T w e n t y S i d e d

He’s going to be in Afghanistan for the next six months. He’s going to be living in a compound. He’ll have a laptop, but probably not internet access. He’s going to spend a lot of time stuck in his room. (Perhaps all of his non-working hours.) What games should he take along to keep himself entertained?

This is a bit like the Games for Castaways post from a few years ago, except you’re not limited to just three games. What would you take with you in this situation?

1. Hard drive space is limited. You can’t just install every downloadable game and pick through them later.
2. No internet connection. Games which require online activation are a no-go. Even if you activate them before you leave, you never know when adding an external harddrive or adding a service pack or updating some drivers will cause the game to want to re-activate.
3. Games which rely heavily on multiplayer are right out.
4. The games have got to be self-contained on your hard drive. You don’t want to have to drag a bunch of disks all over the world.
5. Steam-based games might be risky. If Steam throws one of its fits like it does sometimes, it might insist on re-connecting before it will let you into your games again. I have had people allege that this is no longer a problem, and others claim it is. Given the risk, I’d steer clear of Steam games for this trip. (Or at least make sure you don’t rely on them.)
6. The games should offer robust replay value. A FPS is of low replay while taking up a ton of disk space. Nethack is minuscule and offers endless hours of soul-sucking frustration amusement.
7. Let’s assume your laptop is reasonably up-to-date, but not cutting-edge.

You can either answer the question as to what you would personally take in the given situation, or you can offer advice to the reader who emailed me. (He likes strategy games, and I assume is using Windows.)

My own suggestions, from a variety of different genres & tech levels

Dwarf Fortress. People keep recommending this game so passionately that I don’t dare go near it. It’s unsuitable for comics, probably unsuitable for a review series, and apparently it’s so habit-forming the FDA is considering making it a controlled substance. I’m sure the game is tiny and it purportedly has immense replay value. It’s certainly worth sticking on your hard drive before you go. Ditto for Nethack.

X-Com, for all the reasons I discussed in the link you just passed up.

Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 – Probably one of my best-loved best games that I’ve never reviewed. Downside: The game requires the CD be in the drive. Yes, I’m sure there’s a crack for that sort of thing. You’d have to decide for yourself if the game is worth the trouble.

Mount & Blade – A reader just recently provided a copy of this to me as a gift over Steam. I’ve only just glanced at it. (A two-hour long glance.) Given the scope and depth here, I barely even grasped the dimensions of the thing. I believe the game is available as a full download outside of Steam, which should make it ideal for a trip like this.

Oblivion OR Morrowwind – You probably don’t need both, as they provide a very similar gaming experience. I believe that the latest patches (which you absolutely must get before leaving) will disable the CD check so you can leave the disk at home. Morrowwind has a better story. Oblivion is prettier. I’m betting if you spend a lot of time cooped up you’ll develop a bad case of wanderlust, and these games might scratch that itch.

Master of Orion 2 – My correspondent already has this one, but I list it here for completeness. It’s small yet deep.

Fallout – Available on Good old Games for $5.99, which – given the value of the game – is basically robbing them at their own request. A large and complex RPG world with lots of interesting turn-based strategy gameplay, available for direct download.

Obligatory: Nobody wants to hear your thoughts on any wars that might be going on. Let’s keep this on-topic, thanks. If it helps, just imagine you’re going to stay in The Republic of Has No Videogames-istan.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.