Defcon, the third title from mainstay independent developer Introversion, simulates thermonuclear war using nothing but a luminescent map of the world and a cohort of glowing ship, radar and missile-shaped icons. The experience of irradiating mainland America, or laying waste to the population of Africa is distilled entirely in a few Uranium-white blips and the creepy ambience of sobbing women and the rumble of exploding ICBMs.

Playing Defcon is rather easy, and enjoyed with two or more human players. The game is broken into five stages, or Defcon levels. You start at Defcon 5, where you’re limited to placing your radar dishes (to detect incoming fighters and missiles), silos (your nuke warehouses and air defence) and airfields (to deploy fighters and bombers). Defcon 4 allows you to place fleets of battleships, carriers and subs and finally, when Defcon 3 hits, you can open up on your opponents. But only once the timer hits Defcon 1 can your silos open their massive steel doors and let loose radioactive death.

The presentation as you may have gathered from the screen shots is quite simple, a design choice that should have left Introversion with time to focus on the gameplay. Indeed, there are the makings of a great game hiding underneath the simplistic exterior. Unfortunately, a lack of precise control of fleets and air units makes the game less about strategy and more about random clicking, followed by copious amounts of prayer. After your first few games you’ll lose interest, mainly because the game’s outcome is almost always the same, regardless of your actions.

Defcon is fun, but only the first few times around when you’re still trying to figure out how everything works. It doesn’t have the staying power of more in-depth titles of its kind, like Harpoon, and although its design is a conscious choice by Introversion, it works against the game in the long run.