[iPad] Assault Wave: real time WWII tactical action

Started by Aniway, March 01, 2013, 03:30:24 AM

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Bismarck

Jim Cobb

Centurion40

Any time is a good time for pie.

Aniway


spelk

I suppose I have to ask, is this going to be ported over to Android anytime in the future?

Aniway


Michael Dorosh

I see battlefront is marketing it as "chess with machineguns". I'm not even sure what that is supposed to mean. A look at the official forums shows almost no buzz whatsoever yet about this product.  The official forum for their other handheld game, Combat Mission: Touch has never generated a lot of discussion in their official forum either, but I don't suppose these kind of games are the kind of thing you sit around talking about online, you just play them and forget them (I probably play more Minesweeper and Freecell than anything when I'm killing time, and never once felt the need to join a discussion group about them, so it would be a bad metric of popularity...)

I guess I'm curious to know how this will affect their Combat Mission: Touch product?  I don't imagine it will have to compete for resources, since battlefront uses a number of different developers, nor even compete for sales, since there are so few of these kind of games on the market - if you like one, you'll probably buy both. But I seem to recall some criticism of Touch not being developed fully or quickly.

Battlefront seems to have a lot of strange plans and conflicting products. Theatre of War is a 3-D RTS that seems to be in the same realm as the PC version of Combat Mission. Now they have two hand-held combat sims. Just seems like a strange arrangement, made more mystifying by their habit of surprise announcements with little advance notice.

GJK

BFC hasn't been the best at marketing, especially with the cold shoulder that they tend to throw upon their customers.  Frankly, I think that they see how Matrix has pulled in other resources (Slitherine, et al) to make cross-platform, cross-genre games and there's probably a little pressure for them to do so as well.

I would also imagine that they are putting out their feelers for the tablet market like most everybody else is.  I'm not an IOS or Android programmer, but my speculation is that the programming is not nearly as much as a resource or time investment as a "regular" PC game so these things can be developed and polished and pushed out to the market without the overhead that you'd get otherwise.  Somebody do some research - what is the best selling app of all time and how much money has it pulled in?  I don't feel like looking that up but I imagine that Angry Birds did ok on its ROI.  Take the niche wargaming market and if you get lucky and hit with an Angry Birds equivalent, then the developer might make some nice coin. 

More on topic in relation to Mr. Aniway's "Assault Wave" game; congratulations on your impending release.  I haven't read Jim's review but my initial reaction was "health bars and first aid stations, hmmmm" but as Michael suggests, this could be a fun little time killer.  I'll have to look for it once it is available on the Android platform.

Clip your freaking corners!
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Aniway

Sorry it took some time to respond, thank you for the thoughts gents.
Naturally we do not represent Battlefront, and can't speak for them. Answering here what I know of/can to the best of our abilities.

@Michael:
Agree that iPad games don't typically (yet) generate the same kind of lively conversation than e.g. PC or console games.

We are an independent developer, and haven't taken up any resources from e.g. Combat Mission: Touch.

@GJK:
Tablet & mobile phone game market is growing quite fast, hence majority of publishers (including Battlefront) are interested in those platforms as well, with more than one game in the portfolio - at least for future's sake.

Long story short: according to our experience, iOS/Android game development is not automatically easier nor faster than e.g. developing for PC. Naturally it's a matter of available budget and time for development: perhaps you are able to develop a very simple casual game quite fast, but in the end the polishing does take time when done properly (e.g. Rovio/Angry Birds quality). It is true that currently the iPad game development budgets are very low when compared to e.g. AAA PC or console title development costs, and much smaller team is needed when making for example an iPad game.

Angry Birds is quite an exception amongst mobile games, naturally wouldn't mind making a wargaming equivalent of that ;)

And thank you, hope you'll eventually find out that the Assault Wave indeed is a fun game. 

spelk

@Aniway

Have your company any plans to delve into more niche 'proper' wargames at any point in the future (obviously) possibly dependant upon how Assault Wave performs financially?

Whilst we're all partial to the casual war-related mobile/tablet games, what a lot of us here crave is a proper wargame, done well, made accessible but with chits and maps, formations, historical depth/accuracy and decent combat resolution. More Small General than Angry Birds, I guess.

Aniway

@spelk

Naturally hard to say at this point what the future brings along. Some of the games (series) that we play/have played a lot on PC, and are very fond of, include Combat Mission, Close Combat, Steel Panthers, Panzer general and Hearts of Iron (some of them have their iPad ports/counterparts) - definitely not ruling out "proper" wargames.

Aniway

Hello,

Assault Wave will be released to the AppStore this Thursday, June 27th :)


Aniway

Howdy,

here are 2 promo codes for the Assault Wave (iPad) :)

KT7KL3TPF94E
J7T4MERTNJAN

If you grab one successfully, would be great if you could reply to this thread so others would know the code is no longer  available.

Instructions on how to redeem:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1574

We'll be distributing more promo codes on the forum (do note that you need to register to the forum before you can download an attachment that contains a code):
http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=110597

Barthheart

The first code worked for me.
Thanks Aniway!
I'll take the game for a spin and report back.
8)

Aniway

Good to hear & thanks!

Do check out the Quick Reference Guide (link below) if you want an overview of the UI and instructions on how to record & share video of your battle :)

http://www.battlefront.com/images/stories/AW/assault-wave-quick-reference-card.png