If you’re a fan of building and management games like Two Point Hospital, maybe I can interest you in a sim that features the types of characters that put people in the hospital.
I’m talking about soldiers. A Camp is a base building and management game where you’re in charge of a—well, you can probably guess from the name. Recruit new soldiers, train them in different specialties such as operations, artillery, explosives, medics and infantry, and even upgrade them to elite operators such as spies, pilots and tank drivers.
To do this, you’ll need to turn your run-down little army camp into a booming operation, complete with training buildings, obstacle courses, observation towers, warehouses, maintenance yards and airstrips. To get your soldiers in shape, you’ll need veterans to serve as trainers, and discipline is key so you can keep everyone on a strict schedule. You will also need to manage resources such as food, equipment and supplies while keeping your camp within its budget.
But along with all the weapons training and jogging in formations and loudspeakers blaring anthems, you’ll also have to keep up the morale of your eager little soldiers by making the camp look nice with parks, squares and decorations. Provide recreational activities like ping pong tables, pinball machines, and game tables—it’s just not basic training, unless your soldiers can play a little poker now and then. (I’m basing this not on personal military experience – I’m a coward – but on every military movie I’ve ever seen.)
The detail and animation in the One Military Camp trailer looks great, with soldiers running through these rubber-filled obstacle courses, training on the shooting range, lifting weights and boxing, driving minitanks around sand dunes, and more and step carefully through laser beams in a hands-on spy course. In the trailer you can see a diver being chased by a shark in a small pool, presumably to improve his swimming skills for water missions.
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Interestingly, there is no actual violence in One Military Camp, which has to be a first for a game that trains soldiers into elite killing machines. There are missions and missions and you send your platoons of soldiers and specialists to locations on the world map via helicopter, but the carnage happens off-screen. The only real combat you’ll see seems to be if an enemy drone swoops in and starts dropping bombs on your buildings, which can be countered by building defensive measures like turrets and rocket launchers.
A Camp just announced an early access release date of March 2, and publisher Abylight Studios also revealed a road map which includes a sandbox mode coming in April, pets added in May, soldier customization options in June, and a full release targeting September.