From Card To Computer: Twilight Struggle
From table to screen
I've heard lots of good things about two-player cold war strategy game, Twilight Struggle. Admittedly, I heard the majority of those good things on Saturday night when I mentioned that the PC was due to receive a digital apaptation of the card-driven board game. Over a few bottles of Adults Only Jollification Juice, two cardboard-cuddlin' friends became quite excitable about the intricate plotting and deviousness that occurs when superpowers go to war by avoiding directly going to war. GMT Games have taken to Kickstarter to fund the digital struggle but will people be willing to back a computerised boardgame? Could be a close thing...oh. It has $167,000 after one week, three times its target.
Ananda Gupta, co-designer of Twilight Struggle, was the lead designer of XCOM: Enemy Within, having worked on Enemy Unknown as well. I spoke to him last year and now that the cold war is coming to PC, I plan to get in touch to discuss the transfer from physical to digital.
I do like big boxes full of maps, miniatures and tokens, but I don't have a great deal of space to keep them or to play with them. I can barely fit a Monopoly board on my scrunchy little table so I appreciate storage-friendly electronic versions of interesting games, but I also like the social side of boardgames. And, damn it, I like the weight of a die in my hand.
Twilight Struggle won't just be a like-for-like adaptation though. With stretch goals falling in a way that cold war nuclear bombs thankfully failed to, the game is expanding on its way to the screen. There will be single player scenarios, tournaments and (provided an extra $5,000 arrives in the next 24 days) an additional space race track for great victory.
Note that the $25 pledge is the minimum for a PC copy of the game rather than Android or iOS. To find out more about the game, observe Quinns in conversation.