“Sir, reports from HQ say that there are five U-boats in this area.†The Battle of the Atlantic comes to the game table. An Interview with Alan Eagle, Designer of “Corvette Commandâ€
“This is a story of the Battle of the Atlantic, the story of the ocean, two ships, and a handful of men. The men are the heroes; the heroines the ships. The only villain is the sea, the cruel sea that man has made more cruel….†The opening lines of the 1953 movie “The Cruel Sea†captures the feel of Alan Eagle’s recent solitaire game “Corvette Commandâ€. In the game, the player takes on the role of the commander of an Flower class corvette (These were mostly Canadian and Royal Navy vessels). The player is tasked with escorting convoys of merchant ships back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean between the United Kingdom and North America. Corvette Command creates a narrative of events in a way similar to the classic board game “B-17 Queen of the Skiesâ€. Your escort vessel is tied to supporting the convoy (barring some random events) and moves across the sea zones. In each zone, you check for a number of events and try to...
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