King's Orders - a letter-sending sim/strategy

[spectre]

Stumbled upon this by accident. Doesn't seem to have a thread here and most definitely isn't an RPG, although you do play a role.
Of a king, no less.

Not a lot to say, cause the devs have only just finalized the look and are working towards an alpha with just some basic systems in place.

Barebones as it is, at least it looks fairly interesting. Seems to be based on something called 911 Operator, which I never played
and am vaguely aware of existing, cause it didn't look like to be my thing.

This one looks rather promising. I've always been a sucker for diegetic interface, and this takes the idea to an extreme.

A bunch of red flags, though. The publisher seems to want to push a bunch of titles based on the same-ish idea,
there's also another one called Radio Operator set in WW2 pacific.
Smells shovelware-ish, but I choose to stay cautiously optimistic cause I always liked the idea of relaying orders and watching them unfold, ever since Battle Bugs.

Second red flag is they refer to it as a simplified historical strategy game, which doesn't sound to great.
In my head, the idea has loads of potential, especially with shit like orders getting intercepted, orders arriving to late, getting misinterpreted, perhaps some basic encryption,
it could all be connected to a system controlling the behavior of subordinates along the chain of command, each one being of different "quality," some could respond better to
different phrasing, some would take initiative, some would be passive, others would be more/less reliable, etc, etc.
but will any of this even be a factor if it's just "simplified" strategy? Time will tell.

 

[Alphons]

The publisher seems to want to push a bunch of titles based on the same-ish idea,
there's also another one called Radio Operator set in WW2 pacific.
Smells shovelware-ish,

They're part of the Playway extended family.

They have dozens of studios under 4 or 5 different publishing brands throwing Simulator shit around and seeing whether it sticks.

Some of it does stick the landing and is alright, so hopefully this one also does.

 

[Victor1234]

They did a whole series with this radio simulator stuff too. Radio Operator in WW2 Pacific was the newest one but their first one was set in Vietnam.

The basic idea is that it's like an RTS but you never see your units, you just see a map. Reports come in to you via the radio and you send orders out via the radio and try to win the battle that way. It's supposed to put you in the shoes of some chairborne warrior back at HQ listening to the dying screams of his men while you hold their lives in your hands. Great concept never really tried before, terrible execution.

The problems are:
1. Their voice acting and dialogue is terrible. The Vietnam one came in for a lot of controversy because it was approaching parody levels of cliched delivery.
2. They have a specific agenda and in a game about the Vietnam War where you play an American, they enjoy favoring the heroic People's Liberation Army of Vietnam while rubbing your face in your many war crimes, you dirty Yankee pig!
3. The missions themselves look open-ended from the trailers, but they're really linear. Ie, the only way to win is to figure out what moves the devs wanted you to make and then do only those. You need to move Squad 1 to X, Squad 2 to Y, take the village at Z so enemy group spawns, etc. If you don't do that, you'll just get stuck and never progress. It gets to the level that if you even do the right moves at the wrong time, you still get stuck (you took the village before nightfall? Oops, now you messed up the scripted event, start again...)
4. It's really hard to tell whether they're honestly bad at their jobs or just doing a plain money grab. They did a DLC for the Vietnam one that was basically "here are your expendable chumps sorted in a list, care about them, this one has the trait Cunning Linguist which he'll never use". They call it squad management and charge you $6 to see this page:

Edit: If you like the idea of stuff around orders and working with limitations, I can recommend Grand Tactician: The Civil War. All of that stuff you mentioned about messages happens in the battles, including orders getting intercepted, arriving late, etc. Imagine an old school Total War-esque battle like Medieval Total War 2, but when you pick your orders for a unit via it's corresponding HQ, it doesn't happen immediately and instead a little dude on a horse gets spawned and has to ride to that unit to deliver the message. That guy can get killed, caught, delayed, etc. The AI has the same constraint so you can send some cavalry raiding in the enemy rear to screw up their commands.

Same thing on the strategic level, and you need to invest in telegraph stations, hook them up in a network if you want the orders from your capital to get out to the guys in the field quickly, the enemy can raid along the network and suddenly your unit's reaction time for orders goes from 4 hours to a full day, etc.

 

[spectre]

Edit: If you like the idea of stuff around orders and working with limitations, I can recommend Grand Tactician: The Civil War. All of that stuff you mentioned about messages happens in the battles, including orders getting intercepted, arriving late, etc. Imagine an old school Total War-esque battle like Medieval Total War 2, but when you pick your orders for a unit via it's corresponding HQ, it doesn't happen immediately and instead a little dude on a horse gets spawned and has to ride to that unit to deliver the message. That guy can get killed, caught, delayed, etc. The AI has the same constraint so you can send some cavalry raiding in the enemy rear to screw up their commands.

Same thing on the strategic level, and you need to invest in telegraph stations, hook them up in a network if you want the orders from your capital to get out to the guys in the field quickly, the enemy can raid along the network and suddenly your unit's reaction time for orders goes from 4 hours to a full day, etc.

Sounds good. Shame I don't really give a fuck about the kwan civil war (played some Sid Meier's Gettysburg, had my fill) and their bumbling around the pacific, but it looks palatable when it comes in a medieval package.
That map view looks pretty cozy.

They're part of the Playway extended family.

Ai'ght, everything I needed to know. Fuck.