I must be absolutely crazy.
Well, I am absolutely crazy, but that's a whole different story.
But who would look at a public beta demo for a text-based sim about superheroes... well.. me. It helps that the game is made by Adam Ryland and Grey Dog Software. Ryland is the creator of the Total Extreme Wrestling series and World of Mixed Martial Arts, both of which are really good text-sims. But superheroes? I know Grey Dog software did a couple superhero games in the past, but... still.
Plus the game is still in public beta trial. It's limited to six "Issues", but I'm going in anyway. Games in the trial are fully playable in the full game, so if I like it and there is interest, maybe I'll buy the full game and continue past the six issues (issues are storylines/events, like comic books that it pulls from)
We'll be playing as a variety of heroes including (the things in quotes are the game's splash description):
Captain Awesome, "the most powerful mortal who has ever lived"
Mr Infinity
Danielle Rune. "the mistress of the mystic"
"England's Greatest Protector" Captain Albion
"The first family of comics" The Wonderfuls.
facing villains like:
"The Master of Minds" Demento
"The Devious King of the Goblins" Haemogoblin
"The mutant supremacist" Prince Amass
"The deevastingly powerful" Kilowatt
"Power-Hungry sociopath" Cape Killer
And the game states that we will progressing through new storylines, including
"Faction Wars"
"The Dark British Empire" (I'm sure there's some folks who just instantly quipped "Wait, there's an EVIL british empire? What a concept")
"The Greek Gods"
"The Terminus Sage"
Note: I am going into this game COMPLETELY blind because.. well, I'm crazy. I mentioned that right? I don't know what we'll be seeing, and I'm pretty sure that six issues is not enough for us to complete any huge storylines, but let's find out.
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Many settings. Many Many settings. I do like that they have the comic book history that deaths are never permanent (for those grim and grittty types, you can change deaths being permanent on a scale of Never, Rarely, Sometimes and Always).. and the game has a table for what it generates your characters to face.
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The home screen, featuring recaps of previous issues (once I get there), and the balance of power, featuring Justice and Injustice. It sounds like that heroes thwarting villains or villains completing schemes witll move that meter.
Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Here's a list of the people in the game. I have to admit that some are very corny.. although I do like "Brutish Petroleum". The highlighted character is the Agents of EGO. (Ego, per the description, is the "Entropic Grand Order", "Scentific-Fundamentalist group whose central credo is that Entropy is the most powerful force in the Universe, then the closest you can get to the Divine is to spread Chaos". Sounds very HYDRA or AIM like. Especially AIM, "as they grew rapidly from a fringe movement to a vast criminal network that spans the globe, they are infamous for hiring themselves - and their advanced weaponry - out to other criminals in order to advance their own cause by creating disorder.
And before you think it's just super powered folks, it has other people in the comic book universe to use as people in its stories.. minor characters like "Alexander Hartley", who is one of the richest men in America, after inventing "SafePay", the secure online payment system that is used throught the western world"
They have similiar screens for places in the universe, groups (including the TMNT-hopmage "Ape Crusaders", genetically experimented-on monkeys that escaped from captivity and now do good, despite their local paper trying to paint them as menaces. They're all named after various classical music composers (Wagner, Vivaldi, Veri, and Strauss.. with colored headbands to tell them apart), and artifacts.