USC: Counterforce is 50% off for the Turn-based Carnival!
To celebrate this very cool event, we're coming back on the turn-based mechanics of the game.
Let's talk about two turn based games that inspired us for USC: Counterforce. From the 1990s, learn more about: Incubation: Time Is Running Out (1997) and Gorky 17 (1999).
USC: Counterforce and its prequel, Ultimate Space Commando, also take a lot of inspiration from some lesser-known games, a few „hidden gems” from the late 1990s, the “age of 3D revolution”. While many developers were preoccupied with the evolving graphical capabilities of computers, and the addition of the third dimension, there were still titles that mainly focused on classic, almost tabletop-like gameplay, and still managed to bring something new and cool to the table.
One of these games is Incubation: Time is Running Out (1997) by Blue Byte. It was a turn- and tile-based, squad-oriented tactical game with a heavy focus on management of very limited actions per turn. It was heavily story-based, with a long campaign mode, and squad members you grew attached to and could equip with different gear, gadgets, and weapons, tailoring them to the tactics you wanted to use. During the whole game, you felt like your options were limited, but never your tactics: this game really shined in shoehorning you into situations you could somehow still get out of alive if you found the proper tactics.
There were some very unique mechanics that are not seen in many games: a well-implemented weapon overheat system (instead of ammo); a non-class- or skill-locked overwatch mode that—since most enemies died from 1 or 2 shots—was very often important in stopping an alien before it reached you; a simple, but tactically relevant use of elevations; and the ability to control the battlefield with some items and weapons—for example, if you used the flamethrower, it created an area of impassable terrain for a few turns. Incubation also had a PvP game mode in which up to 4 players could fight against each other in asymmetric objective-based battles. USC is directly inspired by the way Incubation handles overwatch (or “defense mode”) and the importance of facing in the right direction with your units.
Another game to mention is Gorky 17 (also known as Odium, 1999) by Metropolis Software. It was also a very heavily story-driven game in which a small group of NATO operatives had to fight to survive and to reveal the mystery behind the sudden appearance of hybrid creatures in a former Soviet military base in Poland.
There was an “exploration mode” where you moved around with your characters in real-time, discovering items, talking to people, and finding your way, but whenever a combat situation ensued, the game would not only switch to turn-based but you and your enemies were put on a grid-based, not-too-big battlefield, where the actual fighting took place. All weapons and items had their specific, very board game-like mechanics, and that, combined with the often very confined spaces led to some rather interesting battle scenarios. Just like Space Crusade, Space Hulk, or Incubation, the emphasis on smaller spaces and tighter rules was not a constraint, but rather a playground for devising smart tactics.
In fact, I was so hooked on this approach to turn-based mechanics that I perfected dealing with the enemies using only the more basic weapons while stockpiling explosives and all kinds of nasty stuff for those really hard battles and ended up completing the game with a whole nuclear arsenal still in my inventory... All said and done, I think Gorky 17 was not flawless, but still an excellent game, and showed yet another way, another approach to how boardgame-like rules can be applied in a computer game, while making it feel like NOT a board game.
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The USC Counterforce team