PhageWars

Phage Wars

Nothing says “Holiday Season” like a communicable disease. Behind the fun brought by yule logs, cheerful carolers and pine-scented prefab trees lurks a stew-pot full of microbiotic ne'er-do-wells. Rather than wait until a cute nephew sneezes into your eggnog, Phage Wars asks you to take the initiative in this winter wonderland of biological warfare.

You assume the role of an ambitious virus. Your genetic payload slowly builds within any given infected cell, waiting for your signal to spread out and propagate across the playfield. Unfortunately, your turf is also home to rival pathogens which seek to monopolize the rich genetic machinery at hand. Do you wait to build an overwhelming force within a select few strongholds, or do you encourage several small colonies to gang up on larger cells? Whatever strategy you choose, your ultimate goal is to thoroughly crush any interloping biotics.

Heaping thanks go to Lex Cayman for letting us bum his prescription for addiction. Sinuses clogged with viscous game-goo? Hack up a link, scribble a short pathology, then spread the joy through our disposable Contact Form. If the prognosis looks good, your find might be featured in an upcoming Act Casual!

Comments

Ah, it's GalCiv (of iPhone fame). I love GalCiv

But does it feature the impenetrable Madagascar?

buffcorephil wrote:

Ah, it's GalCiv (of iPhone fame). I love GalCiv :)

I think you meant GalCon. If GalCiv were available for the iPhone I would buy it thrice over!

I thought this looked familiar. Kongregate has a similar game. Nice pick.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/badben/nano-war

adam.greenbrier wrote:

But does it feature the impenetrable Madagascar?

IMAGE(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll100/CaptainFailcon/SHUTDOWNEVERYTHING.jpg)

HedgeWizard wrote:

I think you meant GalCon.

I'll take cells and bacteria over icky boring spaceships any day!

Awesome game.

This was hypnotic, start to finish. Thanks for sharing.

Perfect timing too, seeing that I've been fighting a chest cold for 1 week and a half.

A bit simplistic for my tastes. Gameplay is mainly about clicking the fastest; reminds me of that game about the trees on the asteroids.

It was fun but a little frustrating. I kept miss clicking and it took away all my selections. Kinda have a headache after playing!

I managed to beat it with Black, but I've tried it with purple and red to no avail. There are a couple of really tough ones where the enemy just starts with waaaaaay more stuff than you. With black, I could overcome it because I was so strong. But the quicker, weaker ones are really hard.

I beat it with green pretty handily. I had to redo 1 level.

I beat it with each color, and it reset my save cookie afterwards.

Man, I'd love to play this with multiplayer!

I finished with the orange race (balanced).

Can someone clarify the rules? Thie is what I think I've figured out so far.

  • When you move it sends half of your phages.
  • Phages in infected cells will grow to a maximum which is proportional to the size of the cell.
  • Attacking phages have a 1:2 disadvantage.

Things I haven't quite figured out.

  • Do bigger cells grow faster than small ones?
  • What are the different abilities? Strength is attacking/defending power? Speed is growth rate? Agility is phage movement speed?

I haven't been able to get this game to even load on a Mac, regardless of browser. Go figure.

complexmath wrote:

I haven't been able to get this game to even load on a Mac, regardless of browser. Go figure.

You may want to make sure you have Flash Player 10 installed. I had to upgrade my flash player manually to get it to work.

Having finished with each, I think I like white the best for its speed and found red the most challenging. Great find.

kaostheory wrote:
complexmath wrote:

I haven't been able to get this game to even load on a Mac, regardless of browser. Go figure.

You may want to make sure you have Flash Player 10 installed. I had to upgrade my flash player manually to get it to work.

Ah, that did it. Just like GalCon. I've only played as White so far, but it's great fun.

I just now finished it with my final color. The same strategy worked well for pretty much every color, although I felt I could use a more smashmouth approach with black.

strategy wrote:

[color=white]I did rapid expansion and then joint attacks for almost all missions. A few of them, the expansion would start out slower because they would pretty consistently attack early, and I needed that initial base to keep from losing a battle of attrition.
[/color]

kaostheory wrote:

I just now finished it with my final color. The same strategy worked well for pretty much every color, although I felt I could use a more smashmouth approach with black.

I settled on the same strategy--the most enjoyable games were the ones where I screwed up and had to recover. Also, has anyone else noticed that the AI isn't terribly good at expanding into neutral territory? For the cheap cost that most neutral planets can be acquired at, I don't understand why the AI would be so bent on attacking mercilessly, or why it seems to go for planets near enemies as opposed to large (ie. productive) planets. Still a fun game overall, and I really like the joint attack feature, which I believe GalCon lacks.