![\"CW1\"](\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/04\/cw1.jpeg?w=620\")
<\/h3>\n<\/h3>\nOf all the modern board games that constitute the current golden age of tabletop gaming\u200a\u2014\u200ayour Settlers of Catans<\/em>, your Ticket to Rides<\/em>, your Pandemics<\/em>\u200a\u2014\u200aone looms larger than all the others, like a mythical icon made of dice and cardboard.<\/p>\n That game is Twilight Struggle<\/em>, a behemoth of a board game famous for its epic rulebook, length and depth of strategy. And this week, it\u2019s being given a\u00a0new, digital life<\/a> with a release for P.C. and Mac via Steam.<\/p>\n Its unique strategic element involves playing cards derived from real-life capitalists versus Commies events\u200a\u2014\u200asay, Reagan\u2019s \u201ctear down this wall<\/a>\u201d speech or the Cuban Revolution\u200a\u2014\u200aand reshaping the game world based on how well one side can mitigate the other\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n That description doesn\u2019t nearly do justice to this incredibly complex, award-winning game, where one must imagine and prepare for dozens of potential moves every turn.<\/p>\n And just like in the actual Cold War, it usually embroils a player in crisis, paranoia and threats of starting nuclear Armageddon. That fact kept it at thevaunted top slot on BoardGameGeek.com\u2019s<\/a> ranking of more than 80,000 games for five years, until it was usurped by newcomer Pandemic Legacy<\/em><\/a>earlier this year.<\/p>\n For my money, Twilight Struggle<\/em> looks poised to retake that top spot afterPandemic Legacy<\/em>\u2019s honeymoon phase is over. Pandemic<\/em>, however, is also an incredible great game.<\/p>\n Translating such an intricate game to computers isn\u2019t easy. Its print publisher, GMT Games, tried once before and ended up canceling the project in 2014 \u201cafter a long and challenging development process.\u201d This version, developed by Playdek, came about via a Kickstarter<\/a> that launched in June 2014. Less than a month later, the campaign raised $391,047, dwarfing its $50,000 goal.<\/p>\n The digital version is faithful to the tabletop original, with a sleek user interface and transitions between turns. It will also solve one of the game\u2019s biggest problems\u200a\u2014\u200afinding someone to play with. It\u2019s not simple to convince a friend to read a couple dozen pages of rules and strategy, and even less so to sit them down for a game that could easily last six hours.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a challenge one might encounter even among like-minded gamers at a brick-and-mortar store\u2019s tabletop night, given the length. An online multiplayer component is just what struggling Strugglers could use.<\/p>\n Playdek says that post-release, it\u2019ll work on developing the A.I. system, and it has also promised a mobile release on iOS and Android<\/a>, \u201cwith other platforms to follow after.\u201d<\/p>\n As they say, the Cold War never really ended.<\/p>\n This story originally appeared at Motherboard.<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\nTwilight Struggle<\/em>, first published in 2005, is a two-player game that pits the United States and the Soviet Union against each other in a re-imagining of the Cold War. Players jockey for control of countries around the world, scoring points based on how much territory they\u2019ve accumulated through influence and coups.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nSo far, the community has praised the easy-to-adapt-to interface as well as cosmetic additions like the mood-setting Cold War sound effects and audio clips Playdek has integrated into the game. However, a consistent critique so far is that the A.I. opponent in single-player is buggy and slow, so expect playtime to last quite a while until that\u2019s fixed.<\/div>\n