John Wick Hex - Baba Yaga WEGO-ish Sim

Having watched John Wick for the 3rd time in preparation for this game, I just had to create a thread since I couldn’t find one. It’s John Wick Hex, a sort of WEGO tactical game by Mike Bithell (of Thomas Was Alone fame) based on the popular movie series (to which it serves as a prequel) and developed in close cooperation with Lionsgate. Epic Games exclusive, at least for now.

It comes out on October 8th (tomorrow at the time of this posting) and I’ll be sure to post my impressions as soon as I can. Anyone else interested?

I was hoping for a supernatural revenge slasher of an Okami spin-off.

Not that Baba Yaga, alas. ;)

Already pre-ordered it. Can’t wait.

Yep, I picked it up a while back now so looking forward to playing it.

There are certain editions of John Wick 3 which come with a 50%-off coupon for this game. Anyone know which ones and where?

This is actually a nice little BBC interview with Mike Bithell. Tweet provided for some additional context:

Hmm, so far – about an hour in – I’m worried this is going to get really repetitive fast. :(

-Tom

The mechanics are obviously different but this giving off metal gear acid vibes.

Oh, man, it would be so much cooler if John Wick Hex had collectible cards! I am not even joking.

-Tom

Yeah, I’ve done 2 “worlds” now and it was the same thing. I was expecting this to grow and change some, maybe through the planning upgrade purchases? But they don’t seem very interesting so far. There were a few new enemy types to shake things up, but so far they were just the same enemies with more hp. Hoping the game changes up a bit after this, but getting to the 3rd world planning is not particularly encouraging.

Yep, that’s exactly where I am. As for the coin purchases getting more interesting, that’s my hope as well. But, really, I can’t imagine what they can do to add more variety to the basic mechanics. John Wick doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to ever get, like, a shotgun or grenades or a cloaking device.

-Tom

Wtf is WEGO?

Both players enter orders, and then they’re executed simultaneously. I remembering hearing the term used way back when for Combat Mission.

-Tom

Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord going back to 2000 is where I first encountered WEGO

And at least as it was implemented in that series it’s really rather brilliant. Each side issues the next minute of battle orders on both sides and then the replay shows that minute of battle play out to see what happened.

Used in playing against a human opponent via PBEM I found plotting your turn, exchanging turns and then seeing the outcome play out was unrivaled tension as you watched it unfold.

It’s a way to mix turn-based gameplay with simultaneous actions, instead of “taking turns” (which, in comparison, is called IGOUGO). Combat Mission pretty much pioneered it, but there are other examples - most AGEOD games, Flotilla, Frozen Synapse, to name the most important ones.

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock is WEGO as well, pretty much.

Oh yeah, it is and it’s awesome.

If nobody minds, here’s our review of the game:

Although there are loads more out there amongst the bigger sites if you haven’t seen them already.

Can you comment on the remarks above about the game getting stale?