Making History Team Announces Making History: The Great War

[Grim.Reaper]

We started developing the game two years ago.  It's taken a while because, unlike earlier times, we are developing a lot of games now!  So our MH team was obviously smaller than when we were just working on one game.  Plus, we really iterated a lot on design before settling on the direction we wanted.  Something that worked for the period and combined the best elements of previous games.  So far, it's looking pretty good!

We will be doing Steam early access, and a pre-order beta.  I'm sure I'll be letting folks here know when it happens!

Chris--

What are the other games?

[Staggerwing]

^

http://muzzylane.com/projects

http://muzzylane.com/sandstone

[MuzzyDev]

What are the other games?

We've got a number of current games for education, business, and healthcare, including "Government in Action", a game we developed for college students taking American Government classes where you play a member of Congress!  That's gotten a lot of national media attention.  The first MH game was aimed at high schools and colleges, then adapted to the commercial market.  The Great War will get teacher materials to support informal learning (instructor guides, handouts, that sort of thing), but it's designed as a commercial strategy game first and foremost.

Some first-time screenshots have been posted at Strategy Informer:
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/makinghistorythegreatwar/screenshots.html

Chris--

[Michael Dorosh]

WWI (is) a very cool time period, and while perhaps not well suited to a tactical wargame because of the static trench warfare

I understand your focus may be at the higher operational or strategic levels, but I did want to respond to this. I agree with your opening that 1914-1918 is an interesting historical period, and I would also suggest that it is a very good era suited to tactical games. It was an incredibly dynamic period, where armies went from literally Napoleonic era tactics to Second World War era tactics in the space of four years. In 1914, armies used infantry companies as the basic unit of maneuver, and deployed artillery in the front lines firing over open sights. By 1918, the norm was indirect fire, small assault groups, and many of the same techniques of combined arms that the German Army was later credited with "inventing" in 1939. The period is perhaps one of the least understood in military history, probably because so much happened in the space of four years it is very difficult to grasp just how it happened, or who should get credit. Complicating things is the fact that the war was such a colossal and ghastly waste in terms of human lives that every other facet of it seems beside the point, almost to the point of ghoulishness to try and point out that anything positive may have come from it.

[son_of_montfort]

What are the other games?

We've got a number of current games for education, business, and healthcare, including "Government in Action", a game we developed for college students taking American Government classes where you play a member of Congress!  That's gotten a lot of national media attention.  The first MH game was aimed at high schools and colleges, then adapted to the commercial market.  The Great War will get teacher materials to support informal learning (instructor guides, handouts, that sort of thing), but it's designed as a commercial strategy game first and foremost.

Some first-time screenshots have been posted at Strategy Informer:
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/makinghistorythegreatwar/screenshots.html

Chris--

I'm interested, Chris, how does one get the instructor material when they buy MH:The Great War and will that be at an extra cost?

[MuzzyDev]

WWI (is) a very cool time period, and while perhaps not well suited to a tactical wargame because of the static trench warfare

I understand your focus may be at the higher operational or strategic levels, but I did want to respond to this. I agree with your opening that 1914-1918 is an interesting historical period, and I would also suggest that it is a very good era suited to tactical games. It was an incredibly dynamic period, where armies went from literally Napoleonic era tactics to Second World War era tactics in the space of four years. In 1914, armies used infantry companies as the basic unit of maneuver, and deployed artillery in the front lines firing over open sights. By 1918, the norm was indirect fire, small assault groups, and many of the same techniques of combined arms that the German Army was later credited with "inventing" in 1939. The period is perhaps one of the least understood in military history, probably because so much happened in the space of four years it is very difficult to grasp just how it happened, or who should get credit. Complicating things is the fact that the war was such a colossal and ghastly waste in terms of human lives that every other facet of it seems beside the point, almost to the point of ghoulishness to try and point out that anything positive may have come from it.

You're right, of course.  I was referring to the early part of the war, when defense was, in general, far superior to offense.  As you've pointed out, the evolution of strategy throughout the war--driven by new doctrines, tactics and inventions like tanks, as well as pure attrition--gradually shifted to give offense the advantage.  This will be modeled in the game.

And yeah, winning the war in this game won't mean you come out smelling like a rose.  You will probably be much weaker, and there is a good chance you will be broke.

[MuzzyDev]

What are the other games?

We've got a number of current games for education, business, and healthcare, including "Government in Action", a game we developed for college students taking American Government classes where you play a member of Congress!  That's gotten a lot of national media attention.  The first MH game was aimed at high schools and colleges, then adapted to the commercial market.  The Great War will get teacher materials to support informal learning (instructor guides, handouts, that sort of thing), but it's designed as a commercial strategy game first and foremost.

Some first-time screenshots have been posted at Strategy Informer:
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/makinghistorythegreatwar/screenshots.html

Chris--

I'm interested, Chris, how does one get the instructor material when they buy MH:The Great War and will that be at an extra cost?

In the past we've supplied them as free downloads.  I have not heard that this will change for TGW.