Fall from Heaven 2 -- the Elohim, part 1
To play a Civ game, you start by choosing a civilization. Some civs come with a choice of leaders, too. The civ I'm going to play, the Elohim, has two leaders you can start with. I'm going to choose Einion Logos because of his traits, which is a fancy way of saying "bonuses." Each leader gets certain bonuses, and playing different leaders lead you to make different choices in the game.Fall from Heaven 2 -- the Elohim, part 2
As far as I can tell, a game that makes a good game diary is a game that tells a story. Or more precisely, one that allows you to tell a story.Fall from Heaven 2 -- the Elohim, part 3
One of my favorite games is the Total War series. I have been exposed to quite a bit of Japanese, Medieval Eurpoean, and Roman history that I would never have come across except for my experience with those games. So games can teach us facts about our world. But more than this, games teach us a lot about ourselves.Fall from Heaven 2 -- the Elohim, part 4
There's something about war games which ought to give us pause. Why do we like them? Surely, not everyone does. But a lot of people do. What does our desire for war-making say about us?Fall from Heaven 2 -- the Elohim, part 5
A game like Civilization is not about the individual. It personifies each civ by giving them these immortal leaders who appear to speak to you, but that's just an overlay. Even your units don't represent just one unit. Your Warriors obviously must be more than the three guys you see on the screen because it represents an army. In the same way, your Vicar must be more than one fellow, or how could he defeat an army? It must be he and his retainers.Fall from Heaven 2 -- the Elohim, part 6
Game design is truly an art. Especially in strategy games. It's not easy to strike the right kind of balance between making things hard enough to give you a challenge while also letting you feel all powerful so that you can let your inner Rageous King of Pixel Smiting loose, if you have the urge.Fall from Heaven 2 --the Elohim, part 7
Fall from Heaven 2 is really a rare game. It takes what was already a classic, Civilization IV, and makes something wonderful out of it. The lead designer, Derek Paxton, aka Kael, earned himself an actual job by doing such good work. He is now lead designer for the expansion (really, a complete rewrite) to Elemental: War of Magic, called Fallen Enchantress.Fall from Heaven 2 -- the Elohim, part 8
We have talked about how a story has to have conflict in order for us to really get into it. If I tried to tell you the story of my morning, it wouldn't be all that interesting. Want to see?Fall from Heaven 2 -- the Elohim, part 9
The difference between a good design and a bad design in a game is the difference between what's fun and what isn't.Fall from Heaven 2 -- the Elohim, part 10
This is the final installment of this diary. Here, we finally wind our way down to the end, which has been in our sights for some time now. How will it end? Will we get any kind of good story out of it?
