Ice cold war.
Now that 2015 has started to resolve in the viewfinder of the Prognosti-Scope at the Pocket Tactics Haruspex School and Off-Track Betting Emporium high atop Mount Hexmap, we can finally reveal our most keenly-awaited games of 2015. And let me tell you — this is one hot list.
Our 2014 list didn’t do so well — of our 8 picks, only 2 managed to come out on mobile, with a third out on PC and waiting in the wings for iPad. This year will be entirely different — we’ve taken on a highly reputable mystic as a contractor and he’s vetted all of the following choices, which are guaranteed to ship this year. Yessir.
After the jump, the seven games that we here at PT are looking forward to the most in 2015.
Twilight Struggle
Cold War simulator Twilight Struggle pits two players in a head-to-head test of brinksmanship. As the US or the USSR, manipulate smaller nations and fight proxy wars without tipping the world over into open nuclear conflict.
We say:
I was smitten when I first met my wife. Nine years later, I finally convinced her to date me, so it is perhaps no great surprise that my affections are uncommonly stable, and that the game I look forward to most eagerly in 2015 is the game I most hoped would arrive in 2014.
It’s not just me, though: Twilight Struggle still sits atop the Board Game Geek rankings, as it has for years, though board games are undergoing an unprecedentedly creative period. It’s the jewel in publisher GMT’s crown, makers of some true titans of recent tabletop gaming history. And it’s being developed by digital board game superstars Playdek, too, which basically makes it sound like 2014’s LeBron James just got traded to the 1995 Chicago Bulls. Or Lionel Messi, for those of you who like your sports stars named after model trains, joined, um, Barcelona. Because Playdek adapting Twilight Struggle is as unfair as a team fielding two Messis.
–Kelsey Rinella
If Twilight Struggle isn’t at the top of your personal Most Anticipated list for 2015, then you’re dead inside. Seriously, how can you not be drooling over the combination of the single best 2-player board game ever created and Playdek, the makers of all things wonderful? I’m so looking forward to this that my gaming partners and I have stopped playing our current online games of Twilight Struggle. Why struggle (ha!) with the current clunky means of playing it when we should reach the board games equivalent of the Elysian Fields sometime this summer? Hurry up, Playdek, I need to let some nukes fly (while my opponent is the phasing player, of course).
–Dave Neumann
Confession: I have never played the board game Twilight Struggle. But, oh, oh I want to. How could I not?
One of the most nebulous, sprawling and complicated conflicts in human history, one which still casts a shadow over the modern day, condensed and pinned down onto a bunch of cards and area-control mechanics. Politics! War! Treachery! Kitchen appliances! If those things do not cause your heart to beat-a-faster in your chest, you are a strange creature here at Pocket Tactics. And yet, Twilight Struggle is a big, ambitious, exclusively two player game with an intimidating theme, and by its nature exacerbates the board gamer’s own perennial struggle – finding opportunity to play.
So in swoop Playdek, the guys who you wish made every iOS board game, to save a troubled production. Twilight Struggle, whenever you want, against whoever you want, delivered with the unobtusive grace of a veteran maitre d’.
–Dave Lane
I enjoying taking up contrary positions for the sheer sport of it (ask me why The Happening is a great film one of these days) but in the case of Twilight Struggle, I can only agree with the critical consensus: this is the best board game on Earth. Playdek can’t possibly finish it fast enough. Except me to take a week’s vacation when this thing launches. You’ll know where to find me if you really need me.
–Owen Faraday
Read more: Twilight Struggle interview with Playdek
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Subterfuge
A slow-playing multiplayer RTS that takes days to finish a game. Launch fleets that take real-time hours to reach their destination while you scheme with your allies — or prepare to back-stab them.
We say:
A throwaway criticism of our digital age is that we have a wealth of communication options and, yet, it can often seem like people aren’t truly talking to one another. Tab out to that one photo of a bus packed with total sheeple (but, like, just normal folks) hypnotized (or maybe planning a date or ordering some dumplings) on their portable idiot boxes.
Subterfuge, the Neptune’s Pride-inspired game of diplomacy and backstabbing from Ron Carmel and Noel Llopis, promises to be the game to ruin this ill-conceived stereotype. Not that the game’s deep-sea mining conflicts (designed to be a bit less demanding than Pride’s space war, where ace commanders lose sleep to launch the perfect strike) will bring out the warm and fuzzy in players–just the opposite. Still, when you collapse in a teary pile on the 5:15 back home because your supposed alliance is actually a den of thieving traitor-weasels… well that’s probably a conversation. Or some extra legroom, at least.
–Sean Clancy
Read more: Noel Llopis & Ron Carmel Interview
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forma.8
Little-lauded indie studio Mixed Bag have a keen eye for aesthetics and a knack for finely-tuned controls, which sets our expectations high for 2D exploration game forma.8.
We say:
The tiny two-man Turin Mixed Bag games have a stellar follow-up planned for the beautiful (and under-rated) shooter Futuridium. Forma.8 promises a subtle, alien twist on the Metroidvania concept as players take command of a lost terraforming probe in a forgotten corner of the galaxy. Though being deployed across a range of platforms, forma.8 should sit very well on tablets. The art is crisp and if the music accompanying the trailer ( is any indication of what’s to come, the soundtrack will be a right bottler.
Forma.8 has me very intrigued, besting Most-Anticipated contenders like Subterfuge and even Unsung Story. A lone drone drifting through the catacombs of a distant world has the capacity to join games like flOw, Aquaria or the PSM Eufloria spin-off, Adventures. With its Another World aesthetic and a mysterious aura, I’m gearing up to get lost.
–Alex Connolly
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Sorcery Part 3
Spellshocked.
Following up their critically adored 80 Days, Cambridge-based Inkle return to the series that made put them on the interactive fiction map: Steve Jackson’s spellsword gamebook epic Sorcery.
We say:
Our admiration for interactive fiction auteurs Inkle knows almost no bounds. They haven’t come onto the IF scene as much as they’ve driven a truck through it, demolishing our expectations for what game-books can do. Part 3 of Steve Jackson gamebooks that the series is based on isn’t the highest-regarded of the series, but Inkle have injected so much new life into parts 1 and 2 that it’s hard to imagine they won’t be able to do the same again. Inkle have told us that this installment will have the highest degree of freedom of any of their work to date — “This is the Sorcery! version of an open-world game,” Inkle’s Jon Ingold told us, “one stuffed with stories.”
–Owen Faraday
Read more: Inkle on the making of Sorcery
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Through The Ages
Aging gracefully
This Civilization-style 4X board game is a huge hit on the tabletop, but it’s been through a notoriously drawn-out development for mobile. Our man Dave has faith that it’s going to be worth the wait when it ships.
We say:
Through the Ages was originally scheduled for a 2014 release by the newly formed digital group at Czech Games Edition, but it has since slipped until late 2015. Normally, I’d be outraged and slightly worried that it’s turning into vaporware but not this time. CGE stopped development on Through the Ages last year to put their entire focus on getting Galaxy Trucker out the door. How did that go? Well, it won the Best Boardgame of the Year award just a couple weeks ago. Seeing the quality that CGE put into GT only makes me want TtA even more. Through the Ages is one of the best board games ever created (currently #3 on BGG) and takes the 4X concept popularized by Sid Meier on the PC and moves it into an epic card game. I’ve personally seen what CGE is doing with the port, and I’ve seen it in action, and fans of the board game as well as newcomers are in for a real treat when this one hits late in 2015.
–Dave Neumann
Read more: Through the Ages designer Vlaada Chvatil talks about Galaxy Trucker for mobile
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Mini Metro
This subway-themed puzzle game has been a hit on Steam Early Access since late last year. The sleek visual design is matched only by its clever gameplay that summons forth your inner traffic engineer. Bet you didn’t know you had one of those.
I learned to my detriment last year that Mini Metro is one of those games where a five-minute coffee break quickly turns into “shit I’ve missed my train”. As appealing as chocolate, as addictive as crack — Mini Metro is straight-up dangerous. I fully expect that this insidiously smart and elegant game is going to conquer the world this year.
–Owen Faraday
Read more: Mini Metro included in IGF finalists
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Gary Grigsby’s World at War: A World Divided
Axis of Awesome.
A World War II wargame of a scale heretofore unseen on mobile, World at War is coming to iPad via venerable publishing house Slitherine — hopefully sometime this year. The player leads one of the major antagonists of the war, directing troops, producing weapons, and researching new technologies. It originally came out on PC in 2006.
We say:
Gary Grigsby has never seen a wargame design that he didn’t think he could make bigger. In grognard circles, the man is synonymous with gigantic globe-spanning monstrosities that take weeks, if not months, to finish a single scenario of. World at War is (believe it or not) one of Grigsby’s more accessible titles, despite covering every theatre in WWII.
There’s a lot of open questions here: how well will the touchscreen interface cope with the tomes of information necessary to play the game? And will the AI (never a strong point in Grigsby’s titantic scenarios) be up to the challenge? And if not, how smooth will the online multiplayer be? If Slitherine can pull it off, though, this will immediately become a must-have wargame on iPad.
–Owen Faraday
Read more: Slitherine’s next mobile releases detailed
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