Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator (UEBS): Fun in Inactivity

ULTIMATE Epic Battle Simulator is exactly what its title indicates, a simulator of epic battles.  

Accurate

ON the scale, “epic” is the upper boundary of what you can accomplish, so that shouldn’t discourage you from small scale encounters.  At some point, I watched 1000 Archers hold their position in the center of a city and fend off 1000 zombies funneling in from all sides.  Did it look cinematic and epic with a Triple-A showcase of animations?  Not at all and I would say that is the entire point.  

Almost

UEBS is a game the allows you to construct and observe battles across large maps filled with massive amounts of AI.  It’s developed by Brilliant Game Studios which is a “one-man show,” as their YouTube description states.  I find it enjoyable, so while I aim to talk about it accurately I am also not impartial. UEBS is simple.  From the start, after you interact with or close the Steam Workshop pop-up window, you are given your choice of units and maps all at once.  There are several maps, one of which is a flat testing ground. The rest are comprised of various snowy mountains, green fantasy plains, modern buildings, and ancient buildings in a dessert.  There's also a volcano. The maps aren’t extremely important until after you play around with the unit types.  There are eight possible different teams, and the units allowed to each come from types like “Evil” for zombies and skeletons, “Inanimate” for dressers and tables, and “WWII” for soldiers. There are also ancient Greek and Spartan warriors, sci-fi mechs, animals including dinosaurs and penguins, fantasy style heroes, and even a custom mode that allows you to play with the stats of these characters.  Make Santa OP, why not?

As you can see, we're aiming big

THERE'S some fun to be had during a laid back hour of watching zombies fight dressers fight orcs fight one golden knight in a forest.  The fun I had was in lining up my units strategically and watching them mow down other units.  The units of a team are grouped together and spawn wherever you set them on the map.  You have options like Hold Position or Attack in order to influence the battle. In Attack mode, they move around freely enough to look as though they are individuals comprising one massive unit, but each with a mind of its own.  The evidence is in micro differences in paths they take or differences in their actions such as running around the wall to fight or pressing up to the wall and waiting.  From here it’s up to your imagination.  I lined up dinosaurs and soldiers on the ends of a bridge and watched them charge each other.  I set soldiers on the opposite ends of the battlefield and made my bets.  Yearning and burning to recreate the final scene from the movie adaptation of 300?  There’s no reason not to.  I even ran around as Santa.  It should get weird because the best part was in the number of scenarios I could conjure up.  I found it particularly amusing and relaxing when I was taking a break from the competitive stuff. (I'm bad at Overwatch). Here's the run I captured!

Santa's army in some corner.

The freedom squad is here ready to throw freedom.

Holding position, just like a movie I saw once.

Don't mess with furniture.

America pretty much slaughtered Santa.  Talk about war on Christmas.

The bloodshed, the atrocity.  How could we?

Elsewhere on the battlefield.

It's not a great day to have a musket.

I can do this alone.

Never mind.

The mechs are unfair.

Really it was always going to be the lava.

THERE is a feature that allows you to assume control of a unit, and while I find it not as fun as watching the large scale battle unfold, it's still quirky and interesting.  I have talked to others who praise that feature. When controlling a unit, you can only attack while standing still, and it’s not exactly responsive.  It gives you the ability to attack in the same way the other units do, but from a different location.  What I find more fun is your choice of God Power, as it's called.  You can nuke the map. Gotta go somewhere in real life? Nuke. Since I started this draft, UEBS was updated with an FPS Invasion mode. It's a wave-based option that spawns you in first-person, with a Tommy gun, and a squad to fight zombies. I don't know how long it actually lasts, so that's up to you. It's considerably more responsive to walk around and shoot than the simulator mode. Try it out.

Killing zombies

WHILE there’s some discussion over this game and other battle sims to come, such as Totally Accurate Battle Simulator by Landfall which looks like it will focus more on physics than grandiosity, it’s important to remember this game was made by one person who seems dedicated to exploring scenarios in gameplay different than what's already out there.  It reminds me of Ska Studios, a game developer comprised of two or a few people whose games started out extremely simplistic.  One of their first games I played was a twin-stick shooter called I Made a Game with Zombies in It! (that's the whole title) in which you run around shooting zombies and laser worms until you die because it's just five minutes of fun. Eventually, they made Charlie Murder, the punk rock side scroller beat em' up, and Salt and Sanctuary, a dark fantasy side scroller that people like to compare with Dark Souls in terms of difficulty. Like Ska Studios, perhaps Brilliant Game Studios is only going up from this game, which is a meditation on one main feature, to more innovative things in the future.  Maybe the future holds a more complex battle sim complete with a map editor.  I know that’s one feature I thought would be cool.  UEBS is regardless some fun if you’re into hands-off gameplay, and I'm looking forward to whatever Brilliant Game Studios does next.

- Ben R.

Player of games

P.S.

There are also super low-end settings called “Potato” for those running some older hardware.  It's nothing serious, just fun. Brilliant Game Studios looks like they've moved towards a small team and an RPG, check out their YouTube. Use the mods. Check back here for more on them or more on other simulators. I definitely have a few in my library.

Potato