M.Indie Has Ninja Pirates by Game Tunnel

M.Indie by Joseph Lieberman

M.Indie Has Ninja Pirates (January 11, 2006)

That�€™s right. Ninja Pirates. Don�€™t believe me? Well, this installment takes us to the magical, bloody, and politically intriguing land of Kosumi. Kosumi, which is at the aptly named www.kosumi.com address, is a multiplayer turn-based strategy game set in Medieval Japan.

Kosumi is designed around the principal that some of us �€œold�€? gamers are busy people with lives, children, wives, and things other than video games to occupy our time. It is their belief that you can create a game that takes 15 minutes to play per session with sessions as frequent as three times a week or as not-frequent as monthly. If you fit into this busy gamer lifestyle, Kosumi may well be your salvation.

So what IS Kosumi all about? The objective is simple: Control three provinces in the game and avoid being eliminated. Achieving the simple objective is difficult. Basically, the game has three main parts which you can use to control and dominate:

Military: You have armies. You can take cities, towns, villages, and other armies by force. Accompanying the armies are Mages. Mages are extremely powerful entities, but be aware that you can never recruit more mages! Late in the game it is not uncommon that a single mage can destroy an entire city.

Diplomacy: Why fight when you can simply incite a revolt or usurp control with a small bribe? Diplomats are the fastest way to take a city without risking your soldiers. They also have some recon abilities, so don�€™t overlook them as data miners that will let you make better decisions later on. Diplomatically, your key figure is your Shogun. The Shogun is the person who can enact wide sweeping changes, increasing your influence (which determines how many actions you can take per turn) or making you more well-liked in a province. Shogun abilities are expensive!

Ninjas: When you need someone bumped off, the ninja is the best and cheapest method. Everything in Kosumi can be killed, and a well trained ninja can kill everything! Ninjas aren�€™t just about assassinating diplomats, mages, and samurai, but they are also useful in reconnaissance and they can guard your key figures! A good way for a ninja to gain rank is to have him guard a high profile target. If you are lucky, not only will you kill the attacking ninja and save your own figure, but you will increase your ninja�€™s power!

So you command many units around ancient Japan against 14 other factions. Each faction has strengths and weaknesses, and knowing those may be your key to survival and domination. While my ninja pirates (called Taira) are actually the jack-of-all-trades with some benefits in water areas, the Yamanba have the most powerful mages, and still the Ninja clan are�€� well Ninja masters!

It all sounds pretty groovy, right? The concepts behind Kosumi are incredible, this I will give it. If you have the patience to learn the system the rewards will be a game that you will be playing 10 years from now. However, like most games I play there are flaws and disadvantages to consider.

Kosumi is nothing visually stunning. There are no sound effects and no moving graphics, though most will say the style is very unique. While the lead developer at Kosumi has assured me things will continue to evolve for the better, currently the interface is somewhat clunky. It can be hard to remember what was going on and hard to understand what just happened. The overall effect is nothing more than that Kosumi has an incredibly steep learning curve. If you are a turn-based strategy fan, this is your game. If you have never heard the term PBEM (or PBM) then this may be more than you can chew.

Finally, the price on Kosumi is certainly something that needs to be considered. The game lets you play 3 games at a time for $20/month. To me, $20/month is not that much for something that I can really get into. This really means that anyone I meet in Kosumi has a vested interest in the game. I expect their higher than normal prices will lean towards a professional community and continued improvements to the game. I would also understand that some of us put things like �€œeating�€? on a slightly higher level of importance than video games. Lucky for me I am not one of them!

Kosumi is a lot like an ugly chick from California. Sure, she is ugly and yes, she is expensive to maintain, but once you get to know her it is only a matter of time before you are in love�€� and who knows, plastic surgery can fix ANYTHING.

PS: To anyone from California who is offended by the fact I just called them �€œexpensive�€?- I was talking about the OTHER side of California.

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By: Joseph Lieberman
Posted: Tuesday January 10, 2006