My flight sim and combat sim interests are pretty wide these days and so I love seeing developers branching out and trying different things. That’s where I think the concept of a turn based tactical combat sim from Slitherine Games called Scramble: Battle of Britain, a project I’ve now covered a few times on the blog, is pretty interesting. The game has had a playable demo out for a few months to try the game out ahead of its early access launch tomorrow. Now that the demo is over, I thought I’d share some of my experiences and thoughts with it.
Tutorials and dogfights
The Scramble Demo was a surprisingly full featured experience. While the demo has ended, to pave the way for early access, it offered quite a bit of the Scramble experience. The main menu gave you options for missions, instant action scenarios, random matches as well as a how to play section that describes the mechanics of the game as well as offers up some training scenarios.
Each turn plays out just a few seconds of the air battle. You give guidance on what to do with your virtual pilot and then they fly according to the instructions. There’s a flight model at work here as well as a G force model so aircraft can stall, spin, get slow or stay fast through various climbs, dives, twists and turns. Pull too tight and your pilot will lose consciousness. It’s all very well realized just like more conventional style combat sims.
Initially I tried keyboard controls to control the airplane but found the mouse controls easier and more precise to manage. After that, things began to fall into place pretty quickly. The UI tells you a lot from the energy state of your airplane to where your airplane will be in the next few seconds (i.e. your next turn). If you want to shoot down the target ahead, you switch to targeting mode and the game gives you some probabilities on if your shots are going to land. Then you run it through and several turns later you’ve got the bad guy shot down… maybe! The nice thing is that it then plays back to you once the mission is complete turning your turn based battle into a cinematic dogfight.
Training gets you through the basics including how to lead a target. After that, you’re more or less ready to play.
Moving out of training, which was a useful exercise to get the controls sorted, I switched to some of the available scenarios.
I did a 1 v 1 flying a Spitfire Mark I against a Bf109E and a few dozen turns later ultimately lost out to a superior energy fight by the AI. I was impressed actually at how effectively the AI uses tactics, the correct ones at times, to get on your six and shoot you down. We were all over the place at speed, stalling out, rolling scissors, and so forth and the AI bested me on the first time.
The second time, I was better at it and it was my turn to score a victory.
Another scenario had me up against Ju 87 Stukas trying to intercept and shoot them down. Though Stuka’s are overall an easy target, their rear gunners are not to be trifled with and approaching the Stukas with speed and angle helped ensure their destruction. It was so satisfying when I commanded both of my Spitfires to victory.
Turn based air combat? Is it even fun?
I really wasn’t sure how well I’d take to this game, however, after playing the demo for a while I think it’s really grown on me. It didn’t really take that long either before I became impressed with a lot of the simulation aspects – the flight models, the damage, the pilot physiology, all worked into a fairly easy to understand experience. I can see this being a game that helps bridge gaps between those interested in simulator air combat but struggling to get into it because of the knowledge gap. This can absolutely be a stepping stone for a newbie.
Despite all of that, I’ll admit to some skepticism of the concept in practice because simulated air combat is meant to take after the real thing. When you read the history books they are often described as fast paced, heat of the moment, suddenly happening and then suddenly over. More than one World War II pilot autobiography has described scenes of there suddenly being a sky full of aircraft and then just as suddenly empty again.
So how well does that translate to a turn based game? It turns out that it works surprisingly well! The satisfaction of out-witting your opponent, employing the correct approach, making a mistake, getting yourself out a tight scrape, and ultimately prevailing (or not) is just as compelling here as it is in first person combat sim. This is certainly a different experience and the pace slows down as you plan your next move… but the whole “knife fight in a phonebooth” descriptor still applies.
Better yet, while you lose the in the moment aspect, you gain in the having the think through the next series of moves. I’ve previously likened it to the History Channel’s old Dogfight Series. I loved the pulled back overview of the fight showing how the aircraft were twisting and turning and looking to get into position. “Experience the battle. dissect the tactics,” was the tag line and Scramble is kind of doing the same thing for me… except I’m in charge and man do I make a lot of mistakes! And that’s fun!
Coming out tomorrow
Though the demo is over and this article is a bit retrospective of the experience that is no longer available, Scramble: Battle of Britain itself is coming out into early access tomorrow. The developers plan to add more aircraft, more scenarios, enhanced AI (though it is already quite good), and expand the title though the early access mode.
I can see Scramble: Battle of Britain going beyond what it is right now. You could easily make this into a Pacific or Eastern Front based title as well. While Spitfire I vs Bf109E is a fairly even match, the tactical differences between a Wildcat and Zero would be one of several compelling ways that the sim could expand.
Stormbirds 
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