Davies will save us from the aliens in outer space/

Davies, oh Davies, the aliens killed your crew/

Davies, no pressure, but humanity dies with you!

Children across Earth are singing this song. It’s a song about the one man who we all depend on: Colonel Davies. It’s been a long road, but this is it. Almost everyone is dead, and one hero remains. As a rookie he served with some of my very first XCOM operatives. Now, as a colonel, he’ll lead Earth to victory or defeat.

This is humanity’s last stand. This is XCOM Part 4.

Danger! There be spoilers ahead! This article is about the final missions of XCOM, and as a result is going to contain more spoilers than my last XCOM articles. 

Start with Part 1 here

If you recall, the last article was pretty much me getting my ass handed to me by the aliens. Most of my best soldiers were killed, but Davies, a British operative who has been around almost since the beginning, has learned he has psychic powers.

XCOM has extended satellite coverage to the United States, Canada, Mexico, Egypt, Nigeria, England, Russia, France, Japan, India, and Australia and all eleven countries are heavily funding us now. I use the money to make sure every member of  the unit has a plasma weapon, the best kind available. I buy new armor. Now my sniper has a jet pack, my assault has a cloaking device, and my other assault (that’s Davies) has a psi suit that increases his psychic abilities.

Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Germany, and China have left the XCOM project. If I save the world I’ll be sure to call up the leaders of each country and gloat. If I fail, well, we’ll all be dead anyway.

The new team’s first assignment is handed in, and it’s bad news. A terror mission in Bangalore. Aliens are on the attack and citizen’s lives are on the line. Davies gives the team an inspiring speech.

“Everyone I’ve ever known is dead. Everyone I’ve served with has died a gruesome death, and now I’m about to serve with you people. Wait… what was I talking about again?”

Inspiring!

My sniper climbs up to the roof of a building to get a better view of the area.

Here’s what he sees.

Those things have heavy armor and can shoot twice in one turn. My sniper climbs back down the building with tail firmly between his legs.

He and two other soldiers convene at the bottom of the building with the plan of climbing back up and shooting a volley at the robot together. Meanwhile the others are running around shooting easier aliens and saving civilians. As the team of three chit chat about how best to take down the robot, a large shadow appears overhead. They look up and see this.

“You ever get the feeling you’re being watched?”

Then this.

“You ever get the feeling you’re being burned alive?”

I honestly didn’t think the robot would chase them down like that. No one dies but they’re all pretty horribly wounded. That’s when Davies shows up, right on queue, right behind the robot and kicks ass as per usual.

Davies knows the best way to win a fight is to shoot your enemy in the back when he’s not looking.

And the mission is over.

That went… really, really well. I know. I’m scared too.

We killed ten aliens (excellent), saved 13/18 civilians (good), and lost 0 XCOM operatives (excellent).

Actually, with the new equipment and with Davies at the helm the group performs brilliantly in every operation without losing anyone. The old team of elites was killed by a psychic alien that we’ve never seen before. I consider this next missions as training to take that alien on once again.

Here’s a montage to illustrate my point. If you have Eye of the Tiger available play it now. Otherwise just hum it until your roommate starts giving you dirty looks.

It’s the eye of the tiger

It’s the thrill of the fight

Rising up to the challenge of our rival

Something something something something something something something something

Something something eye of the tiger!

If I could end the montage with the whole team high fiving I would, but you get the picture. The point is things are going well, and before I know it, it’s time for the final mission. You may have noticed at the end of the montage my sniper blowing off the head of the psychic alien that killed my entire team not long ago. The new team killed him without losing a single operative. The psychic alien was holding a device that would allow us to locate the mother ship. The only problem is we need someone with psychic abilities to operate it.

Once again, enter Davies right on cue.

He uses the alien device and finds the mother ship, then leads the charge inside. This is it. His final mission.

The final ship has you fighting every alien type in the game, and once again the team is flawless. We fight our way through the ship with no problems at all. And then we get to the alien leader. Disappointingly, it’s just another one of those tall psychic guys that we’ve already encountered before (I was hoping their leader would be something new and terrifying). The way things have gone, this should be an extremely easy final battle.

My assault guy flanks to the right. Davies takes the left.

And runs into another psychic alien. It mind controls him. The aliens have Davies!

Davies shoots the medic dead! No! My assault guy runs into a third psychic alien! It mind controls him! Crap! He shoots my sniper dead! Oh no! OH NO! The first psychic alien mind controls my heavy gunner! WOW, THIS REALLY COULDN’T BE GOING ANY WORSE!

My heavy gunner shoots my other heavy gunner dead. Three dead and three under the alien’s control and the mission ends. I’ve failed.

Wow… that was… horrible.

I assume I’ll have to train a whole other team up and try again (I’m not sure I’ve actually mentioned this, but I’ve been playing on ironman mode, which means I only get one save file that autosaves over itself automatically). But the game cuts me some serious slack. It starts me at the beginning of the mission with Davies and the rest back to life.

The team marches back through the ship and snipes the alien boss on the first turn, killing him instantly. The good news is the world is saved. The bad news is it was somewhat anticlimactic.

No, no, don’t thank me. Sure, I’m the commander in charge of the organization that just saved the world. But the real hero is Davies, the man on the front line, and the men and women he served next to. They’re the ones who should get all of the praise.

And me. Mostly me.

I’m Robert Green. For more of this sort of thing, go to RobertGreenStories.com

I have a plan.

I’m gambling everything on a single strategy. If it works XCOM could last a while longer. If it fails the entire human race will become extinct.

This is XCOM Part 3.

You’re reading part 3 of a game journal for XCOM. Start with Part 1 here. 

The strategy is this: using the vast majority of my money and resources not on weapons or ships or anything used to fight a war. Instead, I plan to build a satellite nexus with a satellite station. This will allow me to build six satellites to scan six different XCOM supporting nations for UFO activity. Putting satellites over countries makes them feel like XCOM is working for them and they start donating a lot more money, scientists  and engineers to the cause. I’m spending money to make money, but weapon production will be on hold for a while. If I get these things built I should have a huge donation for next month and the months to come that I’ll use to play a grueling game of catch up.

A UFO has landed in England. Typically you shoot UFOs down and all you have to do is clean up whatever aliens are still alive. But sometimes… sometimes… a UFO touches down on its own, meaning every alien aboard is still alive and all of their technology is undamaged and if you can take over the UFO it’s all yours. Perfect! So all we have to do is fight our way through an army of aliens and we collect a huge cache of valuable UFO technology.

No problem. We can do anything. My new team of fresh faced recruits has already defeated a wave of chrysalis and taken over an entire alien base. There’s nothing they can’t do!

Except every member of my regular team is horribly wounded from said alien base attack. So who will I send to fight the army of aliens defending the landed UFO?

Send in the rookies!

Oops! None of the rookies came back alive. That was… expensive. The team barely made it to the UFO before they were all shot to pieces by mutons. Now I have to recruit more rookies and they’re not cheap.

Let us never speak of that again.

Lately most of my money and resources has been going to the production of a satellite nexus. It will allow me to put up for additional satellites, which means four additional nations I can watch over for alien activity, which means four additional nations that will be happy with XCOM and give us more money.

The nexus is soon complete and I can place my satellites. Giving a country satellite coverage instantly makes them happier with XCOM. This is crucial, because unhappy countries pull their XCOM funding, and too much of that leads to the end of the world. I currently have four satellites, so this is exciting times as I’ll be doubling my coverage. The United States, Russia, Nigeria, and China all have one. So now the unhappy decision of who gets the satellites.

Well, England is now extremely pissed with XCOM because they still have a landed UFO and five dead rookies on their soil. So England gets one. I’m just now beginning to realize that giving a bunch of satellites to one continent is probably better than giving a few to each continent because you get better bonus’ (I’m slow for the leader of an organization tasked with saving the world). I give France one so that I have three of the four Eurpoean nations. I’ll never get Germany  because they left XCOM, but now Europe alone will give me an assload (six) scientists a month. That means faster research. The other two go to Japan and India because they’ll give me more engineers to build equipment faster.

Now everyone is pretty happy with me again, so all I have to do is not mess that up. The month ends and the council overseeing the XCOM project gives me an A, the first time in a long time I’ve gotten a high score. All nations are happy with me and we took down an alien base. Luckily, no one cares about the six people I sent to die in England.

Speaking of that incident… My team of elites, my A Team, (but without Mr. T) recovers and I send them to England to do what the rookies couldn’t. Luckily the UFO has stayed parked in the same place for a week now and it’s time to show the aliens that we don’t appreciate that sort of thing.

They do the deed and only lose one person. Very good. They also manage to capture a muton. This is important because alien’s weapons fragment when they die, but if you capture the alien you capture the weapon. We now have a plasma rifle in our possession, which is better than the laser rifles we use now.

Once again the veterans do a good job, but once again most of them are wounded and one of them dies. Now we’ve got a situation in Brazil and the only people available to take care of it are… rookies. They’re going to a terror mission, meaning aliens are actively killing human civilians in the streets and it’s up to the rookies to stop them.

“Alright people. I’m not going to lie to you. The last batch of rookies was horribly slaughtered for their trouble. But this group… I’ve got a good feeling about this group!”

Okay… That didn’t go well. All six of them are killed along with the entire population of Rio De Janeiro . I hope I don’t get blamed for this.

Let’s not speak of that again either.

Oh good, my A Team has healed again. They also have a terror mission. This time it’s in Toronto, Canada. They perform brilliantly, as usual. They save 14/18 civilians in the area and again, only lose one soldier.

Is anyone else sensing a pattern here? A Team goes in and kicks ass but loses someone and gets wounded. Rookies go in while A Team is wounded. Rookies are completely wiped out. This is a bad pattern. My experienced soldiers are doing well but are slowly dying and I’m not replacing them because rookies keep dying.

Brazil joins Argentina, South Africa, and Germany on the list of nations to defect from XCOM.

I just need XCOM to survive the month. It’s late September and in a few days another two satellites will be ready to go. At the end of the month I’ll get a lot of donations thanks to all of the satellite coverage and then I can really start building the technology we need to turn things around.

I just need to survive the month.

We shoot down a UFO, but this one is important. We needed a special tracker in order to find it, so the aliens must be hiding something interesting onboard. We’re told to expect heavy resistance. I send the A Team. These are the guys that stormed an alien base and fought off a horde of chrysalids. They’ve never failed me.

The mission goes poorly but it looks like we’ll succeed. Three members, half the starting team, are dead, but they reach the center of the secret UFO so it seems like victory is certain.

Wait… what’s that?

The commander of the ship is an alien with mind control powers like we’ve never seen. It takes control of my sniper and orders her to shoot one of her friends dead at point blank range. He then kills her by destroying her mind. The last guy on my squad charges in out of desperation, but his mind is taken too and well, here’s what happens.

That was the A team, or at least most of it. Looking back, they’re not as elite as I remembered.

I’ve failed to train any new rookies into elite soldiers.

I’ve failed to keep the elite soldiers I already had alive.

I’ve failed to discover what secret the aliens were hiding aboard that UFO.

China withdraws from XCOM.

I put a satellite over Mexico and Canada. Now every country in XCOM has coverage, but it may be too late.

At the end of the month I’m given a D for my efforts, along with 1,200 credits (that’s a lot). This is it. I made a lot of sacrifices to get this payday and now it’s time to capitalize. Along with the money I have one ace up my sleeve.

Davies, the British soldier who captured our very first alien back at the start of the war, is still alive. He was a rookie then, but now he’s my highest ranking XCOM operative, and he missed the A Team massacre because he was being tested for psychic abilities. It turns out he has psychic abilities. He’s also a major, the second highest rank possible. I higher over ten rookies with the new influx of cash, and it’ll be up to Davies to lead them and humanity to glory.

This last month was our darkest hour. If we are to survive, the next month  must be our finest.

RobertGreenStories.com

I’ve built up an elite team of operatives, and it’s time to test them. I’m sending my six best into a hidden alien fortress in the countryside of China. This mission is going to test us. This mission is going to decide where we are in this war. All of my best soldiers are on this mission. All of my eggs are in this basket. This is XCOM: Part 2.

Read Part 1

The inside of the alien base is… weird. And green.

It’s quiet. Then it gets very, very loud.

We run into a large squad of mutons and very little cover. A huge firefight ensues as lasers and screaming fill the room. And just like that it’s quiet again. There’s a tink tink tink sound, the sound of metal on metal. A grenade bouncing on the floor near the XCOM soldiers. Everyone holds their breath and closes their eyes. A loud explosion and two XCOM soldiers are dead. One was a squaddie (low rank), so who cares. The other was a corporal.

Once again lasers and screams fill the room. All of the mutons are dead. We’ve lost 4 out of 6 soldiers. Not bad if we play the rest of this well. Everyone is wounded, but they pick their battered carcasses up and desperately continue through the base.

They find the base’s leader all alone. He appears to be a slightly larger version of the sectoids, the small aliens that are easy to beat up. My guys laugh at him and shoot him and laugh again. That was easy.

But the mission doesn’t end. We’d been ordered to clear the base of hostiles, so there must be aliens alive and well somewhere on the base. Fine, looks like we’ll have to backtrack to find them. How anticlimactic.

Embarrassed, we stumble through the dark corridors for a while, retracing our steps and looking down paths we’ve never been. It’s boring, and when I get bored, I get careless. I got careless.

I ran Taylor, the Aussie sniper, into a dark corridor by herself. Taylor finds herself surrounded by crysalids. People who play XCOM know that stumbling into a group of three crysalids at point blank range at the end of your turn is pretty much worst case scenario. Crysalids don’t have guns. They bite. When they bite, you turn into a zombie for a few turns. That’s not even the bad part. After a few turns a new crysalid eats its way out of the victim’s body and now you have to deal with that one too. That’s the bad part.

Taylor is surrounded and picked apart by the crysalids as everyone looks on in horror. The Australian zombie gets up and drags herself across the metal floor towards her former allies. Now there’s three crysalids, three XCOM soldiers, and one zombie. The bad guys outnumber us.

That makes three crysalids, two XCOM soldiers, and two zombies. We’ve got Braun, the assault man, and we have the last of the XCOM originals, Schneider. Both are from Germany. Germany quit the XCOM project months ago, and I”m sure these two are wishing they’d done the same.

They fall back and shoot. They kill two of the crysalids by some miracle, but it’s not good enough. A new, Australian crysalid jumps out of Taylor’s body. Braun and Schneider keep shooting, keep retreating, but they can’t keep this up forever.

They kill another crysalid, but a new crysalid eats out of the medic’s body.

Three crysalids, two XCOM soldiers.

Braun is ripped to pieces.

Three crysalids. One XCOM soldier. One zombie.

Three crysalids. Two zombies.

MISSION FAILED.

And what a spectacular failure it was! Ninth inning, two outs, two strikes, and XCOM throws a stinker across the plate. Now the whole team has been eaten by aliens (that’s where the baseball analogy kind of breaks down). Everybody died. I spend a moment picking my jaw off the floor. Everything had gone so well, and then it went so horribly wrong.

So I get a new team of fresh faced rookies who have no idea what they’re in for. They’re gonna have to learn quick. The new recruits are sent on their first mission before they have time to unpack their bags. Aliens in Argentina have been abducting people so XCOM is going in to take the aliens out. This is a must win situation. Several countries around the world are toying with the idea of pulling XCOM funding. Argentina is one of them. A solid victory here will go a long way in calming people’s fears so they continue to give this program money. A loss here would mean we have to spend more money to hire more rookies that are too inexperienced to get the job done anyway.

I send the rookies out and hope for the best. The stakes are high and expectations are low.

They perform brilliantly. Most of them are wounded and nearly killed, but not a single one of them dies. All six of them are promoted. We’ve gotten a little scrap of momentum as I begin to have faith that maybe hope for this planet isn’t lost after all.

There’s no room for mistakes.

Well, that’s when I make a mistake. And it’s a doozy!

When I was hiring new rookies, it didn’t occur to me that if a bunch of them got wounded, I’d need several extras to cover for them. I only have four soldiers available when a terror mission comes up. A terror mission is when the aliens attack a city. A CITY! As in I really, really, really need to be ready to defend and it’s a disaster that I only have four guys. The attack is in Canada, and Canada already has a problem with XCOM because we haven’t been protecting them much lately. Again, a loss here likely means they’ll pull funding. Another must win for the new recruits, but this one is going to be harder. Terror missions have civilians everywhere, and the aliens simply run around killing them. We have to find the civilians first and rescue as many as possible. We get to Canada and here’s what we see.

That’s seven crysalids. Let me say that again. That’s seven crysalids. Here it is in all caps: SEVEN CRYSALIDS! Seven crysalids, four XCOM soldiers, and a hell of a lot of defenseless civilians ready to be murdered and turned into more crysalids. One big disaster. Here’s how we react.

There’s no problem a grenade can’t fix… Except maybe a world shortage of grenades.

And this.

And rockets! Rockets cure all! Mwuahahaha!

And this.

And, oh wait, that’s just an XCOM soldier getting murdered. Ignore that.

We throw our grenades and shoot our rockets at the big clump of crysalids, but they keep coming. Two XCOM soldiers are turned into zombies. Only two left, and boy I wish I was smart enough to have two extra soldiers on this mission.

The two zombies of XCOM soldiers are mowed down with laser and machine gun before they even have time to transform to crysalids. Yes!

The two remaining XCOM soldiers do the impossible. My team of elites couldn’t handle three crysalids. My team of rookies just handled seven. The rest of the team heals up, and it’s time to return to that base. Clearly, we have yet another must win. If everyone dies again it’s going to cost time and money to replace them again, and I’ll lose faith in my own abilities to lead  the team.

The new recruits have proven they’ve got guts. Now let’s hope the aliens don’t scatter them across the floor.

The obligatory badass entrance ruined by the sniper nearly falling on his butt.

The new team encounters a huge squad of mutons. They get through it without loosing anyone. Outstanding!

We get to the boss without a single casualty. This is going far too well.

They’re working together and moving slow. They’re doing everything right. It’s going far too well.

They’ve encountered mutons and even crysalids and haven’t lost anyone. It’s going far too well.

We get to the boss, but this time I’m determined to capture him. The way I see it, he was a pushover last time so capturing him alive will be easy. Things stop going well.

Remember Davies? He was a rookie who proved himself by capturing XCOM’s first alien prisoner. Well, now he’s a lieutenant and he’s going to assist in capturing the sectoid commander. Davies doesn’t have a arc thrower, the item used for capturing, but he’ll move up one flank while a rookie with an arc thrower moves up the other. Another guy goes up the middle just to dance around cover and be a distraction for the sectoid commander. My sniper is cleverly placed on a raised platform where he can see EVERYONE.

My sniper shoots the rookie in the brain. Wait… what?

The sectoid commander has mind control powers, something I hadn’t seen before because I killed him so fast. He’s taken over my sniper, who just killed the only guy with an arc thrower. So, yeah, looks like we’re not capturing the sectoid commander after all. The sniper takes a shot at Davies as he closes in on the commander. The sniper misses.

The sectoid commander shoots Davies in the chest, but he survives just barely. Davies returns fire, and once again proves what he’s got by killing the sectoid commander in one volley. My sniper snaps out of it and apologizes for murdering a rookie. Everyone shrugs.

This time the mission ends. The new team has braved the crysalids and battled through the base and lived to tell about it. They’re the future of XCOM, and they’re due for a terribly defeat.

To be continued.

RobertGreenStories.com

Aliens have invaded. Humanity’s only hope is with XCOM, a group of the world’s best soldiers funded by nations across the globe. Our single mission is to fight off the alien threat.

Like most government institutions, the XCOM project is depressingly underfunded. We’re trying to save the world on a budget, and the eyes of humanity are upon us. Worst of all they’ve foolishly put me in charge.

This is a story of desperate survival, global warfare, and maybe… just maybe… the end of the world. This is XCOM.

We’ve encountered the aliens a couple of times. The XCOM project started out well. Our base was set in the United States, but we had an additional satellite over China searching for UFOs.

After one month of skirmishing with the aliens, the council overseeing XCOM give me an A for my work so far. I’ve minimized casualties and trained an elite squad of soldiers capable of beating back the alien threat. Let’s meet the team.

“Um, can we take it again? Jordan was picking his nose.”

Schneider: Heavy, meaning she carries a rocket launcher. She hails from Germany. She’s a squadie, only one rank above rookie. She’s a loose cannon but she gets the job done.

Jordan: He’s an Assault man. First to enter a mission and last to leave. Jordan is a brave American who’s been with XCOM since day one a month ago. He and the others are all corporals, one rank above squaddie, but Jordan is always the guy to lead the team into battle.

Harrison: He’s a Support guy from Canada. He’s the last to enter a mission and first to leave. As the reasonable one of the group, he likes to stay in the back.

Martinez: Another Heavy, this one from Argentina. He has a lot of pride in Argentina and humanity in general. He wants to make his country proud.

Things have been proceeding normally for the first month, but then we get an unexpected call from the top dogs of XCOM. Apparently some idiot general in India got his unit killed and now he needs us to rescue him. The leaders of XCOM are under the impression that if this general dies it’ll spread panic throughout India, so now my team has to risk their lives just to save this one guy. It’s like Saving Private Ryan but with more lasers.

We find the general in the rubble of a collapsed bridge. The aliens are on the other side doing their best to kill us.

Harrison demonstrating the elite standards of XCOM by completely missing his target.

Jordan: CHARGE!!!

Jordan rushes down and covers the idiot general while he runs for it. An alien on the other side of the bridge fires a laser into Jordan’s chest, nearly killing him. He has one hit point left and he’s pinned behind a car.  The idiot general gets on the dropship so now we just have to mop up the rest of the aliens. Mop them up… with bullets.

One of the aliens on the other side goes into overwatch, meaning he’ll automatically shoot if someone enters his field of vision. Martinez enters his field of vision.

He’s trying to help Jordan out. Martinez is a Heavy. He has a rocket launcher. We’re having trouble hitting the aliens on the other side, and Martinez thinks if only he could get in closer he could blow them all to hell. He runs for the car that Jordan’s hiding behind.

He doesn’t make it. One of the aliens shoots Martinez three times with his laser gun. Martinez dies right next to Jordan, who’s on the brink of death as well.

Schneider sees the chaos from the cliff above and panics. Here’s the thing about XCOM soldiers… when they panic, they really panic. She goes crazy and tries to shoot Harrison in the face at close range. By some miracle she misses and Harrison begs her to pull it together. She does, but the aliens on the other side of the rubble are still shooting at us and Jordan is still stuck next to Martinez’s corpse in the pit below.

Harrison: You tried to shoot me!

Schneider (voice just above a whisper): Hey, I get the job done.

She squeezes the trigger and shoots one of the aliens in the head. There’s only one left.

Jordan: CHARGE!!!

He charges up the cliff straight at the last remaining alien. He charges right up to the alien’s face and fires. If he misses or doesn’t get the kill, the alien will shoot back at point blank and finish the wounded Jordan off.

Jordan’s shot hits its mark and the final alien’s head is blown to pieces.

Mission accomplished, but Martinez was KIA. It was the first time XCOM lost anyone with a rank above squaddie. He was a good soldier, but we have to move on. Schneider is promoted to corporal. She takes the place of Martinez as top Heavy.

Harrison: You’re tried to kill me! You’re a ticking time bomb! You’re out of control!

Schneider (voice just above a whisper): I get results.

They continue to go on missions together. It’s awkward.

As time goes on, a new recruit from Australia begins to make a name for herself. She’s a sniper named Taylor. Two floaters, mechanical flying aliens with attitudes, pin Schneider in a parked train. Schneider had been working her way through the train when the floaters shot through one of the walls and attacked.

They have jetpacks yet they still want to take the train. Now that’s lazy.

Harrison and Jordan try to save her but can’t get close enough thanks to some bogeys on the other side of the train taking shots at their flank.

Harrison’s still missing, but at least now he’s missing with a neat laser rifle.

Enter Taylor, a young Australian squaddie with no reputation at all.

Taylor: Leave it to me, mate. I used to snipe dingoes in the bush all the live long day.

Harrison: What’d she just say?

Taylor snipes one of the floaters through a window of the train so Schneider could take out the other one. Taylor immediately joined my A list squad. She’s a young up and comer to watch out for.

One of my planes shoots down an actual UFO. I need to send a ground team in fast to clean up any surviving aliens and pick the ship clean of technology.

The scientists over at XCOM have been pressuring me to pressure my team into bringing an alien back alive. I decide that now is the time to attempt this arguably stupid idea. My egghead scientists propose we use something called the arc thrower, a little wand that shoots a stunning electrical pulse at very close range. The need to get in close makes it exceptionally dangerous. Naturally, I hand the arc thrower to a rookie and tell him to prove himself or die trying.

To my surprise, he actually does. While the aliens are locked in a firefight with the rest of the squad, he sneaks up on a thin man, an alien in a human disguise, and stuns hims for capture.

You say his chance of capturing the alien is 70 percent. I say is chance of the alien turning around and shooting him in the throat is 30 percent.

Harrison: Good job, rookie.

Davies (the rookie): Could you learn my name now? I took the time to learn yours.

Harrison: Sure thing, new guy.

As they’re standing there, a shot is fired into the group of XCOM operatives. One of them dies.

In a movie, this is where the rookie dies and no one cares. This isn’t a movie. A streak of green light cuts across the sky, and Harrison falls to the ground with a mortal wound. Unless someone uses a med pack on him in three turns he’ll die, and as the medic he’s the only one with a med pack. He dies.

Taylor whirls around and finds the killer, a floater flying just over the crashed UFO we’d been looking for.

Taylor: Crikey that was a ripping shot! Whadyasay I snipe this jumbuck shagger right in the donger?

Harrison (last words): Huh?

Taylor takes the floater out in epic fashion.

“Lasers?! How’d you know my one weakness?”

We continue the mission, but Harrison is dead and never coming back. He was the highest ranking member of XCOM. We needed him. Now Jordan is the highest ranking member. Both he and Harrison have been with the project since the beginning.

Before Jordan has time to grieve the mutons show up.

I hope they come in peace.

There’s a shootout in the trees. We can see the crashed UFO, but it seems so far away.

Jordan: CHARGE!

Jordan heads up the front, as usual. He moves right next to one of the mutons and blows his head off. Schneider fires a rocket into one of the trees. The muton taking cover behind it is engulfed in flame and dies. There’s only one left.

Davies the rookie attempts another flank maneuver that worked so well in capturing the thin man. He moves from tree to tree and gets in behind the last muton. He takes his shot.

He misses.

The muton attacks back, but not at the rookie. Instead, he throws a grenade at Jordan.

Jordan is blown apart.

We lost our two best guys.

The rookie misses again.

Taylor the sniping Aussie sends a bullet right between the last muton’s eyes. The other soldiers get aboard the UFO and secure it without too many issues.

Mission accomplished, but at a terrible cost.

The aliens have increased their attacks. I order two new satellites so we can scan and protect more of Earth, but it’s not enough. Supporting countries can encourage them to keep funding XCOM, but with so many attacks across the globe I can’t make everyone happy. I install the satellites over Russia and Nigeria. Russia because they’re contributing more money to XCOM than any country accept the United States. Nigera because they contribute a lot and I want to get a foothold on another continent.

The month ends and I get a report from the council overseeing XCOM. Germany and South Africa have grown fed up with a lack of support from the XCOM project. They’ve chosen to withdrawn their funding and have officially left. After her home country of Germany leaves XCOM Schneider continues to do missions for us. It’s awkward. The council gives me a C for the month. We’re slipping up, but I think I have a way to turn things around.

We’ve located an alien base on the surface of Earth. I’m ordering my best team to attack it head on. If this goes well XCOM will be back on track. If the mission fails we could spiral into chaos.

To be continued

I’m Robert Green, a novelist who enjoys writing about video games in his free time. For more of my stuff check out RobertGreenStories.com.

This is Part 2 of my game journal for FTL: Faster Than Light. Read Part 1 Here.

One of our crew members is dead and it’s my fault.

This is Faster than Light: Part 2.

Entry 8

It was a routine mission.We’d just bought a transporter to allow us to teleport onto enemy ships. This seemed quite stylish to me so I was eager to try it out.

Naturally, we sent Sem to be the first member of the newly formed boarding party. Who is Sem? He’s a human crew member so valuable to me that I forgot to mention him in my last few journal entries even though he’s been with us for quite some time now. He’s former Federation. We found him at a base and he was eager to join up and kill some rebels. Then I forgot about him for a while.

Poor, poor Sem. We encounter a rebel drone and I had what I thought was an ingenious idea. Drones don’t have a crew, so if I teleported even just one person over there he’d be able to attack the drone’s systems with no trouble. Sem got in the transport and waited to be beamed.

“Sorry I’ve been ignoring you, Sem. I’ll get to know you better when you get back.”

They’d be the last words I’d ever say to him.

I’d gotten too excited about the transporter. I hadn’t thought things through. Sem got to the drone to discover something not shocking at all. The drone didn’t have any air in it. Why should it? It didn’t have a crew. Sem got to the drone and immediately suffocated rather anticlimactically. The transporter has a cooldown time so we couldn’t beam him back. There was nothing we could do but watch him die and apologize profusely.

We ended up taking the drone out pretty easily making the whole mission all the more pointless.

He died to teach us all a valuable lesson about oxygen.

Entry 9

Another of my crew is dead. I’ll miss Sem, but I barely knew him. This one is far more personal.

We tracked a distress beacon in the hopes of collecting a reward for helping someone. It was a trap. A mantis pirate ship was waiting on the other side of the jump. They beamed two of their soldiers aboard the bridge. My wife, Lizzie, was there all alone. They ate her alive.

The med bay was hit by a missile and taken offline. There was never any way to save her. Zerimar was in the med bay trying to make repairs when the mantis ate through the door and found him. They ripped him apart. Another enemy missile slammed into the hull. We had to cut life support to our own ship just to keep the shields and weapons online. Oxygen was running out.

I had to get the mantis off my ship or die trying. I ordered the rest of the crew to follow me to avenge the others. Soda, Zemu, and I attacked the mantis head on in an all-out melee aboard my broken ship.

Soda was the first to die.

The mantis were next.

The mantis ship teleported away. I never got my vengeance for what they did to us.

Xemu and I are the only crew members left, and the ship will fall apart if anything hits it.

At least it can’t get worse, right?

Battered and beaten, we jumped to sector 7.

A lucky store found early on allowed us to repair about half the damage to the ship. We limped through sector 7 just barely.

Entry 10

This is Xemu. The captain is dead. It was horrible.

If anyone gets this message, please send help. I’m not going to last much longer out here.

We finally got to sector 8, home sector of the rebel mother ship. The captain and I must have been crazy to think we could take it on by ourselves.

Things seemed to be going well. We entered sector 8 with the hull in pretty good shape. We were on our way to the mother ship when a rebel fighter cut us off. It was armed to the teeth with shields to match. We’d never faced anything like that before. We just weren’t ready.

I’d never seen so many missiles in one place before. One of the missiles punched a hole through the bridge. I was on the bridge. The oxygen in the room was sucked out and I had to flee. Unless someone got the pilot system back online, we couldn’t dodge or jump out of there. To give us more to worry about, a missile blew out the life support and the rebels teleported two soldiers aboard our ship who attacked the captain in the weapon system.

The captain tried to run. A missile hurled into the room and wounded both rebels. The captain didn’t make it.

I’m currently on the bridge trying to repair the pilot system so I can jump out of here. The two rebel soldiers are still on board. I’m running out of time. I’m going to end this entry now. It’s going to take a miracle to survive this.

Xemu reevaluates his career path.

Zemu never made it. Some say he suffocated as he tried to repair the bridge. Others say the rebels on the ship found and executed him. All that’s known for sure is that the story of the Cowboy met a tragic end among the stars.

RobertGreenStories.com

Captain’s log. Star date 10022012.

I’ve been playing a lot of Faster than Light, but I still suck at it. The rebels have completely destroyed my beloved Federation. I’ve fled on my ship, the Cowboy, named in honor of the 20 Century Dallas Cowboys football team. I’m with my wife, Lizzie, and a man named after our dog, Soda. This will be a long journey through space with the wife. Hopefully someone brought a pack of cards.

We’re trying to stay one step ahead of the rebel fleet as we upgrade our ship and destroy their flagship in Sector 8. As far as I know, my ship and my crew of three are all that’s left of the Federation. The war is essentially over, but we won’t give up. This is a story of uncontrollable fires, screaming in space, and dead loved ones.

This is FTL: Faster than Light.

Entry 1

On the very first jump we encountered a rebel fighter.

Everyone took their battle stations: Lizzie as pilot, me as gunner, and Soda on the shields. We were in a nebula, meaning our sensors didn’t work. We couldn’t even see the inside of our own ship. An electrical storm broke out as lightning bombarded our shields. We targeted and disabled the enemy’s weapon systems with our burst laser and won an easy victory. After a short battle we received a message from their captain: they surrendered and asked for mercy.

We did not grant it.

“No surrender! We’ll grind their bones to make our bread!” -my wife

Entry 2

We found a rebel space station housing military supplies and decided to attack. We defeated the defense drone and raided the station. Inside we found a new weapon called the hull beam. Beams sweep across the ship in a line hitting everything in their path. Hull beams do double the damage to the enemy ships when they hit rooms that aren’t attached to a system.

We’ve begun a highly effective battle tactic that involves shooting at the enemy weapon system with the laser, then following that with a barrage from the hull beam once the shields are down.

Entry 3

An alien has joined the crew. He’s an Engi. He’s weak in combat but has a knack for repairing systems (Engi, Engineer, get it?). We saved his crew from pirates and he asked to come with us. His name is Nathan and he’s been assigned to the engine room. Nathan seems like an odd name for an alien, but I’m sure he’ll prove his worth.

Entry 4

Nathan is dead. He never proved his worth. We found a man living alone in a cave on a barren planet. His mental state was questionable, but I thought we could make a spaceman out of him yet. I was wrong. The crazy man murdered Nathan  before the rest of us put him down.

A few jumps later we encountered another Engi named Zoltan, which is a much better alien name. I prefer him already. We saved him from pirates in an episode very reminiscent of what happened with Nathan. Eerie. In any case, I’m sure Zoltan will prove his worth better than Nathan did.

Entry 5

Stumbled upon an Ion Blast Mark II out in the middle of space. Ion weapons don’t do hull damage but they disable systems. The problem with this weapon is it’s a power hog, requiring three slots of energy to use. I’ll need to upgrade the weapon systems.

Entry 6

Our crew is coming together. A ship of slavers demanded we turn over one of our crew to be a slave. We refused and a fight ensued. After a fairly easy scuffle the slavers surrendered and offered one of their slaves as a peace offering. We accepted. Xemu is a Zoltan, a group of aliens that supply one power to any system they’re standing near. I put him in the engine room and moved Zerimar, our Engi. Zerimar’s new job will be to wait around for something to get blown up and then run over and repair it.

Entry 7

We’ve reached sector 6. It belongs to the mantis, a race of large bugs that excel in close combat. They prefer to board and eat their enemies alive.  They boarded the very back of the ship and started to eat their way to the engine room. Xemu fled immediately, leaving our engines unmanned and defenseless.

What sci fi story would be complete without the man eating but aliens?

The mantis broke into the room and started picking away at the engines, making dodging enemy missiles that much more difficult. If the stupid beasts hadn’t shot a missile into the engine room where their own soldiers were, they’d have done far more damage. In the end we defeated the enemy ship, but the hull is damaged and the engines had to be completely repaired.

Haha. Mantis are dumb.

We limped into the next system right next to a star.  A Mantis Fighter attacked us as both ships burned from the burning star’s heat.

Solar flares lit up the ship as we combated the Mantis Fighter. The hull was in bad shape. Two mantis soldiers transported into the engine room and took it out right after it had been repaired. They stormed the next room and cut off life support to the entire ship. We were losing oxygen, and if it ran out we’d have no way of getting it back unless we somehow got by the mantis and repaired the life support.

A solar flair caused the shield system to burst into flames as the mantis broke into the weapons room and I retreated deeper into the ship. A missile slammed into the sensors and put a hole in the side of the hull, sucking oxygen out of the sensors room and forcing us to put it on lockdown.

Life support was down. Engines were down. Shields were down. Weapons and sensors were failing. The ship was on fire and one more hit would end it all. I opened up the airlocks to vent out what little oxygen was left in order to suffocate the fires throughout the ship. In my panic I forgot to open the weapons room doors to suffocate the intruders, and they continued their rampage. Another solar flare was about to finish us off.

The engines were down and we couldn’t jump out of there without them. I sent Zerimar to sneak by the mantis and repair the engines just enough for us to make a jump. He nearly suffocated, but he succeeded and returned to the medical bay barely alive.

We jump away from the star into the great unknown. The mantis are still aboard and the hull is still extremely vulnerable. If we’re hit by anything harder than a light breeze at the next location, we’re all dead.

 To be continued…

Welcome to Campfire Gaming. This week we have Terraria, an indie game that’s often called a 2-D Minecraft with an emphasis on combat. A couple of weeks ago I did a journal on The Story of Red Cloud, a mod for Terraria, but today we dive into the vanilla game with a twist. I’ll be playing on Hardcore mode, meaning if I die my character is erased.

Boris Ironbreaker isn’t like other video game characters. When Boris dies, he won’t respawn at the last save or checkpoint. When Boris dies, he’s dead. He has one life. When he loses it, the game will erase him forever. This is because I’m playing Terraria on Hardcore mode. The way I see it, this will be a success no matter what. If Boris lives a long time then that’ll be cool. If he slips and tumbles off a cliff, then we can all have a good laugh at my buffoonery.

This is the saga of Boris Ironbreaker. It’s a story of gold, large holes, and rabbits that inspire men to do wonderful things. This is Terraria on Hardcore mode!

Listen!

Boris Ironbreaker has traveled far in search of gold and glory! Let me recount his many heroic deeds!

“All of nature shall soon bow, trembling before me!” Boris growls as he stumbles into the land of Terraria. He sees an evil green blob thing, and quickly sets to work on it with his copper short sword. “Gooey evil must die!” He dispatches it in short time, and as he wipes the green goo off the bottoms of his shoes he decides it’s time to gather wood to build a house. “I must murder some trees to craft a palace for a king!”

As the sun sets, he can smell evil in the air. He knows that something terrible will soon emerge from the darkness, so he heroically barricades himself in a hole in the ground.

Boris is having a staring contest with a wooden post. He’s a lonely man.

“Foolish blobby thing! You cannot penetrate my underground fortress of doom!” Out of pure boredom, Boris clenches his pickax and sets metal to stone in search of adventure! He finds none, but he does have enough room to build a crafting table and furnace. From there, he builds a mighty broadsword. Now he’s ready to take on the night. But then he sees the zombies.

Lots of zombies. Boris heroically decides to wait until the sun comes up after all. Then he’ll take it to evil!

He finds a place high atop a mountain to build his house. With headquarters ready to go, he’s ready for his first adventure! “My palace for a king is complete, more triumphant than I ever could have imagined!”

This story almost certainly ends with Boris plummeting down the steep cliff right by his house.

Upon spotting a cave near his house, he goes spelunking deep underground for treasure… and danger!

Because he only has a lance and no armor, he heroically avoids most monsters. He gathers copper and iron for better armor and equipment, and even finds some gold. When his pockets are bulging with assorted metals, he leaves the cave and returns home.

Throughout the night he sets to work on some new equipment. Leggings and helmet of bronze, chest plate of iron, and a sword made of solid gold. Non-hero types might argue that building a sword of solid gold is a stupid idea, but Boris understands that in video game land gold is always a good idea. Fully suited and with gaudy sword in hand, Boris is ready to test his metal. As usual, there’s a small army of zombies knocking on his door. But this time, he’s ready for them!

“Die smelly evil ones!” He opens the door and leaps into the crowd of zombies, sending body parts scattering in every direction. “In celebration of my triumphant victory, I shall add another level to my house! I shall add a basement to act as a forge! Oooo! Oooo! And some windows! And a couple lovely vases! And a cute balcony where I can relax after a hard day of monster killing.”

In his early days, Boris was an interior decorator.

As he walks down the mountain in search of more trees to kill, he stumbles upon a pair of rabbits. “Little bunnies!” Considering it to be a sign from the gods, he decides to found a village on this site. He starts building.

But evil is everywhere, and the rabbits pay the ultimate price! A blob leaps in and murders them both! Blood everywhere. “Oh, the horror!” Boris gets his revenge by plummeting his gold sword into the blob’s blobby flesh, but it’s too little too late. The Rabbits are dead.

The blob making its speedy getaway. What a mess.

“Damn you! Damn you all to hell! I vow to have my revenge on all evil-kind! Before I was only killing for glory! Now… now it’s personal.”

He’ll find whatever is causing these monsters and he’ll destroy them once and for all! But first, he’ll continue his town. That is, after all, what the rabbits would want.

And sure enough, people move in. He builds an inn that the guide moves into, and he builds a general store that a traveling merchant decides to call his home.

It’s been a while since Boris has talked to anyone, so he doesn’t realize what a bad conversationalist the merchant is.

A nurse moves into a hospital, and a demolition salesmen moves into an odd underground bunker. An actual town has formed. Boris has learned his lesson from the rabbits, and sets out to protect the townspeople immediately. He builds a wall and names the town in honor of his lost friends.

Boris and the rabbits is truly the love story of this generation.

There is a great feast to celebrate. The merchant ruins the joyful mood by mentioning Cthulu’s Eye, a giant floating eye that’s been terrorizing the countryside.

Boris is so filled with rage by the existence of the Eye that the ‘scrawny’ remark goes right over his head.

“This Eye is no doubt responsible for the senseless murder of my two bunny friends. The eye must die! Goodbye friends! Next time you see me I shall be bathing in the blood of wickedness!” He doesn’t really have any evidence that the Eye is behind all of this, but he won’t let that stop him.

After buying some grenades from the demolition salesmen, Boris travels underground to gather supplies for the final confrontation. He finds huge amounts of iron to complete his armor set. Most monsters fail to give him any trouble. He knows his victory on the Eye is assured. He tares his way through the caves, slaughtering everything in his path. This is a new Boris. A powerful Boris. He decides he’s ready to take on Cthulu’s Eye, and sets out to the surface for a final battle.

On his way up, he spots two skeletons trapped in a pit. Boris smiles and laughs. “Bony fools! You are trapped at my mercy, and I shall provide none!” Boris takes a grenade out of his pack. He hasn’t used one yet. They’re dangerous. But this should be a perfect opportunity to test one out.

“Boris is your god now!” he shouts as he pulls the pin.

Boris heroically tosses the grenade at the defenseless skeletons. It’s an awkward throw born of arrogance, and the grenade bounces back at Boris’ feet and explodes with a mighty blast.

And Boris is dead. Oops! Boris is with his two rabbit friends now, hopefully in a happier place. Legend has it, on cold nights, when the air is still, if you venture into the caves and listen really carefully, you can still hear Boris whispering the words, “Epic fail”.

The game erased Boris forever, so he’s completely unusable, but the world is still intact. Perhaps I”ll return to Rabbit Town with a new hero someday, if for no reason than to prevent this from being the most awkward game journal of all time.

So that’s Boris’ saga. He was able to start a village, and he taught us all a valuable lesson about what not to do with a grenade. Then he died. In any case, this concludes the uncomfortably anticlimactic adventures of Boris Ironbreaker! He died for your entertainment, so don’t be too hard on him for his humiliating failure.

For next week’s journal I’m thinking indie roguelike-but-in-a-spaceship FTL (Faster than Light). Send me an email at Robert at RobertGreenStories dot com or head over to my personal website, RobertGreenStories.com. See you next week. 

Welcome to Campfire Gaming, a weekly series of game journals. Today we take a break from Endless Space to focus on a mod for Terraria called The Story of Red Cloud. My series on Endless Space will continue next week. Terraria is an indie game released last year that’s been described as a 2-D Minecraft with an emphasis on combat over building things. It was my game of the year in 2011. The Story of Red Cloud is a mod for Terraria that you can get here. The mod is a custom map filled with Legend of Zelda style dungeons and items and 20-30 hours of gameplay. It also adds an experience system similar to Dark Souls, which is just as awesome as it sounds.

WARNING, there are spoilers ahead! If you plan to play Red Cloud and don’t want it to be spoiled,  then finish the first dungeon before reading this. 

I’m buried alive. Luckily, it’s apparently customary in Red’s village to bury people with a pickaxe, so I’m able to dig my way out and assess the situation. The situation, as it turns out, is grim. This is a story of vengeance, loss, and desperately searching for a damned place to use my dark souls.

This is the Story of Red Cloud.

My village has been burned by a goblin army. My parents are missing. My two brothers are missing. My wife is missing. Nothing’s left, except of course for the monsters. There’s monsters everywhere. I’m immediately attacked and killed by a giant digging worm. After dying, I fittingly respawn back in my grave.

This is gonna be tough.

I hop back out of the grave and return the favor to the worm, slicing him into pieces with the copper shortsword I started the game with. I walk through the burning village, searching for survivors. I don’t find any. But I do find loot. Lots and lots of loot.

This is gonna be fun.

There’s two iron broadswords. They can be wielded at the same time. The Story of Red Cloud allows you to hold an item in each hand, similar to Dark Souls. I also snag a cool new outfit from my brother’s house.

By the looks of it, my brother was an archaeologist.

I exit the town without finding a single survivor. The story is told with signs found throughout the world. They’re all pretty well written, and do a good job with a minimalist approach. One of these signs tells me that I remember a nearby town where my brothers Michael (my actual brother’s name is Michael) and Elisha used to go in the summertime. Maybe they’ve fled there, so that’s my next destination.

On the way, I find a bridge over a lake, and… well, I decide to go for a swim. In games like this you have to check every nook and every cranny, because things are hidden away. The good news is, there actually was something at the bottom of the lake. The bad news is it killed me.

I took this screenshot merely to show off my neat discovery, totally oblivious to the giant skull monster hurling itself at me at top speeds.

Back in my grave. My cold, depressing grave.

I crawl out for a third time and dust myself off. Every monster that dies in this mod drops dark souls, which are essentially experience points. When you die you drop all of your souls. If you can get back to your corpse and retreive them before dying again you can get them back. Otherwise you lose them all, a la the game Dark Souls. With my souls now trapped under a lake with a crazy skull man guarding them, I supposed they were gone forever and decided to move on.

But my death ended up being a blessing in disguise.

I claw out of my grave for the third time and notice that there’s a little path to the right. I take it, and realize that you can go underwater. I literally have nothing to lose since I lost all of my souls in the lake. So for the second time in about 30 seconds, I dive into unknown waters in search of lost treasure. I find some.

There’s a chest, but it’s far away, behind a series of underwater tunnels. I chug a potion that causes my body to illuminate so I can see in the dark waters. I’m determined to get to that chest.

My breath meter drops as I plunge deeper into the underwater tunnels. I don’t even know if it’s possible to get to that chest, but I’m determined to try. When I find my first air hole in the tunnels, I decide that I’m definitely supposed to be here. I continue on, and find another air hole just before suffocating. I’ve reached the chest.

I open it up, and the contents are everything I hoped they would be. A full set of iron armor. I’ve already died twice, but things will be different from now on. I’m in charge now.

I die of suffocation on my way back.

Okay, NOW things will be different. I walk back through the rubble of the village and head out in search of my family. All of my treasure hunting has used up daylight, and with the sun down the zombies come out just like in Terraria proper. Time to put my iron armor to the test. There’s zombies everywhere, and by cutting through them with a sword in each hand I collect what seems like a lot of souls in a short amount of time. I get a little carried away, and before I know it the sun has returned and I’m standing in a huge pile of zombie arms and legs with about 300 dark souls. That seems like a lot to me, so now I need to start being careful. I know from reading the directions on the Story of Red Cloud forum that I can use my souls to craft powerful items at demon altars. I’ve got to find a demon altar before I die and lose these souls.

There’s a cave that says I’ll need bombs to bust through. I make a mental note of it and move on. Soon I find the village where I hope to find my family.

The good news is I find my brother Michael. The bad news is he doesn’t know what happened to my other brother or my wife Elizabeth (my actual wife’s name is Elizabeth- this is getting weird). Our parents are dead. He thought I was dead, and took the liberty of burying me with our parents, hence waking up in my own grave (it also explains the two unmarked graves next to mine- that’s a nice little detail). The attack on the village was apparently by none other than the a goblin known as the Mindflayer King. Naturally, I vow to get me some sweet vengeance. My brother has a bum leg or something, so in standard video game fashion he’s going to sit around while I do everything. Just for that, I’m not giving him his archaeology suit back.

The town also has a weird well. I assume from the message that it’s important, but it looks like a long drop and I’m too scared to jump. My suspicions are confirmed when a random old lady tells me that there’s hidden treasure under the town, so I naturally assume the well is the entrance. Still, I’ve got about 300 souls, so I don’t want to leap down there blindly and lose them all in another lake/giant skull fiasco.

I decide to keep moving to the right. If I don’t find anything, I’ll leap down the well. I get to a huge mountain. I can go up or I can go straight through a tunnel. I take the tunnel. I spent most of the day in town, so now it’s night and the zombies have returned. For the first time I’m getting nervous. I’m worried about dying. For the first time, I feel like I’m playing Dark Souls.

At the end of the tunnel there’s a cliff saying I need Hermes boots to cross it. Those are the boots that old lady mentioned, and now I’m 90% convinced that I need to go back to the well and leap down. But the other 10% is worried my body will splat against stone at the bottom of the well and I’ll lose everything. I’ve been killing zombies during my trip through the mountain. Now I have about 400 souls.

There’s a path leading up into a series of caves in the mountain. I chug another light potion and take the path. I move slowly. I’m careful with every step. As I kill more enemies my determination to survive increases with my soul count. In the mountain I find a compass. I also find a crazy bunny mask that I think makes me look terrifying.

I continue up the mountain, fighting my way through. I have about 600 souls. I’m duel wielding an iron broadsword and a wooden boomerang. I can knock enemies away with the boomerang, then when they’re weak close in with the sword to finish the job. It’s working very well. I’ve had to drink health potions but haven’t had any big close calls.

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and I emerge from the mountain caves to what seems like another world.

I’m obviously high up, but I have no idea where a demon altar is and I’m not really even sure how to get back to town. I decide I’ve come to far too turn back, and I begin to cross the bridge.

Three harpies swarm down on my position. I’m vulnerable on the bridge. There’s nowhere to hide. Harpies can shoot super sharp feathers out of their bodies. I throw my boomerang and swing my sword, but they swoop down and claw at my face. I’m dying. I drink a health potion. They claw at me. I’m still dying. Like in vanilla Terraria, you have to wait a while before you’re allowed to drink another health potion to keep you from throwing one back every three seconds.

I retreat. I’m heading back for the mountain, with all three harpies still on my tail. With two hearts of health left, I wonder if I die could I even find my way back to this location to get my souls. I’d respawn at the town, which seems so far away.

I get back to the mountain and run into a cave. Instead of going back down where I came from, I move through a straight tunnel, hoping to lose my pursuers. I lose two of them, but the third is closing in for the killing blow. Every time it gets close I knock it away with my boomerang. It shoots me with one of its sharp feathers. With one heart left, I decide I’m running out of options. I abruptly turn and close the distance between myself and the harpy. We exchange blows. I cut it with my sword. It shoots me with a sharp feather. It dies. I don’t. I barely hold on, and emerge on the other side of the mountain. I have near 800 souls.

If I go down the mountain, I think it’ll take me back to town. I’m done wandering aimlessly, hoping to stumble upon a demon altar. Every indication says I need to go down that well. So that’s what I’m going to do. As soon as I get to town, I leap down the well.

One of the villagers eagerly approaches the well to watch me commit suicide.

There’s a HUGE drop.

Luckily, there’s water at the bottom. I’m definitely supposed to be here. I find three magic mirrors that can teleport me back to town, so I’m not even trapped down here. Unfortunately the dungeon under this town is huge, and I’m desperately searching for a demon altar. Instead, I find this.

I turn back.

That sort of sign is video game speak for boss fight, and I’m not ready for a boss fight. I’ve been moving through the dungeon for a long time, and I’ve got over 1000 souls. A skeleton mage appears behind me as I move through the dark tunnels. A skeleton warrior jumps down from above and hits me in a surprise attack. During the confusion, two of the skeleton mage’s blasts hit me. The second one knocks me off a cliff…

My heart stops as I hurl downward. I drink a potion just before I hit the ground. The fall doesn’t kill me, but I’m badly wounded. Two hearts left. The enemy mage teleports in front of me and shoots again. The skeleton warrior jumps off the cliff and lands on me again in another surprise attack from above.

Without even thinking about it, I use my mirror and teleport back to town. It probably saved my life. I just needed a chance to breathe. A chance to relax. I get a drink of water and sit for a moment. Twice now I’ve come extremely close to dying. I don’t want to die.

That Dark Souls tension is definitely there. I’m loving it and hating it all at once.

When I’ve calmed down, I leap back down the well and prepare for more. And then I see it. I walked right over it when I first entered the dungeon. It was under a small pond I’d created by blasting a wall submerged in water. But there it was. A demon altar.

I jumped into the water and swam to it. There were traps everywhere. But I was moving too slowly to be caught. I was too careful. I was playing Terraria like I play Dark Souls, and it paid off. I got to the demon altar.

I nearly have enough souls to buy every single thing currently available to me. The gold chest there has a gold broadsword and a silver broadsword that I’m now duel wielding.

I travel up the dungeon a little, and find a second demon altar. Now that I don’t need them I’m apparently finding them no problem. I’ve collected a few more souls, and I use the second altar to craft the one item I’d missed. I now have everything that was available to me, and there’s some awesome stuff. With that and my new weapons, I’m feeling more powerful than ever. I’m looking forward to the boss fight.

He doesn’t stand a chance.

This is actually Part 1 of a long and epic series I wrote on The Story of Red Cloud. If you enjoyed this article you can read Part 2 right here. Other than that, I’ll see you next week as we continue Endless Space.

Welcome to Campfire Gaming, a weekly feature where I play a game and describe my wacky adventures. Last week we started a journal on the indie 4x game, Endless Space, and today is part 2 of that series. You’ll find part 1 right about here.

My empire has been cut in two. The Horatio empire recently took control of the neutral system of Yisel, right in the middle of my territory. They’ve also sent a fleet to my own system of Vega. This cold war is heating up.

I destroy the enemy fleet in Vega without too much trouble, but the problem in Yisel is different. This is no longer about attacking each other’s fleets. I have to take Yisel to reunite my empire. This time I’m invading an entire system.

The inevitable war between the Amoeba and Horatio is underway.

This is Endless Space: Part 2.

This all started when the Horatio Empire attacked and destroyed one of my scout ships without warning. The attack came in a neutral system called Tercana, and the incident spiraled out of control until it lead to all out interplanetary warfare. I took Tercana for the Amoeba empire, but as soon as I did the Horatio empire took Yisel. This split my faction in two.

I build a fleet of dysentery ships destined for Yisel (you may recall that I’m naming my ships after diseases). They flood the system and the invasion is underway.

System invasions in Endless Space are essentially just timers. You wait them out, similar to a siege in the Total War series but with no option to attack early. The invasion will take several turns depending on the system and depending on the strength of the attacking fleet. Certain ships can also have bonuses that speed up invasions. To begin an invasion the system must be clear of enemy ships, but if enemy ships show up after the invasion has begun it doesn’t interrupt things unless your fleet is wiped out.

A few turns after I begin the invasion two Horatio ships show up. I have two ships as well, though my dysenteries have proven more effective because they’re made to defeat Horatio. Horatio ships use kinetic weapons and my dysenteries have kinetic weapon defense. My dysenteries shoot missiles, and the Horatio ships don’t have missile defense. I defeat the interlopers fairly easily and the invasion is completed shortly after.

My empire is reunited, and Horatio is pissed.

I’ve been researching war technology, and my missile attack and kinetic defense is better than ever. I create a new line of ships with the latest in amoeba technology. More missiles. Better defense. I call it West Nile.

My capital at Nusakan has a very high production rate, so I mass produce a fleet of West Nile and head for the Horatio capital of Delphinus. In that system I’ll have my largest battle yet.

3 West Niles and two dysenteries versus a fleet of 5 Horatio ‘strikers’. Once again, my missiles win the day. With the system clear of enemy fleets, the invasion of Delphinus begins.

Meanwhile, I complete the research required to travel through wormholes, the squiggly lines on the map that are restricted at the start of the game. As I go north and snatch the Horatio capital, I can send another fleet east through the wormholes and snatch up as much neutral land as possible.

I’ll need to be quick about it too. The Cravers, a race of bug people that eat everything in their path, are moving swiftly in my direction.

I send a fleet of two West Niles and three colony ships through the warmhole into parts unknown.

They run into pirates. Lots and lots of pirates. You know how most pirates like, try to get you to surrender so they can take your stuff without a fight? Well, the ones in Endless Space aren’t like that. The pirates in Endless Space are the kind that attack you on site, offer you no chance of surrender, and who blow up your ship and all of the valuable goods on the first chance they get. Wait, how exactly are they pirates?

All three of my colony ships are immedietely blown to bits. It looks like this colonization mission is going to be more difficult than I hoped.

The pirates are essentially barbarians from the Civilization series, hostile fleets that fly around randomly causing havoc. It’s odd to me that they attack government ships for sport, but it’s something I’ll have to deal with. I was hoping this land grab would be sneaky and easy. And fast! Let’s not forget that the Cravers are still closing in to take any land I don’t get my dirty amoeba tentacle things on. This land grab won’t be sneaky, easy, or fast, because I’m going to have to build some West Niles just for the purpose of the mission.

Getting control of systems early in Endless Space is vital, but this means I’m essentially fighting a war on two fronts: Horatio on one side and pirates on the other. I’ll have to divide my forces. Sun Tzu would not approve.

I begin the construction on a separate fleet just for the purposes of killing pirates and helping get colonies. Oh, and I also start rebuilding those colony ships. In the meantime, I still have a large fleet currently invading the Horatio system of Delphinus but it’s taking a long time.

I build 2 West Niles, a dysentery, and a Propagator, the proper name for one of our colony ships. We head through the wormhole vastly superior to any pirate fleet we’ve encountered before. Victory should be fairly easy. We find some pirates and engage.

Victory is easy. We only lose a single ship. UNFORTUNATELY IT’S THE DAMNED PROPAGATOR!!!!! THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS MISSION IS TO COLONIZE NEW SYSTEMS AND I’VE LOST MY COLONY SHIP!!!!! (For those of you new to the internet, the caps lock means I’m angry.)

So… I build another colony ship while my warships float there with their thumbs up their asses. Bah!

Things are going just as slow on the other front against the Horatio Empire.

The invasion of Delphinus has grinded to a halt. Horatio has increased the planet’s defenses, making it literally impossible for my current fleet to take it. I’ll need more ships. Ships that I’ve already sent in the opposite direction to hunt for pirates.

On the other end, I still haven’t actually claimed any new territory, despite all of my losses from these pirates. Not only are the Cravers here and claiming some of the land I had my eye on, but a new faction has moved into the area and is taking up land quickly.

The United Empire. I’ve now met humans for the very first time. The United Empire is your typical science fiction evil empire of humans. Shortly after, I meet the Pilgrims, your typical science fiction human rebellion, though I suppose they less rebelled and more fled from the United Empire, hence why they’re space pilgrims.

I send more colony ships and finally start claiming new territory. I send more military ships to Delphinus and finally the invasion makes more progress. I’m about to take Horatio’s capital for myself.

They hit me with everything they’ve got to keep that from happening. If I win this battle I win the war. If I lose this battle then I continue a war on two fronts that hasn’t gotten me anywhere so far.

A fleet of 5 ‘Striker 4s’ versus my fleet of 3 West Niles and 2 dysenteries (my maximum fleet size is 5, so the other ships I sent are there helping the invasion, but they couldn’t be in the battle).

Here comes the enemy fleet.

There goes the enemy fleet.

Delphinus is mine.

I’ve taken the enemy capital and its people aren’t happy about their new amoeba overlords. They go on strike and the system of Delphinus is essentially useless until this gets resolved. I’ll have to find a way to get these guys to like their new leaders. Perhaps time will help. Horatio is now a sad husk of an empire, so I offer a ceasefire. They accept without hesitation. I’m the good guys, and there’s no need to wipe Horatio off the galaxy.

Unless they piss me off again.

Which they almost certainly will.

Will the Horatio Empire piss me off again? Will the people of Delphinus ever accept amoeba rule? Will the pirates in this game ever realize that if they just blow up every ship they see they’re not making any profit?

Read Part 3!

If you liked this article, check out my personal website at RobertGreenStories.com.

Welcome to Campfire Gaming, the weekly segment where I play a game and write about my wacky adventures. Last week we finished up a journal on Empires of the Smoky Skies, so today we start something new. Endless Space is an indie 4x game that came out on July 4 of this year. Now let’s get to the story. 

I’m an amoeba.

I’m the emperor of a civilization of large amoebas that stretches across the galaxy.

We met an alien race called the Horatio Empire. Negotiations with them have quickly broken down.

We met another alien race called Cravers. They are not to be trusted.

We met another alien race called humans. We shall see if they are friend or foe.

This is Endless Space.

This is only my second game ever of Endless Space. In the first game I got completely massacred, and I’m hoping things go better this time. There are 8 races. My game is using 5 of them:

United Empire: The evil human faction. They’re imperialistic and cruel.

Pilgrims: When there’s an evil human empire, there must be a good human rebellion. That’s the Pilgrims, who fled the United Empire long ago but will soon meet them again.

Horatio: Endless Space takes itself pretty seriously, so this ones an oddball. Some idiot named Horatio cloned himself so many times he made a star traveling civilization out of it. They’re neutral.

Cravers: If the United Empire wasn’t bad enough, the Cravers are the classic alien bugs that fly around eating everyone in their path. Needless to say, they’re evil.

Amoeba: That’s me. We’re listed with a good alignment, and our goal is to unite all living things, even if it means breaking some skulls along the way. Let’s try to do that.

That’s me. Good looks run in my family.

Endless Space lets you choose what kind of galaxy you play in. I chose a spiral out of respect for the Milky Way. Here’s the galaxy I got with everyone’s starting locations (weirdly, there isn’t any fog of war with planets, though you can’t see other ships unless you’re in the same system).

Red: Me

Orange: Horatio

Teal: Pilgrims

Green: United Empire

Blue (Hard to see): Cravers

I immediately start on food production in the capital. Famine issues from my first game taught me that focusing on food to build up a big workforce and then moving to other things might be the way to go. In Endless Space, your ships can only move along preset lines. These are essentially jump gates. The squiggly lines represent wormholes. They allow access to more travel locations, but you can’t use them without first completing certain research requirements.

I have an interesting starting location, perhaps even unfortunate. My only routes to expansion are through wormhole gates to the east and the Horacio Empire to the north.

I immediately snag the nearby Vega system. The two squiggly line things coming out of my capital of Nusakan are wormholes that I don’t have the technology to enter yet. There’s another wormhole coming out of Vega. This means I only have two systems to colonize for now, Yisel and Tercana, and Horatio is going to want them too. I’ll have to act fast.

In the meantime, I send a scout vessel out to the prospective colonies to get a feel for them. The scout flies through the Yisel system with no problems. It’s not a great system, but it’ll be worth having. The scout continues to the Tercana system.

It’s here in Tercana that the Amoeba and Horatio empires meet for the very first time.

Horatio attacks. There’s a battle on the spot. Relations between the Amoeba and Horatio empires have broken down before they had a chance to begin.

“All hands to battle stations! This is what we trained for people! A giant space penis is trying to kill us all!”

My scout ship is destroyed. The Horatio empire is directly responsible for the atrocity. We were not at war. Until that moment, we’d never even seen each other.

Endless Space has a unique neutrality system. When two countries are neither allied or at war, they are in cold war status. This means they’re allowed to attack each other as long as it’s not in the defender’s home system.  I immediately start researching combat technology.

A shadow war has begun.

It’s time to design my first ship. The game uses three different types of weapons, kinetic (bullets fired at a high rate of speed), missiles (blow up on impact), and lasers. Each one has its own defense type, and ship design is based on figuring out what weapons your opponent has and building defenses for them. It’s all very similar to Galactic Civilizations 2, except the different attachments don’t change how the ship looks. That’s disappointing, though I do appreciate how amoeba-like my ships are in appearance.

Vega has a resource called Titanium-70. It allows us to build missiles. This early, most civilizations will still be using kinetic weapons and might be expecting others to do the same. With this in mind, I build a missile-clad gunship with kinetic weapon defenses. I’m hoping this is exactly what the Horatio empire won’t want to deal with. Since I’m the Amoeba, I decide to name my ship types after disease. It… well… it seemed like a good idea at the time. I name my first custom ship ‘dysentery’, in honor of the great Oregon Trail.

I set the dysentery loose on Tercana to have my revenge. The bastard ship that destroyed my scout is still there, though the Horatio empire still hasn’t colonized the system. I’ve got two dysentery ships and now the odds are very much in my favor. Battles in Endless Space use a card system to decide tactics. Different cards boost certain stats for the round. A battle consists of three rounds, the long range, medium range, and melee. Each card also has another card that it completely trumps.

The enemy chooses the card that trumps mine. I cringe and can only watch the battle unfold from here. Luckily, my force is so much more powerful than the enemy that my lousy tactics don’t screw me over too much. The dysentery ships win the battle and kill the people who killed my scouts. Revenge is sweet.

You see that burning green fireball in the background? That’s my enemies.

I think I’ve won and can now concentrate on other things. I think I’ve sent a message to the Horatio empire, but as soon as I get a colony ship on Tercana, they get a colony ship on Yisel.

They also send a fleet into my own Vega system. I send a fleet to respond. Tercana has been completely cut off from the rest of my civilization. I’m going to have to take Yisel from the Horatio empire to reunite it. On top of that, a battle at Vega is a near certainty as this conflict continues to escalate.

What was once a mere border dispute is about to turn into all-out war.

Read Part 2 here!