Strategery vs Subterfuge

Dominate the world. One blob at a time. World domination isn't a very fashionable ambition these days, but that doesn't mean you can't pretend. Strategery is a battle between your pegs and the green, orange, blue, and red blobs that dare to stand in your way. It's also a little bit of App Store history. Strategery first launched in 2008, back when the App Store was barely a few months old. Macworld named it the Best Strategy Game of 2009. Slate called it their latest iPhone gaming habit. Daring Fireball said the gameplay had a great feel. And a Macworld reviewer named Lex Friedman wrote that there was no game he played on his iPhone more. That reviewer now makes Strategery. Life is funny. HOW IT'S PLAYED The world is made of blobs. Every blob holds pegs — your pegs, ideally. Pick a blob you own, point at a neighboring blob you don't, and roll. More pegs, better odds. Win the roll and the blob changes color. Lose it and, well, you still have your other blobs. Keep going until the whole map is your color and everyone else is looking for the rematch button. Your turn, your dice, your questionable decisions Bigger stacks of pegs win more rolls. Usually. Every blob you hold earns you more pegs Last color standing dominates the world. Politely. THREE WAYS TO CONQUER Solo: Play against the computer. It has no friends, no feelings, and no plans this evening. It will happily lose to you all night. (Or not. You choose how clever it gets to be.) Online: Play against your friends. Take turns from wherever you are. A push notification lets you know when it's your move, or when someone has done something regrettable to your blobs. Pass and play: One phone, one couch, several rivals. Hand it over, let them try, and try not to gloat. CLASSIC OR CHAOS Classic is the game you remember: dice, blobs, and your own poor judgment. Chaos adds starred blobs. Capture one and the wheel spins. Your conquest has consequences. Either way, you pick how much world there is to dominate. A WAR WITH NO CASUALTIES Blobs don't bleed. Pegs don't feel pain. Nothing explodes, nobody gets hurt, and the only thing that ever gets conquered is a colorful shape on a map. Somebody's pride may be wounded when you take their last blob, but that's between the two of you. For iPhone and iPad. Contains no violence, several dice, a healthy number of blobs, and a reasonable amount of whimsy. Strategery was originally designed by Sumul Shah, Courtland Idstrom, and Peter Ju. This version comes from Lex Friedman, who is one person and would be delighted by a rating or review. It's not strategy. It's Strategery.

• Multiplayer Game of the Year 2015 by Pocket Tactics * • Best Mobile Games of 2015 by CNET * Subterfuge is a week-long multiplayer game of strategy, diplomacy, and betrayal that plays out in real time. Check in for ten minutes, a few times a day: read the sonar, schedule your orders, and reply to the ally who insists the fleet massing on your border is "purely defensive." Then close the game and get on with your day while your plans execute. BUY ONCE, PLAY ANYWHERE Buying the game on mobile gives you full access to the Steam version. DRIVE THE TIME MACHINE Drag the Time Machine forward and watch tomorrow unfold. See where every visible sub will be, how combat resolves, and what your factories will have produced by Thursday. Then, schedule your own orders to execute at any moment, hours or days ahead. Launch the invasion at 4:12 a.m. without setting an alarm but remember everyone else has a Time Machine too. DEPTH THAT FITS AROUND YOUR LIFE A game of Subterfuge lasts a week or more, but a session lasts minutes. It was designed by two new parents who wanted Diplomacy-grade scheming without giving up their evenings. The strategy happens in your head and on your schedule. THE REAL MAP IS THE OTHER PLAYERS Every alliance, border pact, joint strike, and deception in Subterfuge happens in chat. None of it is enforced by the game. A treaty is worth exactly as much as the person who signed it, intel is worth exactly as much as its source, and the player feeding you sonar reports may be feeding your rival the same. Winning means reading people as sharply as you read the map. NO DICE. NO LUCK. ONLY PEOPLE. The Time Machine can show you tomorrow because there is no randomness. Every battle can be forecast down to the last driller before it happens. Recruit powerful specialists to tilt the math and bend the rules. The only truly unknowable variable in Subterfuge is human intention. COMMUNITY CROSSPLAY SINCE 2015 Join a cross-platform player pool that has kept Subterfuge alive and updated for over a decade. Play the same game from your desk and your phone. Open the war room on a second monitor at work, then answer a treacherous counter-offer from the school pickup line. A TYPICAL WEEK • Day 1: Nine polite introductions. Four proposed alliances. One of them is sincere. • Day 2: You and your neighbor agree to keep borders demilitarized. You both start counting drillers. • Day 4: Your ally proposes a joint strike on the olive. Olive has just proposed the same about your ally. • Day 5: Drill a mine. Sonar picks up a "defensive" fleet drifting towards it, thirty hours out. Plenty of time. You schedule your counter, draft two very different messages, and head to lunch. • Day 6: The trap you scheduled yesterday ago springs mid-meeting, exactly as planned. You watch it from your desk and say nothing. • Day 7: Trap closed. Olive's mine captured. • Day 8: Victory. Your former ally sends a simple message: "Well played. Rematch?"