Solium Infernum: Hell on Earth
The infernal turn based strategy conjured from the bowels of Hell, known as Solium Infernum has been released onto the mortals of this world. The game is a heady mixture of board game, card game, and high strategy in terms of diplomacy, hellish compromises and decisions. Dripping with the goop of Damnation itself, the game is steeped in lovely demonic art.
Whilst the user interface is still being awkwardly wrestled into the Macromedia Director straightjacket – it does a wonderful job of setting the scene and soaking you in the ichor and oddities of the diabolic game world, but is functional enough to allow you to methodically plan your domination of the inferno.
Developed by Cryptic Comet, the company that released the post-apocalyptic strategic card game Armageddon Empires (AE), Solium Infernum has all the depth and complexity of the previous title, and like its predecessor, it certainly requires reading of the manual, and possibly some extra reading of forum guides and fan strategies to fully appreciate the nuances of the game.
The guys from the Three Moves Ahead podcast, hosted on the FlashofSteel.com website have been using the games Play By EMail (PBEM) functionality to play out a multiplayer game and they’ve been live blogging it on the Quarter to Three forums, its worth a read to fully appreciate the cut and thrust of the games mechanics, including the devilishly combative trash talk.
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There are 3 Comments to "Solium Infernum: Hell on Earth"
Yaaaaaaaaay! Been waiting for this!
Spelk, if you’re up for it, feel free to setup a PBeM game using my googlemail address.
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Will do Stu, although with the caveat that I am really bad at it, my first game seemed to end in confusion and disaster, so standard outcome for a game in Hell then
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The guy (Vic) has a fantastic imagination and a wicked sense of strategic design, but I wish he’d just hire some programmers to code it in something other than Macromedia Director, I’m sure his awkward clunky UI is mainly down to the constraints in Director. This game is epic, and it could use some UI reworking, and it would be a stunner! He tends to drift towards too many clicks to do things, and some round about ways to perform simple tasks.. the same was true in Armageddon Empires also.. thats a dice rolling clickfest that will have your RSI flaring up in no time. He’s got a great art dept behind him, and his game design is fantastic, Sol Inf has really pushed the boat out, but he’s touching the edges of the limits that Director forces upon him, get some decent coders, and code up something that is flexible and usable.
This games got territory control, army building, hero management, RPG progression, diplomacy, event card and resource collecting, several types of combat and strict rules from Hell to adhere to where combat is concerned. In fact combat is so proceduralised and formal, that it requires a lot of effort to get it going against other players.. fantastic. I could see this sort of setup in Chivalric Knights during the 100 years war. Theres high level intrigue and diplomacy at the heart of the game, yet basic troop movements on the board also control what is possible, theres a good balance there. Even the resource chips of various denominations collected have to be cajoled, melded and wedged into only 8 payment slots, and that is a logistic game in itself, not to mention the phased game actions that require some tough decisions on what you want to do each turn from the off.
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