Watch the skies 2 part 1: a 300 person megagame simulating an alien invasion of planet earth - General

About a year ago SU&SD documented their experience with their first megagame. They've come back for the second year to a game far bigger and more complex. The previous video and facepunch discussion is [URL="http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1396510"]here.[/URL] It's basically Model United Nations Assembly with aliens and it's long but so awesome. Players play basically 30 or so countries, five or so multinational corporations and a couple media outlets. [video=vimeo;123956861]http://vimeo.com/123956861[/video]

This is so rad. It makes me lust for a large scale strategy game in the same vein, with loads of players controlling different parts of the world and some corporations and stuff like that, with a designated player DM of sorts. I can't seem to find part 2 anywhere, so I'm going to keep an eye out. Hella fun to watch.

Oh man, I'd love to try something like this at least once. The last video was so damn cool, and this one looks to be as well.

[QUOTE=DeeCeeTeeBee;47473098]This is so rad. It makes me lust for a large scale strategy game in the same vein, with loads of players controlling different parts of the world and some corporations and stuff like that, with a designated player DM of sorts. I can't seem to find part 2 anywhere, so I'm going to keep an eye out. Hella fun to watch.[/QUOTE] Part two hasn't been released yet I presume it will be up next week. And you are in luck! If flag dog is correct, you're in the UK and if you are willing to travel the people who run this game run a tonne of more technical strategy games (similar scale to the first watch the skies). They have one set in WWI for example. They're a little more structured I think and act a lot more like strategy games. [QUOTE=Hinterlight;47473101]Oh man, I'd love to try something like this at least once. The last video was so damn cool, and this one looks to be as well.[/QUOTE] You are also in luck! If your flag dog is correct and you're willing to travel fans of the game run a tonne of watch the skies programs in the US in a number of cities. Tickets are on sale now, if you scroll through the comments you can find the details. [editline]7th April 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Hinterlight;47473101]Oh man, I'd love to try something like this at least once. The last video was so damn cool, and this one looks to be as well.[/QUOTE] [url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1396510&p=45251080&viewfull=1#post45251080[/url] You can also just run your own as a party game (essentially make a game based on watch the skies), I've posted a copy of the rules we used when we played our own with about eight players. You need to have some game mechanic knowledge and enough creative and interested people but ours turned out amazingly well and was suitably crazy for the scale of the megagame. We didn't even have aliens in our game iirc, it was just country against country.

Haha, that Joshua Protocol part. This things looks brilliant, I should convince my friends to try it out, they're Civ nuts so this looks right up our alley. [video=youtube;2Qy4EIvvVj4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qy4EIvvVj4[/video]

[sp]israel scamming money, why do stereotypes keep popping up[/sp] is there a way to buy this game or something? it seems really neat.

[QUOTE=Wii60;47479798][sp]israel scamming money, why do stereotypes keep popping up[/sp] is there a way to buy this game or something? it seems really neat.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.pastpers.co.uk/megagame%20packages.htm[/url] for twenty pounds. Personal use only.

[QUOTE=gerbe1;47486689][URL]http://www.pastpers.co.uk/megagame packages.htm[/URL] for twenty pounds. Personal use only.[/QUOTE] All of the PDF's are ALL available in plain-links, somebody should probably tell them that... anyways, I don't like it when it's [I]that[/I] many people. It just seems chaotic to the point of too chaotic. I liked it when it was just 60 or so people. I also find it interesting how this was inspired by xcom of all things. Oh, all past megagames : [URL]http://www.pastpers.co.uk/index.htm[/URL] "Henchmen" is a pretty interesting one.

[QUOTE=Te Great Skeeve;47486724]All of the PDF's are ALL available in plain-links, somebody should probably tell them that... anyways, I don't like it when it's [I]that[/I] many people. It just seems chaotic to the point of too chaotic. I liked it when it was just 60 or so people.[/QUOTE] The whole game system is run off of sportsmanship. I think that they aren't particularly fussed. They've done something pretty cool and I'd like to think the kind of people who would really get into this would consider it worth the money. I like the idea of the massive version. There becomes conflicts within conflicts and talking to people from countries and factions you never dealt with throughout the entire game would generate so many interesting stories. The system I am working on feeds off of just creating chaos. (It's literally called Can Humans Assure Our Survival) whereas Watch the Skies is surprisingly structured with a lot of detail on rules and exactly what happens at what time, this version is a little more pen and paper rpg do whatever you feel like. However the main mechanics are designed so you really don't have the time to get everything you feel like doing done. Doing it that way is especially great because it doesn't have to be a well rounded balanced game, there is just too much confusion for game flaws to ever really be a problem because there is always going to be something else to do.

damnit Pakistan the olympics are srs business

I'd imagine you'll be making a new thread once part 2 comes out? Because if you don't Ima flip my shit this is so tense and awesome.

I was really annoyed at the guy that read Japan's reply to the aliens when he said "Do not... OK", because that's what stopped the aliens from ever communicating with them. But realistically, if they weren't understanding it due to it being a choppy signal, or a language issue, they said OK before anything else, so it shouldn't have been Do not ok.

[QUOTE=That Ninja;47488578]I was really annoyed at the guy that read Japan's reply to the aliens when he said "Do not... OK", because that's what stopped the aliens from ever communicating with them. But realistically, if they weren't understanding it due to it being a choppy signal, or a language issue, they said OK before anything else, so it shouldn't have been Do not ok.[/QUOTE] I think once the aliens research the language they should be able to go back and translate their received messages so it may not have been a complete loss

Is it bad that all I can think of is that Morrowind creepypasta when I read the title ?

this has me on the edge of my seat. where the hell is part two?!

That Joshua Protocol oh wow. I was expecting [sp] some king of top secret alien assault plans [/sp] and not [sp] a Israeli scam with a picture of joshua [/sp] Part 2 when?

[url]https://vimeo.com/124432757[/url] here you go

That bit around 5:55 sounds like how the US military didn't want more tanks but the Government bought them anyway