Locke Vs. Irusk2 #RockLockeInCoC

I was fortunate enough to be able to get a second game in last week, and I decided I want to start practicing my Convergence.

Since Friday was the release date for Crucible Guard, my FLGS had my preorder for Locke in and I was able to pick her up and assemble it that evening.  On Saturday afternoon I was ready to drop her into whatever my opponent brought. 

Honestly I think Locke is a better Convergence caster than she is in Crucible Guard, and frankly she's going to be more appreciated in CoC than CG because of her spell combination and what it brings to the table for us.  Hence the hashtag: #RockLockeInCoC

For my list I decided I wanted to run a TEP with her, despite the common opinion that it's best to run more heavies.  Part of this was that I've yet to play with a TEP at all and I wanted to see what it can do, but also because it gives us a strong Road to War trigger in that it can fire off at least two shots near guaranteed to kill something, possibly more depending on the matchup.

Here's what I went with:

Locke in Destruction Initiative

-Corollary

-Inverter

-Inverter

-Assimilator

-Cipher

TEP

ADO

ADO

Elimination Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Attunement Servitors

Attunement Servitors

Eilish

Optifex Directive

My friend Brian showed up with Khador and decided to try out Armored Corps:

Irusk2

-Spriggan

-Rager

Man-o-War Shocktroopers + UA

Man-o-War Demo Corps + Dragos

Man-o-War Siege Chariot

Man-o-War Drakhun

Man-o-War Kovnik

Kommandant Atanas Arconovich & Standard

Man-o-War Suppression Tanker

Man-o-War Suppression Tanker

Kayazy Eliminators

We rolled for scenario and got the brand new Mirage, which is incredibly live.

Brian set the terrain around the table and I won the roll off, he picked sides.

Deployment, Mistakes, and My Turn 1

I didn't get a picture of the pure deployment, and after the game we realized Brian didn't take any advanced moves from his theme benefit. Neither of us thought it would have been particularly impactful to how the game played out given that I out threat his units by a decent amount and the fact that Locke doesn't need to cast Engine of Destruction to be able to easily hit the Man-o-War troops, especially if I play my Attunement Servitors correctly. This lets her hot swap around Red Line if necessary and with two Inverters that have chain weapons to ignore shield bonuses, further swinging things my way. 

Of note: Brian is proxying Sorcha3 as the Shocktrooper UA. 

I do however have a picture of my turn 1 after I ran everything forward:

I will likely put another post up expressly about how to deploy Locke and her Vector package so that she can cast all her upkeeps on turn 1 and still have the Corollary's free focus allow all the jacks to run turn 1, while ending things so that the Corollary can get the focus back at the end of the run/induction sequence.  There are at least a few other casters in Convergence who need to use the Corollary/Induction focus game to get their spells cast turn 1 while also ensuring the Corollary can be primed for turn 2. 

Brian's Turn 1

Brian runs basically everything up, though he keeps the Siege Chariot back a bit further than I expected. He is flanking hard with the Drakhun to threaten my TEP once it comes up to shoot. One mistake I think Brian has made was not positioning so that Irusk could cast Fire for Effect on the Chariot, though against Destruction Initiative the Siege Chariot is going to really struggle due to all my shield guards. 

My Turn 2

Pre-measuring shows me that I can safely get the Drakhun in range of the TEP while also staying back far enough to avoid the Shock Troopers. I configure the TEP to use 2 dice to hit, 4 dice to damage, and one extra shot.  Between that and one Elimination Servitor shot, the Drakhun dies. 

I also use the Assimilator to catch three Shocktroopers in a ground pounder, which was particularly effective since the Shocktroopers needed to run on turn 1. This put some damage into the unit while I managed to spike and kill one Shocktrooper outright. 

I position the Redline Inverter on the right to be just out of the Spriggan's 11" max melee threat. I position a servitor on both the middle and right flags to force contesting. I don't bother with the left flag since he doesn't have any solos close enough to take it and is already contesting in a way I can't meaningfully kill anyway.

I do however position two servitors on the left flank and shoot them with rough terrain from the Cipher to make things at least inconvenient for the Eliminators. I could have done better with placement.

Brian's Turn 2

Brian runs his Kayazy around the rough terrain to contest my zone. Atanas gives the Demo Corps pathfinder and they run/charge to clear a servitor and contest the center flag.  Irusk puts Artifice of Deviation on the lake and the Shocktroopers shield wall up.

The Siege Chariot takes a shot at my Cipher and I shield guard, however I do it to a servitor that is then in line to slam into on of my ADO's, which I was planning on to arc spells over to the Kayazy. Note for next time, pick better shield guard targets.

Brian of course feats this turn to slow down my reprisal, though he is unable to catch the TEP and Cipher in his feat.

Brian scores his zone but I'm able to score my right flag, so we tie scenario 1-1.

My Turn 3

Locke allocates two focus to Cipher and holds onto 5 to try and spell down the Eliminators. The Cipher takes its sentry shot with the POW6 blast at the Eliminators but it scatters far off of them.

The Optifex directive moves up and gets into my zone fully while also giving the Cipher and left Inverter pathfinder. Then I move on to Flare Time from the Attunement servitors: My left most Attunement servitor aims and is within 5" of the Eliminators. I manage to nail the 8 to hit and flare both Eliminators.  I then use another servitor to flare the Spriggan and another two servitors are able to flare the entire Shocktrooper units.

The Corollary fills to 3 Focus and transfers it to the Assimilator.  The Assimilator then moves its paltry 2" to get out of the TEP's way and drops shots onto four Shocktroopers via ground pounder.  I'm able to boost three damage rolls and kill two outright, damaging two others. This focus inducts to the Redline Inverter on the right.

This proc's Road to War for the right Redline Inverter and the left Inverter.  The TEP moves up and I consider just trying to spray the Objective down but I figure the Inverter should be able to pull that off.  I then start using 5 dice to damage shots into the cluster of three Shocktroopers still alive. After both shots I leave the UA on one box, and it passes its tough checks from Elimination servitor shots.

Locke activates and feats, moving 2" into the zone to get in range of the Eliminators. I boost to hit Bombshell on them and hit, then boost blast on the second Eliminator to....eliminate both of them and clear my zone.  With Solid Ground purified off, the Redline Inverter charges into the Spriggan (induct to Corollary) and puts a Macropummler + precision strike to take out the Cortex and knock the jack down. I then take two swings with the chain arm into the objective, killing it, and then take my last two  swings into the Spriggan (induct to the other Inverter), ignoring its shield and crippling its lance arm. 

I charge the left Inverter into the Demo Corps but only get one in melee (this inducts to the Corollary). This was the only one that was contesting the center flag however. I'm unable to buy more attacks and the focus sits.  I then use the Cipher to walk into the Demo Corps and start wailing, doing damage but not killing any models yet due to Sanguine Bond.

Once everything was done, I scored 4 points this turn: My zone, Brian's Objective, Center Flag, and the Right Flag.  Brian scores nothing and I'm up 5-1.

Brian's Turn 3

The Demo Corps get Vengeance moves/attacks which result in getting a crit stationary result on my Inverter, who then starts taking tons of damage. Luckily my Cipher gets missed by both Demo Corps.

Irusk allocates one to the Rager, then moves up and casts Battle Lust on the Demo Corps and cast a second spell that I don't remember, giving me two feat tokens that I put on my Cipher.

Dragos annihilates the stationary Inverter, but the other Demo Corps start missing/not doing enough damage to my Cipher to take any systems out.  The Siege Chariot impacts its way into the zone and takes a shot at my objective, which I shield guard to a servitor that doesn't slam into the objective.

Then Brian makes a mistake by using the Rager to try and attack my Inverter, using focus to boost damage rolls which then gives me more feat tokens which I put on the Inverter. Not much damage is done and to put insult over injury the Rager rolls a 2 and blows itself up.  What Brian should have done was run to contest my flag.

Brian moves up the Suppresion tankers and sprays down the servitors on my flags, but isn't close enough to contest.

Realizing his error he charges the Shocktrooper UA into the TEP, doing decent damage but not enough to kill it. Neither of us score any CP's this turn.

My Turn 4

To end the game I simply move an Elimination servitor up behind the lone Shock Trooper and use gun fighter to plink her to death. An ADO moves to my right flag and I win the game on scenario 6-1.

Conclusions

After the game we spoke about how the Armored Corps list was slow, and then we remembered he would have had advanced move on a bunch of models.

After writing the report it's clear this would have helped him more than we initially thought about the game. He would have at least been in shield wall for my turn two shooting instead of having had to run, or he would have been significantly closer to charging me.  The downside to this is that he potentially gets into my threat ranges with the Shock Troops who match up very poorly into Chain Weapon wielding Inverters.

The Siege Chariot ends up being effectively terrible in this match due to my high number of shield guards, and my winning the dice roll to go first really hurts on a scenario this live vs. a list as slow as his where he will be out threat significantly due to Road to War and Redline.  Since he's so low on DEF I don't need Engine of Destruction to hit, allowing me to cycle Redline easily which would punish him moving up enough for scenario.

I think Brian just needs a few mods to his list and he can be in a much better position for this game, though I'm not sure this kind of melee oriented Armored Corps wants to fight into #RockLockeInCoC.  Convergence guns can eat through Demo Corps and our best melee Jack can power right on through Shocktroopers shield wall.

As for evaluating Locke herself and CoC in general, I definitely liked the list.  I appreciated the amount of firepower I can bring to bear in a jack focused list design while also having a high enough model count to be relevant at least early on in scenario and being able to have a competent melee threat as well.  

I'm overall very excited to play CoC once the Scrum is over and enjoy the change of pace from Trolls. I think Destruction Initiative is very well positioned to excel in SR2018, and there may be some really strong play that can be done with a Prime Axiom that can create "free" servitors every turn to contest or score.  Similarly I think that if I owned all the Obstructors I needed there may be some game for Clockwork Legion as well, but that's a separate question that requires some testing. 

Finally, if you're playing Locke in Convergence, make sure to let PP know how much we appreciate her with #RockLockeInCoC

HOTT 52 - Weeks 7 Thru 9 - Hordes, Heroes And Scenarios, Oh My!

The latter half of February has been a hectic one for me! GaryCon prep, podcasting, running several games... and still playing HOTT! I just haven't had much time to blog about it.

Later on in this post, I'll get into how I use HOTT (and by extension, DBA) to fight published scenarios from sources such as Neil Thomas's "One Hour Wargames" or Charles Grant's "Scenarios for Wargames."

First, the battles and pictures! 

Week 7 - the Week of the Hordes

I have played with Hordes, but for some reason, I never took advantage of the "replacing hordes" option. I decided to see how it would play out with my Orcs bringing hordes to the fight!

Humans (Militia/Regular)      Spear-General x1 Spear x3 Shooter x2 Riders x4 Blades x2

Orcs (Militia/Regular) - defending Warband-General x1 Warband x2 Shooter x3 Riders x2 Hordes x4 Spear x2

The terrain would be a bit challenging for the attacking humans! That impassable hill split up the forces. The human commander opted to stack the lighter forces to the left, to see how things would play out. The orcs had put their hordes to their left  and the human commander set his blades and spears opposite.

 

To the left flank of the humans, the shooters were quickly cut down by orc archers and by the warbands. The human riders swung around the marsh to attack in the good going but they were pushed back!

On the left flank of the orcs, the hordes marched ahead, with goblin wargs on their flank. Orc spears held reserve to prevent any breakouts. The lines collided and hordes were cut down en-masse by dour blades and spears!



But guess who rolls a 6 for PIPs? The hordes keep coming! Fun!

 

Not wanting to get surrounded, the human riders opted to a strategic retreat and join up with the forces on the other side of the hill. Distance and the hill makes this an expensive retreat, PIP-wise, but forming a column helps! The orcs, seeing the peril, move to reform their own line.

 

The lines form again and smash into each other! With recoils and the warband's penchant for pursuit, the Orc General unit finds himself surrounded! The spears cut down the warband and the Warchief is lost - the Orcs flee the field!

Humans win 6 to 11G.

The hordes made this fun! The orcs rolled a number of 5s and 6s for PIPs, making it easy to bring them back. The orcs started out doing very well with turning back the attack by the riders and shooters, but then the momentum shifted. The humans rolled some great rolls once they reformed the line, and the pursuing Orc General-Warband put himself in a bad position.

Week 8 - the Week of the Hero

This week, I decided to try out a Hero element to see how it played. I put the Hero on the human's side, and I decided to oppose it by putting a Behemoth on the Orcs side.

Humans (Militia/Regular) - defending    Spear-General x1 Spear x3 Shooter x2 Riders x2 Blades x2 Hero x1

Orcs (Regular/Militia) Blade-General x1 Blade x3 Spear x4 Warband x2 Behemoth x1

The humans line up to defend their fort from a force of orcs approaching. The human major details an element of riders to to swing wide as a harassing force. The humans are heartened by the appearance of a local hero and war veteran, Sir Larry, who has come to assist with the defence!



As the lines approach each other, the trolls and Sir Larry eye each other warily.

 

Smash! The lines come together and trade blows! Meanwhile, the riders come sneaking behind, forcing the Orc Warchief to detail a unit to keep an eye on them.

 

The hero and troll trade blows and insults, but neither side lands a telling blow. The orc line begins to crumble, forcing the Warchief to plug the hole. Unfortunately, due to recoils, he finds himself alone and overlapped. A 5v1 roll seals the Warchief's fate as once again, the humans win with a General kill!

Humans win 2-6G.

I was not very impressed with the Hero! He and the troll just pushed each other back and forth the entire combat. Perhaps it would have been more interesting if the Orcs had a Mage to threaten the Hero with bespelling! I'm sure that as I use them more, fun things will happen!

Week 9 - the Week of the Scenario

I've been playing Orcs/Goblins vs. the Humans for 8 weeks now, and the Humans have won each and every time! I thought it was time for a change...

I've written about this book, One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas. It's one of my favorite wargame books, not only for the simple rules, but for the THIRTY scenarios that Neil lays out in the second half of the book.

Scenarios are one of the ways I love to do solo gaming. Set up the situation and let me at it. Between this book and "Scenarios for Wargames" by Charles Grant, I have many situations to play from!

I rolled randomly on my d30 and came up with Scenario 29 - Shambolic Command. This is a fun scenario! The basic jist is that Blue must defend a hill, but is such an inept commander that they can only order a limited number of troops at any one time. 3/4ths of the force are on the hills, with a reserve on the far end of the board. Red's job, with a smaller force, is to take the hill!

Since the Orcs have been getting beaten up quite a bit, I assigned them to Red as the attackers. Blue would try to hold the hill.

The scenario is written so that Blue is numerically superior, so that meant that the Humans would get a 24 AP army, and the Orcs get only a 16 AP army. To implement the "shambolic command", I decided that the Humans would only get 1 or 2 PIPs per turn (1-3, 4-6). I'll go into more details about how I interpreted the scenario for HOTT after the battle report.

Humans (Regular/Militia)  - defending    Hill defense Knight-General x1 Knight x3 Spear x4 Reserve Riders x2 Blades x2

Orcs (Regular/Militia) Spear-General x1 Spear x2 Shooters x2 Knight x2 Hordes x2

 

The layout is per the scenario. I didn't have one hill, so I laid out a series of hills as a ridge for the Humans to guard. The Orcs arrive and slowly march up the ridge. The Human commander positioned himself on his right to prevent the Orc Hordes from flanking. Those 1 to 2 PIPs made the Humans crawl into position. The Orcs prepared to charge!

 

The initial charge was repulsed, with the Humans holding the high ground. (That +1 for being up-hill made a difference!) The Orc Hordes were defeated, but more swarmed towards the hill! On the Human's left flank, the Orc Knights decimated the Shooters and Knight element. The reserves could only look on, with little leadership (PIPs) available. The Human commander had his hands full just trying to keep the battle line organized!

 

The Orc Knights easily dispatched the Human Riders who flung themselves into a desperate counter-attack. The defending Human line stepped back, preparing themselves for another Orc attack that had been reinvigorated by the arrival of more Hordes!

  

The Orcs begin to roll down the Humans' left flank. Then, seeing an opportunity, the Human Spears swarmed around the Orc's Warchief element and destroyed it! Unfortunately, the Humans had lost too many of their own, the bodies littering the hillside. Thus heartened, the Orcs continued grimly on, although they would feel the effects of the loss of the iron fist of their Chief!

  

The Human commander pulled his few troops into a small line on the last hill, as a remaining Human Rider element was wiped out by the Orc Knights. The remaining reserve Human Blades could only watch helplessly as the Human commander became the only element left on the hill...



... and then he was pushed off as well. The Humans fled the ridge, surrendering it to the victorious Orc force!

This was quite a fun battle! It lasted 32 bounds, but the time passed quickly. I really enjoyed how this felt as it played out. The limitation of what the Human commander could do with only 1 to 2 PIPs was a huge factor. The Hordes also made a big contribution, being able to come back and fill in the gaps, adding their influence by overlaps and preventing (mostly) flanking/closing the door maneuvers. 

The loss of the Orc Warchief hampered the Orcs as well, or this would have ended a lot sooner, I think. It meant that, for the most part, my PIPs were halved as each move would take +1 PIP. The orcs were lucky I was rolling a lot of 5s and 6s.

---

Using HOTT with wargame scenarios from books The One Hour Wargame scenarios are written in a generic enough fashion that they can be used by other rules, but they are obviously tuned for Neil Thomas's rules from earlier in the book. To that end, I had to make several allowances to use this particular scenario with HOTT, as well as adjusting some of the rules of HOTT, here's what I did.

- No HOTT stronghold for the defender.

- No HOTT terrain generation - I used the terrain from the scenario as it calls for.

- This scenario called for 6 Blue units and 4 Red units. Using that ratio, I had Blue/Humans with a 24 AP army and Orc/Reds with a 16 AP army. I have random tables of army lists for both values, so I rolled for which armies to use.

For future scenarios, I haven't considered how to include the more fantasy-based units like Mages, Heroes, Clerics, Gods or Dragons yet, as NT's scenarios are decidedly based on non-magical encounters. I might try it in the future, just to see how it works.

- The scenario victory conditions are usually based on objective and time, as versus HOTT's victory conditions based on number of elements eliminated. This specific scenario called for complete control of the hills by 15 turns.

The OHW rules are based on the assumption of a battle of attrition - once units come into contact, they do not break apart until one side is destroyed! Also, the scenario called that only TWO Blue/Human units could move/fight. I think that the turn limit depends on that aspect of the battle.

I decided to ignore the turn limit as well as the limitation of how many units could fight.  I ruled to have victory happen if either the Blue/Human side was convincingly forced off the hill OR if the Red/Orc side lost 11 AP (approx 2/3ds of 16).

- Reinforcements or Unit arrivals - I stick to the schedule as laid out in the scenario. I allow Hordes to be replaced.

- I implemented the "shambolic command" restriction of Blue only moving/fighting 2 units a turn via PIP limitations - Blue/humans could only get 1 to 2 PIPs a turn. I had all units in contact fight.

Overall, I was pleased with the results! I'm looking forward to doing more scenarios with HOTT.

1603, Quest For Quintana Roo!

In this episode we look at the game Quest for Quintana Roo, which I mispronounced for most of the show. Thanks to Eugenio for correcting me. I loved the game and I hope you will too. Next up is a big game, Joust by Atari via Williams. If you have any thoughts on this game, please get them to me by end of day 5th October and I'll put it in the show. Remember, just tell me your thoughts on the game, I'll take care of the game play. you can send those thoughts to 2600gamebygame@gmail.com. Thanks so much for listening!

Quest for Quintana Roo on Random Terrain
Atari Age thread on Quintana Roo Carbon Dating
Sunrise memo on Atarimania Page 1  Page 2
Ed Salvo interview by Scott Stilphen
Atari Compendium Quest For Quintana Roo Easter egg and bug page
No Swear Gamer 461 - Quest for Quintana Roo
No Swear Gamer - Quest for Quintana Roo gameplay

Hitman 2 | Review, Trailer, Gameplay & Everything Else You Need To Know.

Hitman 2 | Preview, Trailer, Gameplay & Everything else you need to know.

Hitman 2 is the most recent passage in IO Interactive's magnificent stealth arrangement, accumulating a choice of stages instead of the main game's verbose excursion. You will by and by play as Agent 47 as he ventures to every part of the globe looking for targets he should kill by any and all conceivable means (Which he do with some cool methods). With improvement having as of late gone gold, it won't be long before we can play it ourselves.

So Here Pro-GamersArena has tried to compile everything related to Hitman 2 which you need to know including the latest news, trailer, gameplay, release date and more...


Quick Facts :

• Initial release date: 13 November 2018
• Developer: IO Interactive
• Genre: Stealth game
• Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
• Modes: Single-player video game, Multiplayer video game

Hitman 2 News : Development has officially gone gold !!

For those new to this, this implies advancement has found some conclusion and the diversion is playable from beginning to end. It's additionally entered creation, implying that plates are being printed and retail downloads are being accumulated. 

This was joined by another trailer displaying the Colombia level, which takes our Agent 47 into thick, suspicious wildernesses with plentiful open doors for inventive homicide. You can look at it beneath:

What is Hitman 2? What is it about?

Hitman 2 is a wholly fledged continuation of the 2016 reboot, despite the fact that it won't pursue the verbose model used by its forerunner. Rather, it will discharge in full with numerous levels at dispatch. Agent 47 will wander from sun-splashed boulevards to dull, moist rainforests looking for new targets which he have to assissinate at any rate (in unbelievably imaginative ways). We'd love to see the driven story developed, as well.

Hitman 2 release date – when is it coming out?

IO Interactive has affirmed that Hitman 2 is coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC on November 13, 2018. The individuals who wanna play the game somewhat prior then they have to buy gold and authority's release which gives at that point access to play the game four days sooner. 

Hitman 2 Gameplay Preview

The demo happens amid a race end of the week, where the assignment is to execute a driver amid the race itself. As any individual who plays Hitman knows, the horde ways that any mission can be finished, and the measure of concentrate that should be done to find these can take hours. For this E3 2018 demo, there were just a bunch of ways this murder can be accomplished, and fortunately, there was somebody close by to walk me through them in a smart mold. Here's the gameplay on the off chance that you wanna watch : 

The two focuses here are Robert and Sierra Knox, two previous individuals from Providence that have since abandoned. You start in a giant party zone of the celebration, out the back of the race itself. There's many individuals, a ton of clamor, and the primary errand is to make it into the VIP region. Instinct Mode is back, and by and by it features the key individuals of intrigue. It still reliably features the objective, or focuses, and also any individuals of intrigue, be them potential clueless unfortunate casualties to-be on the grounds that they have an outfit that will get us into the following room or a security protect to maintain a strategic distance from. 

There's additionally a stunning mechanics that features all the more abnormal state individuals to stay away from. Individuals with a white hover over their head will probably speculate you sooner, thus Agent 47 must remove additional consideration to remain from those. For instance, whenever dressed as a security protect, you should be more aware of chancing upon the head of security, as they'll know the names and faces of each individual from their staff. It's a super cool repairman that truly plays into the possibility of this being a reasoning individual's amusement which feels so genuine. 

And if you wanna know how he completes the mission then there's the gameplay above, there you can watch it, You will get the feel far better by watching it rather than reading it.

Hitman 2 Trailer : How does it look?

The uncover trailer for Hitman 2 is preposterously upscale. Described via Sean Bean, it highlights Agent 47 as he takes out a motorsport driver in an assortment of ruthlessly splendid ways.

Little Details

On each of my pages you'll notice the main element: interactive diagrams that visually explain a concept. But there are lots of other techniques I use too. Unfortunately, I don't remember all of these when I'm writing a new page. I decided to make a catalog of things I've used so that I can remember to use them on the new pages I write.

I've been working on this for a few months and it's still incomplete but I decided I should share it: https://www.redblobgames.com/making-of/little-things/

Are there other little details on my pages that I've forgotten about? Probably! I will update the document as I think of them.

Missed Classic: Trinity - When Soviet Time-Traveling Robot Armadillos Attack

Written by Joe Pranevich

In Trinity, we traveled to the dawn of the nuclear age and attempted to change history. We failed and became trapped in a time loop with our mischievous roadrunner friend. I suppose there are worse ways to go. In the words of one famous time traveler, "Great Scott!"

But what if the game didn't end that way? Unlike most of the games we played, this is not just a rhetorical question. Infocom has always had a special place in the hearts of digital archeologists and a level of attention that arguably exceeds their real contribution to computer game history. This is in part thanks to Infocom's own newsletters, but also the preservation of memos and documents from the company itself. That gives us a view on just about everything from sales performance to standings within the local softball leagues. As recently as 2019, source code was placed online for most of the classic Infocom games. This would be fun all by itself, but in Trinity's case we are fortunate to have preserved notes on three separate versions of the game, starting from something akin to "Time Police" and ending with the version that we explored together. I had hoped to include this material with the Final Rating, but that post was long enough. Let's close out our coverage of Trinity with a look at three versions of the game that might have been.

Mirai Sentai Timerenger!

Trinity 0.1 - The Time Police

It all started with a dead bird. A cat proudly deposited the carcass on the doorstep of her owner, a Japanese school teacher who had received enough of these little offerings to recognize something out of the ordinary. She sealed the corpse in a plastic bag and brought it to a biologist at the nearby medical school. The remains were identified as Geococcyx californianus, a species native to the southwest corner of North America. What a roadrunner was doing in the vicinity of Nagasaki's Heiwa Koen (Peace Park) was anybody's guess.

The first of the three pitches is undated but likely written sometime in 1985, although it may have been during or after the development of Wishbringer. It shows the game at an embryonic stage, but already elements were coming together that we immediately recognize as the core of Trinity. Nuclear blasts, in addition to all of the damage that we can see, also pierced holes in the fabric of space and time. These holes connected the sites of those blasts in an as-yet unknown way, allowing a New Mexico roadrunner to end up in Nagasaki, whirlpools of coconut-filled boiling water to appear spontaneously over Utah, and many other such events. Scientists discovered and investigated these holes, but the military saw them as being little more than a curiosity. Without military application, who cares if reality is becoming Swiss cheese? That was until a defector revealed that the Soviets had not only discovered the holes, but that they had a plan of their own to use them.

I'll let Moriarty's own words describe the next part:

Such were the humble beginnings of Classified Defense Project #43112. Its official code name is Termite. But the people who got it going and keep it running like to call themselves the Time Police.

You play the role of a Sentry on duty at Project Termite's Alamogordo Station. It's your duty to monitor the Hole created by the first atomic explosion, and to make sure nobody is in there mucking around with the original Manhattan Project. You wouldn't want some other country to get The Bomb before we did, would you?

Grand Moff Who?

The pitch continues into a brief description of gameplay. Rather than directly interact with history, you have an "array of technological gadgets" resembling real birds and small mammals that act as your eyes and ears in the past. Your job is to ensure that history (and a very large bomb) go off without a hitch, without being spotted and potentially changing history yourself. On one fateful day, it is your responsibility to defend the United States from a two-fold attack by the Soviet Union. You have to defend both the Trinity site on the morning of the blast as well as "present day" Alamogordo Station. It sounds like a lot of fun, even if it is unclear how you would solve two sets of problems at once.

Back to Moriarty:

Meep, your trusty Electric Roadrunner, has detected an army of stainless steel armadillos closing in on the shot tower at Ground Zero. And there's something else lurking in that pre-dawn desert; a mysterious Presence that will eventually lock you in a bizarre three-way struggle against time. The future history of the world -- perhaps the fate of the universe itself -- depends on your courage and resourcefulness. No matter what happens, you MUST make sure that the first atomic bomb detonates precisely on schedule! It is 5:00 AM on July 16, 1945. You have twenty-nine minutes.

I understand why this pitch didn't get made, but boy does it sound fun. The mix of robotic avatars and having to balance two separate modes of play at once sounds a bit too much like Suspended and A Mind Forever Voyaging, but there is something perfect about the idea of the Soviets using an army of time-traveling robotic armadillos. Would the tone have been jarring against its premise? How much fun can you have in a story about nuclear armageddon? And both of those previous games struggled with balancing the multiple aspects of their gameplay; could Trinity have done better? It is also not clear how many of the "termite holes" you would explore, and Moriarty may not even have worked out those details yet. This pitch represents a great start and could have been a fun-- if very different-- game if it had come to fruition. I especially like the hard science fiction approach and the structure that being a part of "Time Police" could bring to the story.

You can read the full first proposal here: https://github.com/historicalsource/trinity/blob/master/tr1.txt

"Bridgeport?" Said I. "Camelot," Said he."

Trinity 0.5 - Magical Kingdom

The next version of the game, dated September 1985, takes us much closer to the Trinity that we know. The hard science fiction and robotic armadillos are gone, as is the "Time Police". Instead, the game takes a hard turn into straight up fantasy. The start of the game feels quite similar to the final product: you are an American tourist in London on the day that the bombs fell. You will have to "solv[e] a lighthearted puzzle or two" to escape from London. While the pitch does not say so explicitly, it's likely that Moriarty had already worked through much of the Kensington Garden experience. When the bomb drops however, the game takes a turn from what we would come to know:

"Inside" the duct, you discover a bizarre fantasy world where space and time are interchanged. The magical inhabitants of this twilight zone are wringing their 4-dimensional hands because our atom bomb tests are blasting big, unsightly holes in their otherwise peaceful universe. The only way to prevent the collapse of the entire kingdom is for some foolhardy adventurer to journey backwards in time to the first A-bomb test at Trinity, and prevent it from going off.

Armed only with the 3-D map of the Hole Matrix provided in the game package, the player ventures through a bewildering variety of exotic locations, solving puzzles, meeting unlikely characters and casting magic spells. But unknown forces are at work to foil your quest, and you soon find yourself caught up in a multidimensional war between two great empires who seek to control the Matrix. It all comes together during a spectacular climax in the New Mexico desert, where you must single-handedly decide the course of history in just 29 minutes of real playing time.

"My name is Peabody. I suppose you know yours."

The game sounds much more "Zorkian" with exotic locations and magic spells; in fact, I cannot help but wonder if the bombs wouldn't have opened the door just a smidge to the actual Great Underground Empire. This is all speculation, but Trinity's internal development code was "Z7". All of the previous codes (from "Z0" to "Z6") were for the Zork and Enchanter series, plus Wishbringer, which also took place in the same universe. "Z8" and "Z9" would later be given to Beyond Zork and Zork Zero. Trinity is the only game in that series of codes to not be a Zork game. Why? Could they have been aiming for a more generic fantasy game while using the "Z" code? Absolutely. Could they have left the door open for it being an implicit Zork sequel? Also yes, especially as this version of the pitch suggests that it was to be the first game in a new fantasy trilogy. We don't know, but it feels like there could be a truth hidden in there someplace.

The "Hole Matrix" hinted at in the description, plus the fantasy kingdom itself, feels like an alternate or early form of the "wabe" from the final game. It seems that you would explore many different areas all connected by the nuclear explosions to solve puzzles. Except for the lack of spells and explicit fantasy elements, most of the zones that we traveled to in the final game could have worked with this pitch. Only the "hub" that connected them, plus the lack of magical solutions, could be different from the game that we know.

The final open question for this version has to do with the endgame: how would a "real-time" ending sequence work? Would touch typists and faster computers automatically have an edge? This must have been a major goal because Moriarty mentions the real-time nature of the ending more than once in his summary, and yet he doesn't appear to have found a way to make it work. This is also the only version of the pitch to not include the roadrunner; I cannot but think that somehow these two problems are related! Other than being a humorous fantasy (rather than dour magical realism), this game has all of the elements of "our" version of Trinity. The puzzles and worlds may have differed, but this is recognizably the same game.

You can read the full second version of the pitch here: https://github.com/historicalsource/trinity/blob/master/tr2.txt

"My patience is wearing thin. I'm banishing you to a time warp from which you will never return!" - Oroku Saki

Trinity 0.9 - Almost There!

The final draft summary we have is from November 1985 and it is essentially the game that we came to play in digest form. In fact, this is the shortest pitch of the three and is detailed enough that Moriarty must have been fairly far along in his development process. The beginning and middle of the game appear to be exactly as we have played it:

The door transports you to a Zorkish fantasy world, centered around an enormous sundial that casts a long, moving shadow across the landscape. This improbable universe is littered with lots of giant toadstools, each equipped with its own magic door. Whenever the dial's shadow passes over a toadstool, the magic door opens, and you can visit a "real" historical place where somebody is about to explode an atomic bomb. Locations include an underground test site, a Siberian wilderness, a tropical atoll, a "Star Wars" orbital battlefield and a playground in Hiroshima.

The player has to explore every square inch of the fantasy world, figure out how to control the giant sundial, visit all the magic doors (in the right order) and solve a bunch of interconnected puzzles before he or she can tackle the seventh and final toadstool ... the Trinity test.

So far so good. I especially like the nod to my theory that he was explicitly aiming for "Zorkian", even if not the Great Underground Empire itself. And yet, Moriarty appears not to have cracked the final nut, how he would have run the end-game. This is not the three-way battle with robot armadillos from the earliest version, nor the real-time puzzles of the second, but something wholly different:

The player materializes in the test tower, only twenty-nine minutes before the Gadget is scheduled to detonate. The site is heavily guarded, and danger lurks behind every cactus. If you survive long enough to reach the control bunker, you'll meet a Who's Who of famous scientists, all intent on vaporizing your only way home. Can you stop the Bomb from going off? What will happen if you do? And what about those mysterious beings who keep making snide comments in the corners of your video screen? Are you being used?

I love the mystery being implied here, even if it is frustrating that we never got more than sniffs of it in the final version of the game that we played. Who was the mysterious voice in our ear? We never found out and it seems like perhaps Moriarty may have changed his mind about it more than once during development. Alas, we also never saw the "Who's Who" of famous scientists as the final endgame pivoted back towards the earlier ideal of causing as few ripples in history as possible. In fact, other than listening to humans on the radio, we interacted directly with absolutely no one in the endgame as we played it. There is not one "famous scientist" in there at all!

You can read the full third version of the pitch here: https://github.com/historicalsource/trinity/blob/master/tr3.txt

"Okay, um, how do I explain this concisely? This is Tuesdays... and also July."
"And sometimes, it's never."

Moving On

I hope you enjoyed these brief looks at alternate versions of Trinity. I am glad that we were able to experience the final version of the game, but there are many neat ideas presented across these several drafts that would have been fun to experience in some way. Ultimately, the ending of Trinity isn't perfect. The puzzles are too difficult and too many elements are left unexplained and unresolved. The nature of the time loop doesn't give us a sense of finality, especially after we looted our own paradoxical corpse. It seems from these documents that while the only aspect of Trinity that did not change from draft to draft was the final confrontation in the desert, the actual mechanics of that endgame experience did not come into focus until late in his design process. I wish we had these documents for more games to give us a basis for comparison, but what we have is a fascinating, if all too brief, window into how the sausage was made.

With this last side avenue explored, I am finally ready to tackle some Leather Goddesses. You can expect a mini-review of that soon.

With the spread of Coronavirus around the world, I want to take this moment to wish for safety and health for all of our readers and their families. Stay well.