNER: GAME DEVELOPER:Interplay GAME PUBLISHER:Interplay Copyright 1997, TSR Dragon Dice is a competent PC version of TSR’s fantasy dice game of the same name. Interplay did their best to make the game as faithful to the original dice game – and that is ultimately the problem,…