NEW STRATEGY GAME FOR THE 6128

[Misel982001]

Dear All

I want to create a new CPC game. I have an idea about a board strategy game that is about a WW3 scenario that I have thought about. It will not be a real time, it will be a board game with turns and still images, something which the CPC can easily handle. If anyone wants to contribute (I do not know anything about programming, I can only design the game and the pictures that will be used in it) please let me know.

[sigh]

Do you have any mock ups to post? It would help for people to see what the game would be like.

[dcdrac]

I recall Battlefield Germany from PSS and also Theatre Europe thank that was Mirrorsoft.

There was a home made WW3 game for the CPC that was global and looked primitive but worked well I had it and it was simply called World war 3 or WW3.

[dcdrac]

I had the English version this is the French one

CPCRULEZ &#9733 AMSTRAD CPC &#9733 GAMESLIST &#9733 WORLD WAR 3 (c) FREE GAME

[steve]

Since WW3 is already done, how about war of the worlds?

[TFM]

War of the worlds?

That was also already done decades ago!

[dcdrac]

it is time for a decent War of the Worlds game using the Skyrim engine for PCs I think

[steve]

War of the worlds?

That was also already done decades ago!

Too long, didn't watch,- that was a compilation of shootem-ups, unless one of them was called war of the worlds, it can still be done, and even if it had been done, it is time for a rewrite.

[TFM]

Why don't you call it WW IV, so you can use stone age sprites fighting with cudgels and spears 

[Misel982001]

Well, I dont have anything except the scenario. I will post some pics from a game that it affected my thinking. It is called WORLD AT WAR DIVIDED.

As you can see it is a board game with turns. There are no moving graphics and this will make it easier because the CPC (as we have seen in ORION PRIME) is very strong at still images. Now, the scenario. Before you read it please have in mind that what I write represent different phases of the game as it evolves and perhaps some possible options of alliances: The tenses are rising high around the globe. In 2015 The NATO is weakened after the big economic recession while the russians and the chinese along with their allies are rapidly gaining ground. The USA is almost alone to face those great powers because the European countries have almost demilitirised because of their new  economic model. Some of the former USA allies like Turkey and the Arabs are not so loyal to them and they pose a threat to Israel. The Israelis having no option but to perform a pre emtive strike against the Arab nations of Iran and Egypt. As a response the Arabs and Turkey declare war on Israel. Israel's main allies, The USA, France, Greece and Cyprus begin an effort to assist the small but brave nation. The other Arabs declare war to Israel: Syria, Jordan, Lenanon and Iraq. Afterwards they are joined by other Muslim countries: Lybia, Algeria, Morocco. Turkey also assists the Muslims. In order to create more difficulties to Israel, Turkey attacks Greece, Cyprus and Israel. The USA is pushed out from Iraq and Afganistan. The USA manages to conveince some of her NATO allies to help Israel. The USA, UK, France, Spain, the struggling Greece and Italy bring an armada to Syria. Taking advantage of the difficult situation, the Russians and the Chinese delcare that any attack on Syria will cause their intervention. The next day the Russians attack Georgia and Ukraine. In response the Polish the Hungarians and the Czechs ask for immediate assistance from the USA. The Chinese take Taiwan and assist Northern Korea to invade Southern Korea. The Japanese ask for immediate help from the USA. THis is how the war starts and continues. THere are 3 major fronts: 1) the Greek- Turkish (balkan front) combined with the middle east campaign. 2) the Eastern European Front and 3) the Far east Front. There are two aliances: NATO and the United ARAB, RUSSIAN and CHINESE armies. The NATO is weaker than those.
UNITS: Because of the limited powers of the CPC there will be only the following units: INFANTRY DIVISION, ARMORED DIVISION, ARTILLERY CORPS, AIR FLEET, HEAVY NAVAL FLEET, LIGHT NAVAL FLEET. There should be a balance: for example we need 3 infantry divisions to take out an armored division etc. The movement will be in turns and there must be a production phase where the players build up their forces. there must be a 2 player mode. Well guys this is my idea. Please be sincere with me. THanx for your time.

[Misel982001]

https://www.google.gr/search?hl=el&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=950&q=world+at+war+divided&oq=world+at+war+divided&gs_l=img.3...1633.5517.0.5596.20.13.0.7.3.0.159.1267.4j9.13.0....0...1ac.1.27.img..7.13.864.GtkGDxS3STw#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=d8nwxwGUMZu2AM%3A%3Bs0Kq0wV0P7EiVM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.gamingupdate.com%252Fimages%252Fnewsimages%252F1299761742-s330europezoomedin1939.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.gamingupdate.com%252Fgary-grigsbys-world-at-war-a-world-divided%3B800%3B600


copy and paste this to see how the game will look. This is taken from the board game world at war divided

[MacDeath]

Strategy game

Once again, a domain were the CPC and its overscan display and 6128 config could have shined even mode...

Games like Heroquest or SpaceCrusade were plagued by shitty speccy ports*.

Tactical squad wargames could really have been a CPC stapple actually.
Or pure wargames as well.
Or anything turn by turn...
Or pure RPGs...

*games were good despite shitty port, but still... badly used Mode1, 256x192 res... not enough 128K+many disk accesses... WTF ?

[dcdrac]

I agree the cpc cold have stood out if full on cpc versions of all those games had been done instead of ports

[MacDeath]

= Sid meier's Pirates!
Graphical C64 port, graphics coud really have shined a lot more on CPC, I mean, Caribbean can be done well with CPC palette (see les passagers du vent).

=Bard's Tale :
the exact same !!! C64 was even ported from AppleII...

and so on.

Using CPC with silly "attributed graphics" in mode0 with 4 colours per 4x8 and done for a palette with 6 greys and 5 browns only (+black and white) if quite silly...

Also, this old era saw nice japanese games...






I think the company was "koei"...
Was mostly on :
=NEC PC8XX1 in 640x2000x8
=IBM (Amstrad PC1512?) EGA in 640x200x8 (actually 16 but straight ports in 8 colours only)
=MSX...256x192x16... hey, CPC could then do it in 192x256x16 I guess...

I really think Japanese could have done great games on CPC provideed we asked them, gave CPC and got contract manufactured there...

Even Those silly arcade speccy ports could have been better and even cheaper I guess...


This said, Yie Ar' KungFu 2 was somewhat a loosy MSX port...


Following : resized 192x256xmode0... somewhat lol...

[Misel982001]

I see you have some ideas!Is anyone willing to participate in this project with me?Just have in mind that I dont know anything about programming!

[MacDeath]

Neither do I.


But before coding for a strategy game, you can actually design the game system... it's like writing a pen and paper game.
You also design the interfaces, the settings of the screen and so on, the "fluff" (storytelling).


Need to know a bit the CPC/hardware limitations so you don't do something too big or else it will never be manageable by a 4mhz and 128K machine.


But a good wargame mustn't be too big actually ore els it is unplayable IMHO.


Tactical squad wargame could be better perhaps.

[sigh]

Neither do I.


But before coding for a strategy game, you can actually design the game system... it's like writing a pen and paper game.
You also design the interfaces, the settings of the screen and so on, the "fluff" (storytelling).


Need to know a bit the CPC/hardware limitations so you don't do something too big or else it will never be manageable by a 4mhz and 128K machine.


But a good wargame mustn't be too big actually ore els it is unplayable IMHO.


Tactical squad wargame could be better perhaps.

MacDeath is definitely right.


It would really help to show some game design or graphic concepts. This will make it so much easier for the programmer to understand what it is your trying to achieve. You could do this by story boarding the gameplay with images so the programmer has an understand the pacing and tone of the game. You also need to plan out the hud elements in regards to how you display the battles on screen, the accompanying sound effects/music, the structure of how the story is worked into the game, whether it be comic book images or text and if so, how where will they be displayed on screen?


At the moment - you've written about different units, but there's nothing on how things are actually being controlled on screen. How would the 2 player mode work? If it's split screen versus, then you would need to layout what that would actually like and how you would fit all the information regarding the activities of both players.

[Misel982001]

hm...ok. I'll be back with more details soon.

[MacDeath]

At the moment - you've written about different units, but there's nothing on how things are actually being controlled on screen. How would the 2 player mode work? If it's split screen versus, then you would need to layout what that would actually like and how you would fit all the information regarding the activities of both players.

Battles Isles enables split screen and was damn fun.

Who said Germans can't into Games
Blue Byte Software did lots of nice games actually.

The Settlers as well.


Because of the super overscan display it can be nice in mode0 (keep within a safe zone)
But this means less RAM and less CPU as well.

Wargame = turn by turn so no need for 50Hz refresh, lol, nor double buffering display things...
Also many "modern" upgrades can be nice and are actually emulated...

=ROMbox : perfect to store some graphics like nice Font/Letters, cursors, and a few extra things. This really helps to free some precioussss RAM as well.
=BryceMouse : in case a MMX mouse is not enough
=3"1/2 disk Drive : yeah because nothing say "good" like a 720K disk you don't need to turn or change.

With all those, a 128K machine may be enough.
(And now with extra AY for badass ambiant sounds and tunes, timer and so on, thx Syx and Fano and the others).

But saddly CPC/PLUS are a bit short on network solution at the moment ... but this would be great then...

Needless to say, on a PLUS the sprites are good for an easy mouse pointer and added colours/icons.
Scrolling may not need to be better than simple squares mode1 in 8x8 scrolling...
But still would be nice to know the deepth of the game, it's gameplay and style.
Isometric is nice but graphically heavy.

Squares ? Hexagons ?
individual management ? Squad management ? Epic scale management ?
integalactic wars ? all of them ? Good wargame usually manage at least 2+3 scales

Tech levels managements ? Production ?


Also Fog of War can be a bitch to handle...

And so on.

On CPC:
Nord et Sud.
Star Raider 2  (soemwhat wargame)
Battle of Britain
Heroquest, LaserSquad, SpaceCrusade, War in Middle Eatrth... too much Mode1...
I remember Empire from Loriciel as well. nice and simple.
Defender of the crown...

All of them good examples, with a bit of action in it sometimes.

But any good "Goldenbox" RPG can be considered wargame actually.
I actually got more wargames on PC at the time, because you need to be older to appreciate those games and you need a more powerfull computer as well, and there were so many more on Dos PCs.

Some other examples :
=Syndicate (real time but tech advancements )
=Any tabletop game from Games Workshop...
==>Warhammer : shadow of the horned rat or Dark Omen
==>Space hulk
==>Final Liberation (Epic40K with fucking titans FTW !!!)

=many boardgames as well.
=Civilisation (too big)
=Sim city (sort of)
=Those japanese games from Koei... could port the MSX versions if they exist in English.
=Riders of Rohan (on PC)
=DOTA-league of legend ?
=Heroes of Might and Magic ?
=Tower Defence games ?


Up to you to get inspired...




Oh, dwarf Fortress was originally an ASCII game...

[dcdrac]

Sorcerer Lord
Vulcan
crete 1941
The Encylopedia of war
Guadalcanal
Firestorm
All those came out for the CPC

[Gryzor]

I almost stopped reading at "The USA, France, Greece and Cyprus begin an effort to assist the small but brave nation"... Better leave politics out of it, the rest is a fine hypothetical scenario (except for Russia invading Georgia and the Ukraine and China assisting N. Korea in invading the South; these need to be fleshed out quite a bit more).


I think you would also need separate airforce units, a bomber command and a fighter command. These correspond to reality much closer without being overly complex. Also, keep in mind that whether three infantry divisions are needed to knock out one armoured division must also depend on whether a unit is attacking or in defense, and also on the setting - urban background vs open space.

[TFM]

Well, I'm not sure if I post this question on the right planet. Regarding your history probably not. But I give it a try...




Can you imagine  - and thereby I try to stick with the name of the thread - a strategy game without any fighting or conflicts? If there is the smallest chance of that, then you should consider such a game, because if poses bigger tasks on the player than just battle around again.

[dcdrac]

Like Sim city? or wasn't there a game where you had to contain virus outbreaks?

and Armageddon Man where you had to prevent wars

[Puresox]

Was that Contamination?

[Bryce]

Like Leasure suit Larry?

Bryce.