Twilight Struggle coming to the PC! [and iOS, Android etc]

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Tue Dec 14, 2010 3:37 pm

GMT games seems to have announced that they're going to start producing PC versions of their excellent boardgames, with Twilight Struggle as the first title on the way!

Your thoughts? Will a PC version work, or is this one of those "No fun without the beer and camaraderie" games?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Dec 14, 2010 4:02 pm

I own 4 GMT Games:

Twilight Struggle
Labyrinth
Successors
Washington's War

I will probably never leave my apartment after the release of TS on the PC.

a lot of GMT's games are two player only. on bgg, there's a thriving community of folks who create solo play mechanics for these games. enough so that one of the selling points of Labyrinth was the inclusion of a solo mechanic.

That being said, GMT games (and CDG's...which is the genre TS falls under) are still very much a niche in gaming.

I hope it succeeds though. I would love to play a CDG without having to convince folks to dedicate 4 hours of their lives to a single game.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Tue Dec 14, 2010 4:14 pm

I'd definitely be interested, though it depends partially on price. I'd love to have a computer version of TS that I could play around with without having to schedule time to play a full 3 - 4 hour game with someone. I have yet to find an adequate AI in a strategy game, but since it's TS I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy it even with a poor AI.

I probably wouldn't play $50, though - my limit would probably be around $30, possibly $20. I can't see the article at work - any mention on price point?

Good thing that Cyanide (as far as I know) isn't involved in this - I'm sure they'd start working hard on a first-person action mode for the game.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Dec 14, 2010 4:18 pm

El Guapo wrote:I'd definitely be interested, though it depends partially on price. I'd love to have a computer version of TS that I could play around with without having to schedule time to play a full 3 - 4 hour game with someone. I have yet to find an adequate AI in a strategy game, but since it's TS I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy it even with a poor AI.

I probably wouldn't play $50, though - my limit would probably be around $30, possibly $20. I can't see the article at work - any mention on price point?

Good thing that Cyanide (as far as I know) isn't involved in this - I'm sure they'd start working hard on a first-person action mode for the game.

Anyway, I'm hoping that they give discounts for current owners of their games. Like you, I don't see me paying 50 bucks for it. I think a $30 price point would be a good MSRP. I also like that they plan on going the digital distribution path. Although in this day and age, you'd have to be crazy not to.

SpaceLord · Post by **SpaceLord** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 12:54 am

Sounds awesome! TS would possibly translate well to the iPad, hmm...

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 10:25 am

SpaceLord wrote:Sounds awesome! TS would possibly translate well to the iPad, hmm...

oh god, i will hunt you down and smack you if they port it to the iPad. I'm already suffering from extreme envy whenever I see a friend playing Neuroshima Hex and Small World on his.

SlapBone · Post by **SlapBone** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 9:18 pm

hepcat wrote:
SpaceLord wrote:Sounds awesome! TS would possibly translate well to the iPad, hmm...
oh god, i will hunt you down and smack you if they port it to the iPad. I'm already suffering from extreme envy whenever I see a friend playing Neuroshima Hex and Small World on his.

Me too. I think it may be time to put a kid on the black market.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 1:52 pm

I'm currently writing a review of Labyrinth for Armchair General. I found it far more cumbersome than Twilight Struggle and the name to be apt because of how confusing and inaccessible the rules were. Is that your feeling too Hepcat? The learning curve for Labyrinth, IMHO, is rather steep.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Dec 20, 2010 10:00 pm

baelthazar wrote:I'm currently writing a review of Labyrinth for Armchair General. I found it far more cumbersome than Twilight Struggle and the name to be apt because of how confusing and inaccessible the rules were. Is that your feeling too Hepcat? The learning curve for Labyrinth, IMHO, is rather steep.

I've yet to get it to the table. but i'm planning on getting a solo game in soon. i read through part of the rules...and they are indeed labyrinth like.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Fri Aug 26, 2011 5:13 pm

From the latest GMT Games monthly update:

Products that are Coded and Undergoing Testing:
Twilight Struggle (PC): We're still finding a few bugs but are focusing mostly on making the AI better. It's holding its own with some of the better TS players online at the moment (thanks guys, for helping us test), but we are still refining. I think you guys are really going to like the UI on this game - very nice and easy-to-use.

I'm not sure how long this final testing phase is going to take us, as we want it to be right, but we should be ready to show some art and give more details within a month or two and set up P500 preorders in that same timeframe. Note that the P500 program in this case is simply to give you guys who would like to preorder a healthy discount for doing so. Orders don't have to reach a certain number for us to release the game. We'll do that when we are happy with the quality.

Lorini · Post by **Lorini** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 1:22 am

Sure hope they release to the four biggest download services and even better if it's DRM free.

Fitzy · Post by **Fitzy** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 2:50 pm

I thought this was going to be a life sim about sparkly vampires

Suitably Ironic Moniker · Mon Aug 29, 2011 2:55 pm

Fitzy wrote:I thought this was going to be a life sim about sparkly vampires

No, that's "Ceekay Struggle".

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 3:33 pm

Suitably Ironic Moniker wrote:
Fitzy wrote:I thought this was going to be a life sim about sparkly vampires

No, that's "Ceekay Struggle".

You need to head over to Gamingtrend.com for this to work.

Suitably Ironic Moniker · Mon Aug 29, 2011 4:05 pm

I know, he's "Team GT".

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 5:40 pm

The first preview.

No word on a release date, afaict.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 6:06 pm

With mics it would be ok.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:53 am

I just went to the GMT site and could find no mention of this. Does anyone know if it's still in the pipeline?

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:02 pm

tgb wrote:I just went to the GMT site and could find no mention of this. Does anyone know if it's still in the pipeline?

Pretty sure it is. It was mentioned in the GMT newsletter. Hey, why don't you come join the refugees from Wargamer at Grogheads.com? We still talk about the hardcore sims but left Wargamer due to the problems with forum software.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 8:32 pm

baelthazar wrote:
tgb wrote:I just went to the GMT site and could find no mention of this. Does anyone know if it's still in the pipeline?
Pretty sure it is. It was mentioned in the GMT newsletter. Hey, why don't you come join the refugees from Wargamer at Grogheads.com? We still talk about the hardcore sims but left Wargamer due to the problems with forum software.

This is the first I've heard of it. I believe I shall. I haven't been going to wargamer a lot because of the speed and the butt-ugly color scheme.

Grogheads.com, you say?

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 9:28 pm

baelthazar wrote:
tgb wrote:I just went to the GMT site and could find no mention of this. Does anyone know if it's still in the pipeline?
Pretty sure it is. It was mentioned in the GMT newsletter. Hey, why don't you come join the refugees from Wargamer at Grogheads.com? We still talk about the hardcore sims but left Wargamer due to the problems with forum software.

Hey, thanks for pointing out Grogheads. This is the first I've heard of it.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Mar 21, 2012 11:39 pm

Yeah, I'm one of the "founders" so-to-speak. The site is set up by LongBlade, former editor of Wargamer.com and has attracted several of the wargaming crew. http://www.grogheads.com is the frontpage, and we have some articles/reviews up (including some of my Youtube video reviews) and from there you should be able to join the forum. We are looking for avid gamers and good people, so anyone is welcome! The crowd tends toward the hardcore wargamer, but we have content accessible to all (and I'm far from a hardcore wargamer myself).

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 9:21 am

From the April 17 GMT update:

Twilight Struggle (PC): We are very close - just a week or two - to adding this game to our P500 list. We're waiting on some screenshots to give you guys a sense of the updates made since we released the demo a few months back.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:27 pm

Preorder is up. 30 bucks if you go that route. They're saying late 2012 for release.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:37 pm

Fitzy wrote:I thought this was going to be a life sim about sparkly vampires

Thank goodness I wasn't the only one.

I was coming to mock it.

Now I guess I am left to mock what kind of dumbasses are running the publishing houses these days that they have failed to find some steaming pile of shit to slap a Twilight license on and make so much money that they decide to cancel some sim I have been waiting years for because no way in hell can it compete with a Twilight game even if it didn't even actually work.

Have they forgotten how to gang rape a hot IP or something?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:42 pm

I predict many late nights of mp when this is released.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 7:40 am

On the one hand $50 is a little high for a board game adaptation. On the other, my finances won't allow me to put down $30 today for a game that won't be out for 5 or 6 months (unless it gets you the beta).

Looks like I'm waiting for a sale.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 7:46 am

hepcat wrote:I predict many late nights of mp when this is released.

+1

I've been thinking of diving into VASSAL Twilight Struggle if I ever find the time.

Archinerd · Post by **Archinerd** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:02 am

tgb wrote:On the one hand $50 is a little high for a board game adaptation. On the other, my finances won't allow me to put down $30 today for a game that won't be out for 5 or 6 months (unless it gets you the beta).

Looks like I'm waiting for a sale.

GMT typically doesn't charge until the game ships, at least this has been my past experience.
Here it is for TS-

When Will the Cards Be Charged?
We still have a lot of testing to complete before we are ready to release this game in the Fall, so we're not nearly ready to set a charge date yet. But what you can expect is that once we know an exact Release Date, we will charge your cards VERY close to that date. (probably just a few days to a week) The only reason we need to pre-charge even by a little here is to allow the office ladies time to contact anyone whose credit card details have changed in time for them to correct that before the game is released.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:45 am

Yeah, definitely not paying $50 for it. But probably not $30 either. So, there you go.

What I'm wondering is this. I own a physical copy of TS. So I've never seen any issue with playing Vassal TS for free online, since practically it's no different from bringing my copy over to a friend's house. But once there's a commercial product of it payable online, does that suddenly make playing Vassal TS for free verboten?

The trick is that multiplayer TS online is something that I already have for free at no cost. And while this would offer playing against an AI when people are not available, that's not worth anywhere near $30 to me, let alone $50.

Also, I'm unclear why they are apparently using those ugly plain numbers for the influence counters, instead of the nice ones in Vassal that actually look like the influence markers in the board game.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:56 am

I don't have a regular gaming group, so this definitely appeals to me. Hmmm.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 7:04 pm

El Guapo wrote:Yeah, definitely not paying $50 for it. But probably not $30 either. So, there you go.

What I'm wondering is this. I own a physical copy of TS. So I've never seen any issue with playing Vassal TS for free online, since practically it's no different from bringing my copy over to a friend's house. But once there's a commercial product of it payable online, does that suddenly make playing Vassal TS for free verboten?

The trick is that multiplayer TS online is something that I already have for free at no cost. And while this would offer playing against an AI when people are not available, that's not worth anywhere near $30 to me, let alone $50.

Also, I'm unclear why they are apparently using those ugly plain numbers for the influence counters, instead of the nice ones in Vassal that actually look like the influence markers in the board game.

I'm wondering the same thing. The VASSAL map looks better than the beta map they're showing for this product. Hopefully they'll spruce it up.

I'm sure they'll try to incorporate some functions and features specific to TS. I really hope they don't try to yank the VASSAL version, though, because VASSAL has done a lot for GMT games.

Archinerd · Post by **Archinerd** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:14 pm

CANCELLED
It's been awhile since we've heard anything so I'm not surprised. Not the outcome I'd hoped for but I'm glad they didn't release a half ass version.

Full text from GMT:

Hi guys!

This Special Update is to let you guys know what's happening with the development of our electronic versions of Twilight Struggle.

As many of you may remember, when we first put our Electronic PC version of Twilight Struggle on our P500 list, I assured you guys that there was no way I was going to charge your cards or release that game unless I was satisfied that it would deliver a high-quality game experience, comparable to the other most popular boardgame to electronic conversions. Regrettably, after a long and challenging development process, I have come to the conclusion that the current PC version will not meet that standard, at least not in any reasonable time frame. Thus, after consulting personally with several experienced PC industry people who I trust and who were involved in the TS electronic version testing process, and with Tony Curtis, our LLC Manager, we have decided to cancel this project, effective immediately.

I want to thank all of you who supported us by pre-ordering the game and especially those of you who gave of your time to help us test it. I wish that we had been able to deliver the product we had envisioned in a timely manner.

And I want to thank all the folks at RiverMyst software, a group of really good people who I enjoyed meeting and getting to know over the years. I appreciate all the time they put into the project to try to make it happen and I certainly wish them only the best for the future. Alas, I think that between us, we just didn't have the necessary "PC Game-Building" experience to get this project over the finish line at a quality level and with a feature set that we would all be happy with. And I wasn't willing to keep you guys who were anxiously anticipating the game waiting any longer for a product whose delivery we could not project with any certainty.

What if You Have a P500 Order for the Game?

The impact to you guys who have pre-ordered the game will be nil, except for the unfortunate fact that we won't be producing the game. I have already deleted the item from our P500 list, so you won't see it on the P500 page or on your Personal Data Sheets on our website anymore.

So, What's Next?

We are keenly aware of the market share impact that tablet games have had over the past few years. And we've read all of those "please get Twilight Struggle to iPad!" e-mails and comments you guys have sent and posted online. And we've turned down quite a few companies who wanted to do a tablet version of TS over the past few years because we wanted to get the computer game to the finish line. But that's now all moot with the PC game cancelled, so our priority at this point is to get an agreement for a tablet version - and potentially maybe even a cross-platform version - in place. We're not ready to share any details on that front yet, but do think we have an agreement on the horizon. We expect to have more information for you guys on that later this Spring.

-------------------------------

We're really sorry that our first attempt at getting Twilight Struggle created on an electronic platform didn't cross the finish line, and that so many of you waited in anticipation to no avail. We're going to take the lesson learned and improve our process this time, as we work toward a tablet version of Twilight Struggle.

I hope this information is helpful. Thanks, as always, for your support of GMT!

Enjoy the games!

Gene

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 11:04 pm

Not surprising, since the last official GMT word was that it would "definitely be out before the end of 2012", and the most current update on the Rivermyst site is that they are hoping to start beta testing in March - of 2013. Oh yeah, and the forum was taken down a few months ago.

Actually I AM surprised, because I expected them to eventually release some half-assed piece of crap. Not that I wouldn't have bought it anyway (see the Paradox version of Diplomacy for more details.)

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:23 am

Honestly I never understood the rationale for having a PC version of TS, given the Vassal module. Of course, I am not entirely certain whether Vassal is fully compliant with copyright, though I'm not aware of any attacks on Vassal.

A tablet version makes a lot more sense to me, as it can then fill a niche of TS on the go.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:00 pm

I know there are a few fans of the game on the forum so just wanted to share that GMT just started a Kickstarter drive to bring the game to multiple electronic platforms. Link to Kickstarter is here:

Twilight Struggle Digital Edition

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:22 pm

$iljanus wrote:I know there are a few fans of the game on the forum so just wanted to share that GMT just started a Kickstarter drive to bring the game to multiple electronic platforms. Link to Kickstarter is here:

Twilight Struggle Digital Edition

Wait. The game has been in development for 4 years, plus they took money for pre-orders for 2 years before announcing it's cancellation. Now they're asking for Kickstarter money????

Talk about brass balls!

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:25 pm

They never took money for the pre-orders.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:26 pm

They never actually took money for pre-orders I believe. They took pre-orders but no money. It looks more like they hooked up with the wrong developer.

Look at the stuff the developer for the kickstarter has worked on: http://www.playdekgames.com/game_catalog.php. Though it looks like they have only done iOS games.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:30 pm

I went to pre-order and they wanted credit card information. Perhaps they held cards to charge when the game shipped. I don't know because I never actually ordered it.

Perhaps they didn't charge cards and perhaps this is a more reliable developer, but to not even address all the issues around the first attempt at development is disingenuous, at best.