Three Moves Ahead

It's old home week on Three Moves Ahead as the full panel assembles to talk about their favorite games and trends of 2012, and Tom Chick crashes the party to bury the hexagon, not to praise it.

Our most frequent guests in 2012, designers Soren Johnson, Jon Shafer, and Dave Heron return to 3MA to talk to Rob about their favorite experiences of the year.

2013 opens with a look at Shenandoah Studios' Battle of the Bulge for iPad. Everyone agrees that it is shiny and beautiful, but does it work as it should? Is it even a Bulge game at all? Listen as Troy, Bruce and Julian work out what makes Battle of the Bulge a near perfect match of design and platform. Gameographies of major players at Shenandoah John H Butterfield Joe Miranda Eric Lee Smith Bruc...

Troy and Julian welcome freelance writer and co-proprietor of the Shut Up, Sit Down Show, Paul Dean , to talk about house rules and modding in board games. Why do we do it? What counts as a mod of a board game? And how do you get other people to play them? Creativity, design, drinking - Troy is good at one of these things, but a fine chat is had.

Rowan Kaiser rejoins Rob and Bruce to talk about War in the East, while Bruce has been busy with the Don to the Danube expansion. Rowan has thoughts about approaching the hardest of the hardcore wargames from a newcomer's perspective, while Rob is laboring under the most epic misconception in 3MA history. Bruce is a little bit disappointed in the new scenarios, and he and Rob discuss their ideal E...

Troy and Bruce welcome original panelist Tom Chick back to the show to talk about solitaire boardgames, starting with the new Phantom Leader for iPad and then roaming through 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, Levee En Masse, some Lovecraftian thing and Ambush. What makes a solitaire board game distinct from a computer game played against an AI? When do theme and production values matter? Plus the retur...

Rob is joined by Shawn Andrich, Evan Lahti, and Phill Cameron to talk about Planetside 2 and the past and future of the large-scale shooter. At what point does the scale start to turn a shooter into a strategy game, and does Planetside hit that level? Everyone suspects that Planetside would be more strategic if only there were a commander role, and Rob and Shawn are reminded of the old Battlezone...

Rob and Troy welcome freelancer John Peter Grant to the show to talk about one of the greatest real-time strategy games ever made - Ensemble's Age of Mythology. The art, the story, the balance, the structure -- everything is examined in a deep and wide-ranging conversation about why this game still stands as a landmark title with a lot to teach the modern RTS developer and player.

Last seen way back in Episode 37 , Chris Park from Arcen Games returns to the show to talk to Troy, Michael Hermes and Shannon Quesnel about AI War: Fleet Command on the occasion of the release of Version 6.0. Chris talks about how theme and vision dictate patching, the particular skills that a hardcore niche audience can bring to an indie game and how Steam is the best promotional tool they have.

Rob Daviau joins Rob and Julian to talk about components, game enhancements, and theme. How does component quality factor in design decisions, and how much should they support theme? Why do we get so attached to the sensations that accompany a game, to the point where it can profoundly affect the quality of our experience? Why did War of the Ring nearly get Rob Zacny pulled over at the border?

Derek Paxton comes back to the show to talk with Tom , Rob, Bruce, and Troy about Fallen Enchantress , his massive revision of 2010's Elemental: War of Magic. He explains how he started reshaping Elemental, and how the project grew along the way. Tom is already a big fan, and even suggests that Fallen Enchantress may be close to Master of Magic-levels of greatness. Rob and Troy are a bit more rese...

In a perhaps dangerously detailed discussion of League of Legends, Rob and Julian talk to Rhea " Ashelia " Monique and Julian Williams about the recent League of Legends championship. They talk about the new ways pro teams are playing the game, and the connection between the pro game and the regular ranked play. They also talk about the importance of casual play and bringing in new players, and di...

Dave Heron and Jon Shafer return to the show to talk about XCom: Enemy Unknown with Julian and Troy. They talk about the streamlining Firaxis has done to the franchise and how it has paid off. How do the strategic and tactical levels meld? Is the voice acting any good? How replayable is it? And listen to their inevitable list of nitpicks. Troy's thoughts on XCom , Rob and Joe Robinson talk XCom an...

Klei's Nels Anderson and Firaxis' Scott Lewis join Rob and Troy to talk about fog of war and hidden information in game design. They talk about Mark of the Ninja and how information-gathering becomes a key game phase, and how games like Civilization use fog of war as a way to keep the player focused on a small, manageable area at the start of the game. The group discuss other ways to represent inf...

Bruce and Rob welcome Jake Solomon, lead designer of Firaxis' new XCOM, and interrogate him mercilessly. Jake explains his design choices and the trade-offs he faced in adapting and updating X-Com.

Michael Hermes joins Rob, Troy, and Julian to talk about FTL. Why FTL understands why we like space, its lovely simplicity, and why unfairness is cool. Read Troy on FTL , then read Rob on his rendezvous with death .

This week, Troy and Bruce talk to Jon Peterson, author of the epic gaming history tome, Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role-Playing Games. They talk about the turning points in the evolution of wargames, when a wargame becomes a role playing game and the important task of collecting and compliling gaming’s long and often small scal...

This week, Troy, Julian and Bruce welcome back frequent guests Rob Daviau and Bill Abner to talk about the touchy subject of trying to teach games. Though the focus is on board gaming, there are useful lessons about how to approach communication, building the right mindset for the pupil and the challenges of trying to read, teach, play and compete all at once.

Julian and Rob are wrapping up their vacation when they realize they should probably record a show. An underwhelming board game and their simmering frustration with long campaigns leads to a discussion of what they want from scenario design. They consider the tension between their desire a self-contained, quick-playing scenario and their resentment of puzzles and narrow solutions.

Bruce, Troy, and Rob discuss Take Command: 2nd Manassas and why it is one of the best tactical Civil War games ever made. Along the way they discuss what they want from wargames, mission structure, and how few games really address the real challenges of battlefield command. The group lapse into a Tim Stone-induced reverie as they discuss games that have dealt with command and control from the pers...

Bruce, Troy, and Rob discuss the changing landscape of game financing, or at least they try to. The end up discussing Kickstarter almost exclusively, the return of Tom vs. Bruce , and their feelings of optimism about what crowd-funding can mean. Troy douses them with the cold water of reality. They also contemplate the strange meta-game of Kickstarters, and Ian Bogost's skepticism . Nobody can pro...

Blendo Games ' Brendon Chung joins Rob and Julian to talk about Flotilla, Atom Zombie Smasher, Gravity Bone, and his approach to design. Rob and Julian are fascinated by his willingness to conclude a game when it is at its best, and Brendon explains why that is and the things from his own games that he wants to revisit. Rob is crushed to hear of the lost, X-COM style metagame for Atom Zombie Smash...

Soren Johnson and Cryptic Comet's Vic Davis return to talk about artificial intelligence, its limitations, and their changing views on what to do about it.

Soren Johnson returns to talk spies, espionage, and covert action with Rob and Julian. They then subject espionage mechanics to forty minutes of interrogation, torture, and unkind words. Then they remember the one game they've played that has spies and espionage that they don't hate. Suspiciously, Rob's microphone fails midway through the show. Happenstance or sabotage from an enemy agent?

Sixth Beatle Soren Johnson returns along with new guest, Cliff Harris from Positech - designer of Gratuitous Space Battles and the new Gratuitous Tank Battles. This week, how does the idea of unit customization fit with general design principles? At what point is this mechanic an intrusion into good 4x game design? Where do designer and player expectations collide?