Republic of Folk

What up, Comrades?

It's been a while since I have addressed you all. Please pay attention, especially you at the back. Tigershark, sit down and stop pulling on Headspace's ponytail. Just take him on a date already.

There is an announcement to make, that in true revolutionary fashion is delayed and behind the times - it's not our fault that the overbearing capitalist oppressors do their best to limit our exposure to outside communication! That's what we're fighting for!

This announcement is about Neptune's Pride (http://np.ironhelmet.com/), a free-to-play training simulator for futuristic space warfare. As we are moving towards our ultimate goal of freedom from oppression on this fair earth, we must look to the heavens, in preparation for our debut into celestial society. It is our responsibility to provide tractors for every alien, and as such we must be ready when the time comes!

I therefore send out the call to all who wish to participate in this endeavour - if you want to practice at taking over galaxies, come join us!

Comrade Fer will provide more details regarding the specifics, as I am too busy drowning in cheap wine and strange cheese..er, I mean planning the French revolution #2, to know much/anything about the game!

Vive La Revolution!

Vive La Revolution!

Neptune's Pride is a very, very minimalist web-based take on the classic 4X game called Stars! The problem with Stars! is that it takes forever to play, and might qualify as a second job were it to be played as an MP game. In contrast, Neptune's Pride has a one-page tutorial that really does cover everything you can do in the game.

However, don't mistake simplicity for ... er ... simplicity. Just because you only have to make 2-3 decisions per go doesn't stop the game from becoming quite a complex beast, because your opponents will be human. And that brings a whole manner of extra complexity to the party, because you can't get ahead without making deals, and you can't win without stabbing some people in the back. Oh, and this isn't like Civ, where parliament will stop you enacting some epic betrayals because it's against the spirit of democracy or shit. Want to set the alarm clock to go off at 04:00 so you can switch sides and devastate your ertswhile allies with a first strike that will decimate half their systems before they're even awake? Sign here, comrade. Yes, the game happens in real time too. Technically, you only need to make decisions once every 24 hours, but well-timed fleet launches can win a battle. You'll end up logging in from your iPhone at lunchtime, just to see if some little white triangles have moved a few pixels across the map.

Last year the people at Rock, Paper, Shotgun played a game of Neptune's Pride, and kept an illustrated diary. A few of us did something similar at Shack Tactical, but I can't link to the diary we kept (for obvious reasons). It lasted about a week, and it was really good fun.

The game will be private to folk guests only, and will also be free - all you need is a Google account.

Anyway, if others are interested, please post in here, comrades!