Monday, November 26, 2012
Conclave
A reader sent me a link to an online turn-based tactical fantasy roleplaying game, called Conclave. It plays a bit like 4th edition D&D combat, but the story part is limited to scripted quests with a few multiple choice branches. The interesting part is that it is hard to solo, and thus you can group up with other players to make the fights easier, or to tackle more difficult quests.
The obvious disadvantage is that this group play is asynchronous, once you made your move you need to wait for the other group members to move to continue. To avoid waiting forever, there is an auto-move after 24 hours. Still you tend to get only a few rounds of combat done per day, so this isn't a game for the impatient.
The interface might look a bit strange on the PC, but that is because it is designed to also run on mobile devices. Works perfectly on an iPad, I tested that. Joining a group of strangers is easy enough. And if you want more, you can play in parallel with several characters. Nice, I like it!