Nelson's Weblog: culture / games / defcon

Defcon: Everybody Dies

Remember the awesome movie Wargames, the nuclear war computer game where "the only winning move is not to play"? Someone finally had the clever idea to make a real game like that.

A lot of games that simulate global warfare tend to be heavily strategic, and thus very turn-based and stat heavy. I wanted something that looked like the movie, with vector-lined Soviet subs closing in on the coastline.

Defcon, by Darwinia creators Introversion Software, is at its core a stripped down RTS. You deploy your missile silos, navy fleets, and airbases. Then you have a brief naval and air battle followed by flinging lots of nukes at your enemy. Then it's all over and whoever has the most megakills wins.

But to be honest, the gameplay itself is not that great. It's slow, strategic options are limited, there's a lot of luck. The reason to play this game is that it's beautiful.

The intention was always to capture the feeling of senseless Armageddon and the claustrophobia of being buried deep underground, trying to win a war that simply cannot be won. Defcon was always meant to be an experiment in the creation of a mood. We wanted to see if we could evoke that vast and terrible detached feeling of genocidal mania.
—Chris Delay, in Dec 2006 Game Developer Magazine

The graphics are abstract and detached. The soundtrack is amazing with ambient creepy angels overdubbed on top of sounds of people coughing. The slow pace of the game increases the horror; launch your nukes at Paris and London and Berlin, then wait five minutes for them to hit. There's even a mode where the game is played over six hours in the background, while you're busy doing something else. How creepy is that?

The demo is 60 megs and will let you sample the ambience. If you like it, the full version is $17.50.

culture • games
2006-12-17 21:44 Z


Mastodon @nelson@tech.lgbt Linkblog Wed 2024-11-20 Francis Williams painting The Platonic Blow Tue 2024-11-19 EmojiRain Bantam Tools Artframe Using OSM vector tiles Starlink sold out Fine-tuning LLMs at home Bluesky starter packs Mon 2024-11-18 Carbon Mapper Sun 2024-11-17 Love, Acceptance, and Screeching Modems Voyager 1 backup radio Gay Tblisi Usenet feed growth Methane mapping City99 console font Sat 2024-11-16 Lorraine Gervais Sill Justin's Linklog Thune 2004 blog campaign Fri 2024-11-15 Open source garage door Search Archives 2023 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2022 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2021 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2020 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2019 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2018 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2017 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2016 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2015 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2014 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2013 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2012 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2011 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2010 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2009 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2008 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2007 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2006 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2005 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2004 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2003 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2002 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2001 12 11 10 09 08 07 One good site MDN Nelson Minar nelson@monkey.org Blog licensed under a Creative Commons License		Defcon: Everybody Dies Remember the awesome movie Wargames, the nuclear war computer game where "the only winning move is not to play"? Someone finally had the clever idea to make a real game like that. A lot of games that simulate global warfare tend to be heavily strategic, and thus very turn-based and stat heavy. I wanted something that looked like the movie, with vector-lined Soviet subs closing in on the coastline. Defcon, by Darwinia creators Introversion Software, is at its core a stripped down RTS. You deploy your missile silos, navy fleets, and airbases. Then you have a brief naval and air battle followed by flinging lots of nukes at your enemy. Then it's all over and whoever has the most megakills wins. But to be honest, the gameplay itself is not that great. It's slow, strategic options are limited, there's a lot of luck. The reason to play this game is that it's beautiful. The intention was always to capture the feeling of senseless Armageddon and the claustrophobia of being buried deep underground, trying to win a war that simply cannot be won. Defcon was always meant to be an experiment in the creation of a mood. We wanted to see if we could evoke that vast and terrible detached feeling of genocidal mania. —Chris Delay, in Dec 2006 Game Developer Magazine The graphics are abstract and detached. The soundtrack is amazing with ambient creepy angels overdubbed on top of sounds of people coughing. The slow pace of the game increases the horror; launch your nukes at Paris and London and Berlin, then wait five minutes for them to hit. There's even a mode where the game is played over six hours in the background, while you're busy doing something else. How creepy is that? The demo is 60 megs and will let you sample the ambience. If you like it, the full version is $17.50. culture • games 2006-12-17 21:44 Z Nelson's Weblog • culture • games → emulation, eve, warcraft