Bomber Crew - FTL + WWII

14 October 1943. 1400 hours. 25,000 feet over Germany.
“Roll call,” said Raines. “Everyone okay?”
Six of us said our names over the intercom.
“Matthew? Carl? You all right?”
No response.
A minute later Olivetti spoke up. “They’re gone. Waist is shot to hell. Steinberg’s lucky to be alive.” The waist gunners were stationed in the fuselage above my head.

1410 hours.
A hundred Messerschmitts attacked our formation, but we drove them off. Or maybe they just ran out of ammo. We took a lot of hits. Olivetti bought the farm along with the co-pilot and the navigator. Raines cursed for ten minutes straight. The cockpit must have been a terrible mess.

1425 hours.
Our radioman was hit by a single stray .50 caliber round, probably friendly fire from another bomber. The tail gunner stopped responding on intercom, but the Germans weren’t letting up and no one was left to check his condition. I knew he was dead because there was no more firing from back there.

1440 hours.
“Pilot to bombardier. Approaching target.” I could hear the tension in Raines’ voice.
“Corey? You all right?” A long pause and Raines’ drawl came back on the intercom. “Fucking Corey. Bled out without saying a word. I guess there’s not much more we can do.”
The Blue Devil banked hard left, turning 180 degrees. Heading home. By my count there were two of us left alive on board, me and Raines.

That’s pretty cool! Your uncle seems to have done a kind of real life Forest Gump. He must have some amazing tales to tell.

I grabbed the game, and anybody who knows me know that I have some of the worst twitch reflexes in the world. And yet, while I am very bad at action games, I manage somewhat to not fail miserably all the time (still often) in Bomber Crew.
I only spent a couple of hours playing, but I can only find the game wonderful.
The choice of real-time is actually a very smart one: it is what is pushing the theme. If you could pause, the game would be just some FTL clone, as implied often. This isn’t its aim: if anything, Bomber Crew reminds me of Massive Chalice because of what I think is a misunderstanding of the game authors’ intentions. This isn’t as much of a strategy game you have to crack as it is a panic simulator. Again, in a way somewhat reminding me of Massive Chalice, when you keep everything under control, it may go fine, but then something slips, which lead you to something else slipping, and you are caught in the middle of a cataclysmic avalanche. That avalanche is heavily dependant on you being faced by a lot ot things going on at once, and (probably) choosing poorly. I understand the need to pause on purpose, but it would destroy the very mean of the game.
If anything, beyond the cartooney look, it is a vibrant homage to the insanely brave men like Grifman’s uncle who were flying those paper fortresses.
What a wonderful little game.

Now, where to watch 12’o’clock high again!

Whisper it, but I still have my original seven crew members going.

I took it very carefully and replayed the standard missions a bunch before moving on to the stage-critical mission, so that I could pimp the crew and the bomber. I now have the auto-feeder for the tail gun and the special ability for the radioman that lets me auto-tag fighters within radar range, which lowers the CLICK ALL THE THINGS urgency in a serious fight.

I’ve also armoured everyone as much as possible based on how much moving around they have to do. With the auto-feeder in place now the tail gunner should hopefully never have to move, so he gets all the gear regardless of how heavy it is - same for the Pilot. The Engineer is our most-lightly armoured crewemember as she has to move around between sections to fix mechanical issues and is our back-up Medic.

One of the weaknesses for the game is the use of altitude. So much of the game has you flying at low alt. due to visibility, which puts you in range of all Flak and all the fighters too. Medium altitude is sometimes possible over the target if cloud cover is patchy, but frequently your navigator won’t be able to spot waypoints so you can’t fly home.

High altitude is pushed as a place where some fighters can’t go, but you also can’t see to bomb or navigate from up there. There’s a skill later for the navigator that lets him use the stars, but that’s only available for night missions.

Having a lot of fun with this one though. We’ll see how that fun holds up once the 262s start poking cannon holes in Old Bill.

Excellent point.

OMG it looks like that??? Hate the little kiddie vibe. I was going to buy it based on this thread but no longer. Thanks for the warning!

I am normally completely in agreement about the kiddie look. But in this case I’m willing to overlook it because the gameplay is so good. Once you’re in the middle of a furball it’s easy to ignore. At least for me.

I’m having a lot of trouble on one of the first few missions with crap going wrong. Fighters attack while I’m trying to bomb something, then people start getting hurt, I have to reload, and shit just goes haywire way too quickly. Very frustrating - are there keyboard shortcuts that I’m somehow missing?

Edit - well, was able to “complete” my 4th mission but didn’t notice one of my wheels was missing so OOPS, lost 2 crew members and my plane in a crash landing. Will have to start over.

It’s amazing either of them made it home given the casualty rates for bomber crews.

Hey @Brooski I’ll make you an offer. It seems that @tomchick already has the game. So I’ll buy you a copy with a condition or two. A Tom vs. Bruce kinda thing. You both start the game with the same basic stuff. Each of you run through the campaign. The person with the best score at the end wins. What do you say?

Extra points for making it sound like a mission log kind of thing. Like @Miramon did.

Heh. That was excerpts from a short story written before I knew this game existed :)

It actually reminded me of the movie Catch 22. I was going to cut and paste the actual text but it’s rather dark.

I’m up (down?) if @tomchick is.

Caveat is I am basically out of commission for the next eight weeks due to work schedule.

Oh, it is on. Let’s find out who can bomb Nazis better!

That should give me some time to practice.

-Tom

Hey in 8 weeks there will be a couple steam sales too. :)

Not mine, but I think the strategy is solid.

Hahaha

So … armor or extinguishers first?

Compare/contrast

You mean the ítem or the one the that goes in the engines? You should always carry One fire extinguisher for fires inside the plane, if your engines are on fire you can always use the dive skill to put them off.