Möbius Front '83

This is a fun medium/low complexity tactical wargame. The combat arms are well represented, with their strengths and weaknesses. You are generally on the advance, seeking to occupy certain objective hexes. The terrain is sort of a maze of wooded and open spaces. Infantry can move through the woods, while vehicles can't. Antitank missiles can be powerful, but you have to be in place and set up in order to use them. Tanks are mobile and powerful but more expensive in terms of force points. The scenarios are reasonably short and can be completed in an hour or so. Some parts of the interface are irritating. There are cut scenes of winceable dialog between the scenarios. There is no undo, and you can't save and restore. Thus, an errant mouse click can ruin a scenario for you. The only option is to start it from the beginning. You _can_ save a scenario and return to it, but you can't pick it up from before your mistake.

The Zachtronics style produces very stylish, smooth games on the programing side, with a lot of character in each particular setting. Möbius Front '83 follows the same characteristics, while Zachtronics delves into the genre of warfare strategic/tactics of games as the Panzer General series. In this regard, the classic strategy part of the game is less deep than the genre average, because of a greater mechanics abstraction due to it's puzzle half-nature. Now, warfare strategic/tactics games are modellings themselves, and so they are abstractions of reality, so this game just reduces the complexity of other titles in exchange of a more casual or puzzle oriented experience, in line with the programming philosophy and particular style of Zachtronics. That makes it a pleasant game anyway if you are already a fan of Zachtronics games and can cope with a somewhat lighter strategy game in this particular genre. All in all, the game really achieves the 'one more turn' feeling, which combined with the usual smooth programing and top-notch graphics and design of Zachtronics, makes for a great entry and more than worthy for its prize, given the hours of play it provides. The only real complaint would be that graphics are too small to get used to at first, and fonts are sometimes difficult to read. Regarding gameplay, the tactics part uses the Panzer General model but with assigned units in each level. A perfectly balanced use of all combined unit types (infantry, artillery and tanks) is required. The model is somewhat abstracted since it uses a rock-paper-scissors relation between them where infantry is vital, somewhat of a design problem since many times the wiping of all enemy units is the road to success instead of achieving the scenario objectives. The main campaign follows a story with another two parts, a very nice solitaire cards game and a programming radio that adds the typical programming puzzle of Zachtronics. It also includes skirmish and multiplayer modes.

There seems like might be some fun ideas donw the line, but I probably will not get there. AI does not have a fog of war while also having numbers advantage. That means that only way to win is 1) Ignore survial of players units. 2) Look for breaks in AI scrips. Together they complitely breaks any immersion of the game, and no amouont of cool scans of real field manuals can change that. I just feel like I'm wasting my life against artificial challange. At least fog of war should not be a thing for player too, it still coul be interesting tactical puzzle. As it is, it is a game of trial and error. Maybe, having a narrative which allows for mission falures and designed against likely streak of fails and retreats in the beginign would also compesate for the issue. There are hints of some sci-fi shenanigans with either time or dimensions straight from the begining, so that might work well with narative explanation of perfect information for the enemy.

The science fiction story does not really work for me, but the game mechanics are really good. I like the balance between tactics and some randomness. However, the AI acts very stupid at times, e.g. retreating from control points when it should block them until reinforcements arrive. Therefore, the game only becomes challenging when the AI gets more/stronger units, but never due to its tactics.

I guess I just don't get much fun out of games anymore. The concept seems fine, the story is slow paced so I cannot say if it's actually any good because I just got bored by the 3rd or so mission. Nice graphics, decent mechanics. I think I wanted this game to be somewhat more enjoyable than it turned out to be. Too meh for my taste, some may like it though.