Few weeks ago I’ve read “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein. i do not believe it would be useful to summarize the book’s thesis here, or to have a critical approach of its content. Instead I will focus on how it challenges my own project of a grand strategy game depicting the international geopolitical strategies of the USA during (tentatively) the Reagan presidency.

The influence of private interests on public foreign policies : 

something that I still don’t know how to depict in my game, although Shock Doctrine is the kind of read that makes obvious to me that simplifying geopolitics as a state VS state race for global prestige (as is the case in Balance of Power) - the ambition of every state being natural domination and preservation of the interests of its population - is a point of view so limited that it borders historical falsification.

Cold War as a pretext 

I am also more and more doubtful about designing a game centered around the dynamics of cold war, that is, the power struggle of two superpowers, that explains their global behaviour, and especially their ingerence in the life of other countries. I do not want to make a game that denies the existence of the cold war, denies the reality of mutual threats between USA and USSR, or build an elaborate conspiracy theory that would say it-was-a-lie-all-the-time-and-the-real-agendas-were-hidden. But I am also not satisfied with building a game that gives in the official narratives that retrospectively not only justify the misbehaviour of USSR and USA ; but also seems to naturally imply that every state seeks domination and that “balance of power” is the way to maintain peace in the world. I believe the power struggle against foreign opponents is also a nice occasion to make a profit for specific groups that would therefore encourage the development of such a vision of a society (if you want a less controversial example, think about the weapons manufacturers promoting pro-war agendas in pre WW1 Europe).

These are quick notes that I write in a hurry and it probably does not look very elaborate, suffice to say the general feeling I have at this stage is that the way I designed my own project so far does not meet the complexities of the narrative I would like to tell through my game. Or, more precisely, the narrative I would like to present through my game is so complex that I am afraid the ambition of building a game around it is now out of practical reach.

I don’t want to give up on happy coding

In December 2017 I had a period of 1-2 weeks where I built a first prototype of what this game could be ; and this was really exciting. What was exciting and satisfying is especially the feeling that prototyping a complex software like a grand strategy game from scratch is actually something I am able to do, thanks to the accessibility middleware, and this has led me to actually start to think deeper about what kind of game I would like to do if I was given an opportunity to develop one. In return, these game-making thought have led me to think a lot about my own vision of the world (especially politically) and how I would like to communicate it. And in addition, this was a nice pretext to start playing some games and reflect on their designs in a very meaningful way, not to mention books that I’ve put on my reading list on this occasion.

However, at this stage I don’t know anymore where this is going. I think it would be more realistic to come back to limited reachable objectives, but I don’t know how I could work on a game about geopolitics if it does not express ideas about complexity, ambivalence, contradictions, and if it does not question critically the points of view it explores. So I need to give more thought to all of this before I go further.

Another idea would be to come back to my idea of just doing a modern port of Balance of Power. This would allow me to develop my technical and game-design skills quickly, to work on a limited framework of objectives, and to actually achieve something a lot of people could probably see as meaningful.

However, by thinking and reflecting so much on Balance of Power as an inspiration, I also now see many fundamental flaws in its geopolitical vision. I even considered developing a “critical edition” of balance of power, that is, a playable version of the game, but with somehow including my own thoughts and comments in it, with the objective of provoking/inviting to discussion. Although I am not sure of the form it could take, that would be an interesting experimental step to take, but it’s too vague at the moment to be something I can really pursue.

Posting text on this short blog has also brought the question : is it really game-making I want to do, or just gathering some critical thoughts on existing games and building a critical vision of how war and (geo)policitics are reflected in videogames as well as other media. This is again something to consider. As for the critical playable verison of Balance of Power, I am also wondering whether it would suffice to do a commented let’s play video instead of going through the trouble or rebuilding the game from scratch!

And all of this needs also to be measured against my free time and my other projects, which I may value more.

This is where I am at the moment : reflexive standby.

I strongly agree with the advice Meg Jyanth (writer of amazing games such as Samsara or 80 days) has expressed in many places : good game-making takes a lot of research (it seems I can’t find a relevant source for the said advice so you will just have to trust me when I tell you Meg Jyanth said this). Obviously, this is not only true only about game-making.

So I have undertook to read a lot of books, play a lot of games, and watch a lot of movies, all related in some ways to my project.

Lately I have read La Fabrication de l’ennemi from Pierre Conesa (Robert Laffont, Paris, 2011). There does not seem to be translations of this work in other languages. Pierre Conesa is a former military strategist for the French defense. In this books he quickly reviews different processes that powerful entities (such as states) go through in order to legitimize war (which is barely defined as legal homicide). The author gives a lot of examples for each case, but do not approach his topic in a very scientific/systematic way, so the books mostly stands as an invitation to further research.

The urge for violence to be legitimized is overlook in most videogames. However, it is a central, and most influential feature in the games designed by the Paradox studio. In Paradox games, the player usually can’t go to war without a valid casus belli, which constrains the game experience in many interesting ways. Most of the time, the casus belli mechanism is something the player needs to work around, mainly through more or less elaborate fabrications. The player also have the opportunity to set-up a state structure less dependent on restrictive casus belli, these can include miliary fascist regimes (in Hearts of Iron) or fanatic religious dynasties, always ready to invade the lands of the unfaithful.

Balance of Power (which is the main inspiration of my own game) does not address the legitimization of violence. In Balance of Power, the enemy is already fabricated, it’s the opposite superpower. Actually, there is no need to have your actions accepted or validated by your own population, or by the international community. Instead, you need to have your opponent tacit approval (because if your opponent resist your actions, it leads the mutually destruction through nuclear war).

Building on the experience accumulated in Paradox games, I think it would be highly interested to complexify my own game by adding the need for the political or cultural justification of each action. This way, the player wouldn’t be simply allowed to intervene in any country, he would also need to build (or maintain) the correct cultural environment that makes the intervention possible, without jeopardizing its chances of future actions (or reelection). This would be an opportunity to explore the ways different wars in our recent history have been legitimized, and would also be an occasion to reflect on how theses processes are at work in the present time.

I will give some thought to the inclusion of such mechanics in the game. For the moment I will mostly list the different manufactured ennemies introduced by Pierre Conesa in his book:

- close enemy : border enemy

- planetary rivaly (USSR vs USA)

- intimate enemy (civil war)

- occupied subject, objectified as a barbarian

- the hidden enemy (conspiracy theory)

- absolute enemy (war against evil)

- conceptual enemy (example : “proliferation” ; “terrorism”)

- mediatic enemy

Note to myself, the end of the book also present ideas about how to undo the enemy : examples being the French-German friendship ; attempt at solving post-civil war tensions (such as forgetfulness, forgiveness, justice) ; the (controversial) use of international justice. I don ‘t know yet how this could find a place in the game.

Close to the conclusions, the author present an idea that is central to the logics in my game : the fact that unilateralism and planetary rivalry, as well as all the doctrines based on the need for power and prestige, are finally causes of violence and destabilization. 

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Yesterday I played NarcoGuerra by Game the News. This is barely more than 1€ on the store, so you might want to download and play it yourself before reading my post below that is going to completely spoil the game for you.

NarcoGuerra is basically a Risk variant where the player control the police and fights against drug cartels on the mexican territory.

The main variation from the classic rules of risk is that every five turns, there is an election ongoing in the country. The incumbent president is in favor of pursuing the war on drugs, while the challenger wants to legalize. The player can influence the results of the election by pledging money to one of the candidates.

Although it is not explicitly stated in-game, the player really needs to get drugs legalized in the country. If legalization happens, the market price of narcotics will fall, meaning the cartels will not have the resources to raise additional troops. Since the AI is far from agressive and only retaliates when attacked (which I suppose, reflects the fact that drug cartels wouldn’t interfere directly with the state if their ongoing businesses are not immediately threatened), for the police player, it is then just a question of peacefully piling up resources and troops for a few turns, and then wiping out what’s left of the opponents from the map.

As long as the “war on drugs” opponent is reelected, any agressive strategy on the map is bound to fail, since any victorious battle won against a cartel mechanically increases the market price of narcotics, which means that the survivor cartels will have more cash resources available to build up troops next turn.

The game does not give direct advice on the right way to win, but all the mechanics are explained through short text events.

A wargame that is fought in the polls

The message of the game is plain : the “war on drugs” rethoric is based on misconceptions and/or falsehood. This is not a war you can win with a military strategic approach, deploying soldiers on the field. 

The solution is political, and this is where the priority should be in terms of spending resources. Legalization is the way.

In terms of gameplay I think this message is conveyed in a very elegant and interesting way. The player is allowed to play a classic military risk game, but is not allowed to win this way. There is a need to play the political game on the superior level. A political game that is surimposed on the military one, and that defines the rules and conditions of what happens on the battlefield. 

Here we come to terms with the most meaningful aspects of “Grand Strategy” or “4X” genres. These are games that try to express complex systems that exist in our political world, and (hopefully) try to deliver meaningful and understandable messages to help us cope with these systems. One way to refine or clarify the messages within this game is the mixed use of game mechanics and traditional narratives (in this example, text events).

Unanswered questions

The game focuses on one key message, leaving many questions aside. This, in my opinion, result in the false impression that it would be easy to “just legalize it” to solve all the issues around drug and violence in a given society. The game does not explore the means necessary to achieve such a political and cultural change, neither does it ask the player to face the consequences of it.

The game also leaves aside some of they key elements in this context, mainly the question of the destination of the drugs. In the game, the drug market is national. Drug addicts purchase the products from the streets in mexico. Legalization is therefore a simple way to suffocate the cartels. However, in reality, it seems that most of the drug transiting or produced in Mexico goes to US customers. In this context, legalization seems a more complex issue.

What would it take for the population and for the institutions to accept such a change (since the game’s solution of a police chief directly funding the elections seems both unrealistic and unacceptable) ? What about the US neighbor, which is heavily funding the war on drugs, and who is also the main market for the drug transiting through mexico? How would they accept such a change? What kind of consequences would it have on the relationship between the countries? 

What are the possible political and economical frameworks for legalization, and what kind of impact can these frameworks have on the country? Who is going to take over? Who will produce, market the drugs, and benefit from it? What will happen to the hundred of thousands of people actively participating to the traffic, and the segment of the population who are indirectly benefiting from it? What are the economic options for this population after the legalization happens? Isn’t there a risk that some cartel members, organized, violent and fully supplied in cash and weapons, turn to other kind of criminal activities?

As a side note, since I guess it would really be out of the scope of such a game, the recent overdose scandals in the US also show us the dangers raised by legal drugs and their direct link to the consumption of illegal ones.

A simple idea

On one side, I appreciate how Narcoguerra finds simple and elegant ways to express the paradoxical nature of war on drugs to the player. I do not blame the developers for choosing to focus on one or two main messages in their game, leaving aside many complexities. This choice probably adds to the power of the messages in the game, and will ensure they reach more people. 

But I regret that they did not find a space anywhere in the game or in its promotion spaces, to say “Look, we wanted to focus on the fact that the War on Drugs is an hypocritical unwinnable war, but there are a lot of things we did not discuss here. It’s a complex topic, and our game do not cover everything.”

This does not only results in false impressions communicated to the player. It also weakens the message, by leaving it exposed to easy, quick critical reactions. If I am already convinced that war on drugs in a nonsense, I will appreciate the game and remain indulgent to its simplifications. But if the message of the game goes against my own opinion, I will probably have a tendency to immediately react by thinking what is presented to me is an oversimplification that do not address the issue at all.

I also think that this kind of ultimately simplistic game experiences kind of abusively use the term “newsgames” to label themselves. In my opinion these are more like videogame essays, elaborating one or two simple ideas and presenting them through a specific aesthetic. But this approach is not what I expect from a journalist.

Let’s draw inspiration : the summary

Here is what I take away from this game experience.

Aknowledge your own limitations and simplifications Your game conveys ideas, not realities. It is ok to convey simple ideas. Simple ideas are powerful. But be careful not to pretend (even by omission) you are conveying or depicting realities, or it will weaken your message. Show to the player, the gaps in what you have done, and if possible, make the player understand why you made these choices.

Use the game to break the game : the meaning of “4X” superimpose game systems on each other (here, the political game on the risk strategy game), to express the idea that the game can always be played elsewhere, in another way, it can always be won in another sense.

Narratives are powerful NarcoGuerra has a neat game system, but it’s the text events that allow the player to make sense of it in a useful way.

Alternate history an interesting technique that consists of Introducing a completely fictitious element (here, the election of a pro-legalization candidate) to alter the game mechanics, and to make a point.

The current visuals of Reagan Years are not satisfactory enough to be shared. I am not exactly sure what will be the visual feeling of the game. However I think I’ve made some progress as to identify the kind of soundscape I will use.

Here I would like to present the main directive principles I am using when designing the audio environment of Reagan Years. First of all let’s have a look at how it’s done in some other games.

Videogame tries hard to be the Total Art

From my experience, most videogame designers tend to flesh-out the user experience by establishing an atmospheric coherence between the visuals, the sounds, and the content they are trying to deliver. 

An outstanding example of this is Beeswing where the imperfection of acoustic music and hand-drawn visuals really help the game to carry its message on the nature of memories : precious, volatile, fragile, powerful, intimate, etc.

Videogame is a medium that nourishes fantasies about finally achieving the ambition of total art, and it seems this constant research of atmospheric coherence between visuals, sounds and contents is part of this. I am sure it would be worth exploring the limits of this tradition, but given the other ambitions I have for Reagan Years and my doubts on whether I can achieve them, I think I will try not to walk too much on the path of formal experimentation here.

Cold War is a period that quickly bring atmospheric tropes to the mind. Let’s discuss some of them and see why I don’t want to use them in my game.

Looking for my Cold War Feel

The reality my game aims at depicting is bleak, because it is the reality of geopolitical decisions, coming with their load of cynicism, and contributing to the perpetuation of dynamics of brutal dominations both between countries, and within countries. And somewhat I also want the player to establish connections between the state of the world in the 80′s and the state of the world today.

Nostalgia for a golden age

I certainly do not want to give in James-Bond like nostalgic clichés of men wearing elegant suits, driving nice cars, women sitting at the typewriter, and everybody living the last authentic adventures against a clearly identified evil enemy, in a world threatened by cold modernity. 

Well, anyway, Reagan Years takes place in the 80′s, so it would definitively be out of place.

The bleak, the gray, and the rusty

Then you have the exact opposite : dystopian universes made of out-dated machinery, rusty buttons, hollow sounds of cringing metal, black-and-white propaganda films, and tense music annoucing the imminent nuclear apocalypse. A depressed-looking, grey-wearing spy walks away from a crime scene.

Look at this (promising but abandoned) East VS West, it looks obscure as hell and even the names of the countries are typewrited on the map. How depressing.

If you follow this trend, you end up with the universe of Paper, please : a bleak gray soviet universe where it seems that color is now illegal. Even the voices of humans have a metallic quality, and the music is of course, a military march.

In games like these, the world already looks regressive and devastated. It’s like you live in the universe of Fallout even without the bomb actually exploding.

Clinical neatness, deadly decisions

Then you have the approach of DEFCON, which favors neatness over decay. It gives you some distance from the horrors of the game you are playing. The interface has a high-tech clinical reality to it. It looks like you are sitting in a heavily equipped (and protected) futuristic secret bunker, where you take decisions causing millions of death (these figures appear as minor info in the game’s UI). This is a nice approach to represent the disconnection of the political power from the consequences of its own actions on the populations of the world. I guess it’s influenced by movies such as Wargames.

In DEFCON, sounds are clinical, muffled, informative. The music is minimalist and menacing.

The music is minimalist and menacing.

Another example of this is Neocolonialism (obvisously influenced by Defcon and making use of the same kind of aesthetics, this time not to depict nuclear war, but economical warfare).  Neocolonialism does not only make use of robotic sounds, you can also hear more fleshed-out string melodies, but the dissonances they play with heavily contribute to the depiction of a world where “something is wrong”.

My choices for Reagan Years are influenced, yet different, from those described above. But this is something I need to describe in another article.

With a new job, the holiday season and moving out, plus other personal projects coming in the middle, I certainly did not find the time to finalize alpha 0.4.2, which is supposed to be the first playable Alpha of Reagan Years. However, it is also a nice occasion to take some time and reflect on my ambitions for this project and about the core gameplay concepts I want to implement.

All these things I can’t depict faithfully

I have written previously about how I decided to restrict the scope of my game in terms of historical period (the 80′s) and in terms of the player’s point of view (USA). The fact is, if it was to prove relevant, I could easily disregard these limitations in the future. If I saw fit, I could quickly design a 1960′s scenario, or make USSR playable.

But the system I am designing also comes with limitations that I foresee will be difficult to overpass. At the moment, I am especially concerned about the inclusion in my game of historical dynamics such as social struggle, class conflict, intricate internal politics, cultural war and the role of propaganda, political ideologies, trade and economics, international law and human rights, international organizations (such as the UN), non-governmental bodies (especially multinational corporations), and last but not least, the geopolitical agendas of the so-called minor powers (that is, every country beside USA and USSR).

Some of these elements might be reflected in the game system, however, I already know I will not be able to emulate them in a satisfactory way. This is due to a number of factors, among which : my lack of skills, the complexity of the matter, the need to maintain clarity, playability, and accuracy. Sometimes I may find the solutions, sometimes not.

“We win, they lose” : a simple point of view

Hopefully, I am not yet suffering from Borgeso-Perecian madness. I do not pursue the vain ambition of including the whole reality  of the 1980′s in my game. I know I have to make choices, and I just need to make sure these choices are relevant to what I want to achieve.

In theory, I just need to be satisfied with the result. But my problem is I can’t be satisfied with the result because I strongly believe that a game system will anyway always be a very poor representation of the reality. I can’t summarize the history of mankind in the 1980′s in a playable game system. Maybe other people can, but they haven’t done it yet in a way I would accept to mimic.

Therefore, all I decide to do is to create a game system that represents a rather simplistic point of view. That’s what Reagan Years is about : the point of view promoted by Ronald Reagan during his presidency. “Here’s my strategy on the Cold War : we win, they loose.” said Reagan (1977). Hey, that’s simple enough to be put in a game! Let’s do it.

Videogame history is rich with strategy titles taking a limited point of view. You have Civilization that is like a playable version of Fukyama’s End of history. You have Crisis in the Middle East where the only role expected from the player is to establish Israel’s regional supremacy. You have Age of Empires that depicts a fantasized, over-simplified  middle-age that looks like a Errol Flynn’s flick. 

All these games are problematic, not only because they adopt a simplified point of view, but also because they refuse to question it. Actually, they even refuse to acknowledge the existence of their own biases. 

A good example of this posture is demonstrated in the promotion of the game Vietnam ‘65. This game’s description on Steam totally give in to the US’ army rethorics : “killing the enemy is only a secondary mission. Most of your efforts and resources are spent elsewhere trying to grab the Hearts & Minds of the local population”. 

But that’s not all. The developer’s page also claim that “this is a game that captures the true essence of the Vietnam war”, quickly disregarding the possibility that you could look at this war with other glasses than those provided by the US commandment. 

So, how am I to create a grand strategy game that question its own point of view? Let’s turn to Crusader Kings for inspiration.

How Crusader Kings breaks its own rules

I will certainly write other posts about the Crusader Kings series, since these games are a major inspiration of mine. So let’s not get into the details of these games now. Suffice to say the ambitions of the developers toward historical accuracy were exceptional as per the videogame’s industry standards (I admit these standards are low). But the most inspiring thing about CK design is not its tremendous complexity, or the amount of research done ahead of the development. The most inspiring thing is : the game aknowledge that its own so-called “complex” system is worth peanuts when faced with the reality it aims to depict.

This is very cleverly pointed out by Jason Pitruzello in his article Systemizing Culture in Medievalism. Pitruzello explains how unusually complex are the cultural mechanisms in this game, while still deploring their limitations.

Clearly, there are limits to the nuances of the game’s cultural mechanics. […] it might appear that Crusader Kings does not really provide a better medieval experience for its players because, although culture can transfer between rulers and the provinces they rule, culture remains unchanging and static. […] However, the game’s designers include one exception to their own rules that indicates that they understand the limits of their own work. In recognition that cultural change need not simply shift from one culture to another, the game comes with an "English melting pot” cultural change event. This cultural conversion event bypasses the mechanics I outlined above.“

Narratives VS the system

Had I not stumbled across this article, I would probably never have started to develop Reagan Years  This piece of criticism greatly clarified some of the vague ideas I had on the paradoxes of so-called realistic game systems, but it also pointed out to an excellent example of how I could expect to surpass these paradoxes.

This is how I plan to practically apply all this theory to my game:

The game system will depict a limited point of view : the world’s geopolictics are binary. The main objective of the USA is its own supremacy and the defeat of USSR. Outside of their pro-USA or pro-USSR agenda, the behaviour of other countries is of little interest. 

But this limited point of view, reflected in the game’s main rules, will also be challenged by the game’s narratives. At the moment, I mostly plan to use an event system to achieve this (events are also a beloved core feature of CK). The events will cover things that are not represented in the game’s main system. Events will be used both as narrative moments of the game (texts to read) and exceptions to the game’s rules (altering mechanics).

The event system will also allow other narratives to emerge in the game. For example, the game is extremely binary (USA vs USSR) in its nature, but events will pop up to present the point of view of other countries, of other groups, and to remind the player that while playing a Reagan’s game, he is playing “with blinkers on”.

The events will also be used to reposition the ordinary life of human beings at the center of an otherwise very abstract game system. For example, they will be used to narrate the consequences of the player’s strategic actions on the lives of simple citizens. 

Some notes about how I decided to restrict (for the moment) the scope of my game to the point of view of USA in the 1980′s.

Historical data VS historical process

In his book about Balance of Power, Chris Crawford states that “data is not the main element in realism - process is. […] The actual amount of GNP of Ghana is less important, for the purposes of a game on geopolitics, than the manner in which GNP changes with time”. Crawford’s game is all about depicting the global mechanics of superpower competition in the cold war era. He mainly intends to make a point about the dangers of warmongering, taking a pacifist stance that he feels is needed in the context of the 80′s.

The opposition drawn by Crawford between data (historical facts at time T) and processes (dynamics applied to this data) is problematic when we come to terms with its practical applications in game design. Since he is not aware of the imminence of the USSR collapse, Crawford sets up a game running from 1985 (the then-present time) to 1997. He makes the statement that “the principles [of geopolitical interaction] have not changed fundamentally since the introduction of the nuclear-tipped ICBM”. This also leads him to claim that his game system could relevantly depict former periods of the cold war, for example the 60′s. According to him, to do this, only the data would need to be adapted, while the game’s processes would stay relevant.

Cautiously restricting my game’s historical scope

When I started developing Reagan Years, I intended to create a modern version of Balance of Power, introducing only minor changes in the game’s data and in the user interface. I immediately realized that the historical scope of the game would need to be redefined. It would be odd for a modern game to depict a USA-vs-USSR competition running till 1997. I therefore started to consider other relevant periods of the cold war. However, going through this preliminary process of selection has led me to question Crawford’s assumptions on the permanence of geopolitical principles through the entire 1945-1990 period.

Here are some of the questions I ask myself at this stage: isn’t Balance Of Power a reflection on the USA international policies during the 80′s, rather than a depiction of global dynamics for a near-50 years period ? Is it historically relevant to consider that USA and USSR geopolitical points of view were symetrically opposed, like those of two chess players? Had this game been designed in USSR during the 80′s, what kind of global dynamics would it have depicted? And if today’s mainstream depictions of this era are all about USSR-USA competition, is it because the accuracy of such a model, or merely because history is written by powerful dominant powers?

It will take a lot of research and thinking before I finally adopt a satisfying stance on these questions and find a way to reflect this stance in my game’s design. Meanwhile, it seems safer to restrict the scope on which the historical principles of my game apply. Therefore, I have decided that the game will only depict the years of Ronald Reagan presidency (1981-1989), and that it will only depict the point of view of the USA. This will apply until I have the safe feeling that my game’s dynamics can relevantly apply to other countries and eras.

Over the course of the last three weeks, I have been working on a rough Alpha version of a grand strategy video game. The game is depicting the geopolitical tensions of the cold war.

Players impersonates the political leaders of USA and USSR. Their objective is to increase the global influence of their country, at the expense of the opponent, while avoiding a nuclear confrontation.

My initial objective was to create a modern version of Chris Craword’s Balance Of Power, a classic game released in 1985. Although I have only seldomly played it, I have been fascinated by that game for many years now. This fascination originates not only from the structure and content of the game itself, but also from the ideas presented by Crawford in the game’s manual  and in a book detailing his design choices.

Unfortunately, Balance of Power is not playable on modern platforms. By creating a modern version of this game, I originally intented to adress the following questions : if this game was played today, what could it teach us? Would we find it relevant, fun, useful, accurate, sensible? Could the revival of a half-forgotten classic from the 80′s be a valuable contribution to our contemporary world?

However, after less than a month of work on a basic game engine, I have already started to drift away from the perspective of a mere “modern port” of BoP.

This devlog will document this “drifting away”.