A big strategy games festival called TactiCon is underway on Steam. The online event, hosted by indie games publishers Hooded Horse and Firesquid, is a celebration of “strategy games both big and small,” and it includes speaker panels, game demos, and Steam discounts on a wide range of more than a hundred indie strategy games.
There’s something for just about every kind of strategy player at TactiCon. If you’re into sci-fi, you might want to check out USC: Counterforce, while fantasy board games fans will want to give Gloomhaven a good look. Beaver-based city builder Timberborn will be at the show, as will the brutal D&D-inspired RPG game Vagrus: The Riven Realms.
Organisers Hooded Horse and Firesquid say they’ve also lined up more than 20 speakers from around the world to participate in talks and panels that explore “the unique and challenging topics around strategy games in 2020.”
September 22 features a panel on designing co-op multiplayer deckbuilding games starting at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 7pm BST, with a panel called ‘Tactics of the Future’ to follow at 1pm PT / 4pm ET / 9pm BST.
September 23 starts off at 8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm BST with a discussion about creating narrative experiences in strategy games, with a talk on tactical depth within player freedom starting at the top of the following hour. Then at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 7pm BST, acclaimed 4X game designer Soren Johnson will join Heart of the Machine designer and studio founder Chris McElligott Park, Resistance Games creative director Jussi Autio, and Amplitude Games game designer William Dyce for a panel titled “The Challenge of Designing the Core Game Loop of Strategy Games.”
There’s another full slate of talks set for September 24. You can tune into TactiCon on Steam, which is where you’ll also find sales and demos for more than a hundred new and upcoming strategy games. The official TactiCon site has all the details.