Thank you.

EDIT:
Wasn't this one of those games which GOG had once refused to sell because of its "curation"?
Or am I imagining things?

Not my slice of tiramisu, but the game-play is intriguing.

Nice one, GOG.

+1 for your detailed post. You should add it as a review for the game.

If you have it on steam already, don't bother, the game is DRM free there.

So, no barely clothed burly women, doing womanly things then ?...

Review by the legendary SsethTzeentach:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFzjBka-jB4

I keep seeing similar sentiment expressed for various games that do the same thing (turn based, somewhere in the description they're claiming to be fast paced). And it never really made sense to me, even as a general issue (though specifically for this game there is the detailed description of @thewatersupply ).

For example, movies. Movies have a fixed runtime. Unless you intentionally quite or pause them in the middle, or intentionally change the play speed, they will always progress at a fixed pace, same amount of frames per second, same total playing time. But... some movies are absolutely fast paced, while others are slowgoing.

Or, books. Always turn based. The page will only turn when the reader will decide to turn the page. But there sure are some books which are fast paced, full of action where the plot keeps rushing forward, and some which are slow and contemplative and philosophical.

Heck, even for games. Both Chess and Checkers are wholly turn based. But you can easily play a fairly competent fast paced game of checkers, while you'd never play even a barely competent fast paced game of chess. One is fast paced, the other extremely not so.

The "paced" in "fast paced" can refer to different things. The progression of plot or story. The scale at which things are theoretically happening. For play, even while turn based, is how methodical and thinky the players need to be and how much analysis they're really expected or should apply each turn. Sure, turns will only change when the players change them, but there are games where turns will usually last a long while while players spend a lot of time thinking and analyzing and predicting, or very little will change between turns, while in others most turns will be very quick, or things will change substantially between turns.

These people would probably beg to differ...

Let's give it a try next month.

I really doubt most of them would claim both that "Blitz Chess" is a representation of normal/common/regular play style of chess, and that when played this way players have the same competency as with normal/common/regular play of chess.

You can add an extreme rush timer to everything, possibly make it more exciting, definitely make it a lot more fast paced. That's different from saying that this thing is generally fast paced, when it's not the general way of doing it...

Unless the claim you're trying to make is that every activity is fast paced, since every activity can in theory be done with a tight timer? In which case I disagree with your definitions, but you're not technically wrong. That would mean, though, that rather than agreeing with OP that a game can't be both "turn based" and "fast paced", or with me that there isn't a fixed relationship between the two and a "turn based" game may be "fast paced" or not, you actually believe that all "turn based" games are always "fast paced" since you could play all of them with a tighter timer?

I was just replying to your "you'd never play even a barely competent fast paced game of chess" and saying that those people likely won't agree that they're not even barely competent when they play blitz.
Personally think that if there's a timer, it's not fully turn-based but some sort of hybrid, since there's some real-time element and turns may be lost because of it.

Ah. But no, in that case I do believe they think they play very competent games of Blitz Chess, but not necessarily competent games of Chess. Keep them on the same timer for their side, and let another barely competent player play "regularly" without the extreme time limits, and I'm sure at least of fair percentage of these top blitz players will lose.

It's true probably some of them will win, sure. But if as an example against a general statement you take the tiny top players, then you're just disagreeing with my "never" here being literal. Which, fair, I did mean it as a general statement, and admit there can be some rare exceptions, so it's not technically "never".

As for a presence of a timer, regardless of the duration... eh. Sticking to the chess example, casual plays don't have a timer except the other player will get annoyed and call if off if you wait too much. Professional grand-master level tournaments do have timers, of a few hours. So is chess not turn based? But this time is in practice, not in the game rules. A computer implementation of chess, playing solo against the computer (so equivalent to other sp turn-based strategy games like the one discussed here), won't have a timer, you can start your turn, make sure the computer is connect to a good UPS, and leave for a few years. So chess is turn based.
Except, well, there's a limit of some years until your computer will eventually die, so it's just an extremely long timer. Physically everything has a timer, so nothing is ever turn based. Which is of course absurd, since those timers aren't, well, relevant. A timer is an issue if it rushes players, while they're playing. Not if they don't do anything in practice.

But, while an interesting philosophical discussion (for practical usage of the terms I do agree with you that timers mean something isn't really "turn based"), it's not really applicable to the discussion on whether something which is turn based can be fast paced. If there's no timer, the timer doesn't apply. If there is a timer, and it means the game isn't turn based, then it's not a turn based game to see if it's fast paced or not.

My main point was, in a response to the claim that turn based games can't be fast paced, that I believe turn based games can be fast paced because time pressure to act isn't the only thing determining whether something is fast paced or not.

Chess and checkers were given as widely known examples of things that, by the basic rules and common play, don't really progress by themselves, so are turn based, but play can still feel very differently, and the games usually progress in a different... pace. If they're bad examples because physical play in practice does have some timers, so they're often not played technically turn based, sure, bad example, switch this to playing chess or checks on a computer game against the computer with no forced timers. I still think they're good enough example, though, for the principal of the difference. Most checks games progress much faster than most chess games. I'm actually a bit surprised that you came with a counter that chess can actually be a fast paced game, rather than maybe a claim that checkers isn't :D .