Maybe you remembered or played one of Blue Byte’s sci-fi turn-based Battle Isle titles from the 90’s. Well, I haven’t, but I understand to have been a strategy gaming series of some importance at the time. At least in Germany and Europe it seems to have been the case.
Now, KING Art Games, an independent game developer from Germany, with some turn-based tactics and turn-based strategy enthusiasts, wants to make what seems to be a spiritual successor of the Battle Isle series. And, they also mention Advance Wars and Panzer General as sources of inspiration.
So, KING Art Games is currently on Kickstarter with a proposal for Battle Worlds: Kronos, a sci-fi turn-based strategy game with an emphasis on tactical combat. Gameplay seems to be mostly about unit-movement and action-points spending. You may move a unit twice, attack first and move afterwards or the other way around. Special units may attack twice if they haven’t moved.
The type of terrain and amount of units surrounding a rival also have an effect on damage. A target unit will fire back after it has been attacked. In the process a damaged unit will deal less damage than a full-health one. Distance also plays a factor, and some units can only attack the surrounding hexes while others may attack further and even prevent a counter attack. These rules seem to form the basis of combat.
KING Art Games’ Battle Worlds: Kronos proposal in a nutshell:
- Turn-based strategy/tactics
- Military science fiction setting
- Hexagonal style maps
- 2 single-player campaigns for >30h of gameplay
- Internet, hot-seat and asynchronous (ala PBEM) multiplayer
- Windows, Mac and Linux (+Browsers for multiplayer only)
- DRM-free (box or digital)
- ETA: Alpha Q2 2013; Beta Q3 2013; Release Q4 2013.
- Target: $120,000
- $20 pledge to get game
- Why Kickstarter: Chance to find a publisher failed; Kickstarter for 1/3 of development costs to cover outsourcing expenses (music, art, effects, voice)
Things are going pretty well for KING Art Games, with more than 70K raised from their 120K goal (~58%), with 37 days still to go. Their proposal seems to have a good basis. In fact, they say to have developed a prototype for the game several years ago but didn’t manage to get a publishing deal by then. This seems to be the reason why they turn to Kickstarter now.
Here’s the pitch video. Nice and clean. And, more screenshots below.
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Impressive takes the Genre and gives it a Triple A feel that I like This could do wonders for that genre. I look forward to watching this one but sadly I don’t have the funds it back it :(
I am not easily excited. But damn their video nailed it for me. It also helped I’ve played Battle Isle games in the past.
Thanks for the update Adam, now I need to scour their kickstarter page.
Looks nice and I love turn-based.
But damn, I’m so tired of shooting at things. Can we please get some more ‘build things’ games? I’m looking forward to that ‘Space Race’ game, for example.
Hear hear.
There’s base building of some sort. The devs mention “around 40 different units and buildings in the game many of which can be upgraded to obtain new capabilities”. But, yea, emphasis here seems to be put on warfare.
so wait if there is base building and its tbs and something like advance wars and Panzer general, then it would be like age of empires DS? I love the idea of age of empires and age of mythology ds since it waslike the game plus base building and more up my alley since its turn-based
I played the old Battle Isle games in the past quite a bit. I enjoyed it quite a bit back then, and have to admit that seeing this video brought up some feelings of nostalgia for the turn based combat genre. I’m not entirely sure how well that type of gameplay will hold up today though. It has been a long time since I experienced it.
Yep, that is similat to what I thought.
I think that the “core mechanics” were nice but they were not what made this game great. Instead it was the atmosphere: The music, the sounds like the clicking and opening the “laptop”-screen, the little animations with the soldiers entering the facilities, and the fantastic, very memorable units with their cool pictures (also great unit manual) – and the awesome looking combat (which is silly and looks horrible in nowadays standard). All these “values” can hardly be transported into a new game in a way that it hits just the right spot again. So I remain sceptical in how good a successor in spirit can actually be.
Therefore I also won’t put my money into it just yet. The kickstarter campaign will succeed anyways luckily. So I will wait till release and then check how good the game really is before I buy it.
You had me at ‘Battle Isle’…
Take my money.
Looks awesome.
Good times. Seems to be alot of space-themed games appearing. A small herd of indie space games have recently appeared on Steam: StarDrive (natch), Kerbal Space Program, Defiance, Weird Worlds, Angry Birds Space, and quite a few still in development in the “Greenlight” program. I’ve been playing SOTS: The Pit.
The Pit is a small, cheap ($9.99 at Steam and GG) light-hearted rogue-type game in which you explore a randomly generated dungeon (the Pit). The game opens in its own window (you can enlarge it to full screen) and it can run in the background as you accomplish other tasks. A demo is available presenting the first 5 levels.
Yep, the pit is a nice little game. Unfortunately horribly balanced but still worth the little money.
Much of the balance problem is due to the random nature of drops. Everything you find in chests etc are randomly generated, and food (probably the most essential drop) appears far less frequently than optimum. Result: I usually die of starvation. Otherwise, the game is quick and fun, very much a casual game for those who play RPGs and other more cerebral entertainment.
Yes, but the “standard case” should be that you have a chance if you don’t do anything stupid. And at least on hard and on insane this is not the case. Just take the engineer on insane and play the first 3 levels. You will face an enemy you >cant< kill and will die without anything you can do. Same on hard, but it will take you longer to realize it. And if you are not very lucky the marine will run out of ammo by reaching level 8-12 on hard, which is what always happens to me.
Just taking FTL als counterexample: If you have extremely bad luck you won’t have a chance in some situations in the first 2 sectors or so. But if you die in sector 3 or later there is almost always something you could have done better to survive the situation.
This looks very promising. I really like the fact that they will be doing a boxed, DRM-free version of this game.
After showing this game to a colleague, he had to snap me back to reality by asking me if I was nuts? Why? This design studio wants $55 for an alpha-development, boxed version of the game + manual? :-O Forget that!!! I’ll wait for the final version where they will probably be selling the retail boxed version + manual for $29.99. While DRM-free games are a big thing for me, a price-gouge of $55 won’t fly!
Im sold when you said advance wars.
How do I get this one? I wish it has a random map generator.
This game looks AMAZING. Let’s hope quality coding and AI keeps up with aesthetics. I will be following this project closely. Thanks for the update.
Looks wonderful
Scifi TBS… taaaastyyyy….
Really, nowdays I’m fed up with the fantasy stuff, swords and magicians everywhere (MMOs, RPGs, TBS games), it’s soo refreshing to see something modern :)
Backed at the $45 early bird specials tier.
This looks fantastic! Thanks for the heads up, Adam!
Man I am so glad I found Spacesector. Here is another game I hope to see soon. After all the years with next to nothing to even hope for, now games are coming out or at least in the works.
“Fantasy Wars” meets “Massive Assault”.
And funded! Now let’s hope they reach some of their stretch goals. Good to see turn based strategy getting so much love.
Yes! Glad I made my pledge for this project, it sure looks promising. Can they deliver? I hope so.
Damn me to hell for being the party pooper again, but what is so great about this kickstarter again?
In their video, they say NOTHING of value.
– They give you the nostalgia treatment on turn based classic tactical combat games.
– They promote themselves a little.
– They give you a generic list of features and ask you to join.. but why?
Why? They say it out loud: they do ask you to pledge not because of how great a game they will make, they ask you to pledge because.. well, because they make a game in a given genre? WTF?
“So if you feel like we do about turn based strategy games, please participate in our kickstarter campaign.”
– line from their KS video @ around 2:30.
This pretty much sums up all my issues with kickstarter as of late. It’s either “pledge to our project, because it will kick ass.. after all, its made by the legendary XYZ” or “pledge to our project, because you have not seen a game in this genre since the 18th century, which we intend to change.”.
Is it just me, looking for more when I pledge for a game? It shouldn’t be.. it can’t be.. Then again, for some reasons it seems to be.
Also love the part about the various pledge levels blocking off access to the game manual. A 20 dollar pledge gets you the basic manual, but for 30 dollars, you get the extended one.. (all digital downloads of course) WHAT? Wait, there is more.. for 50 dollars, you get the digital version of the same manuals TWICE.. What an incredible value in that offer. I wonder if they ever heard about the copy command that allows me to create as many copies of the same one digital manual I get, as I want.. unless of course their PDFs will have some sort of DRM embedded into them, in which case, well.. shame on them.
You know, since we are talking about retro here with these genres and kickstarter projects.. I really miss the old days, when I could take the manual of a game out of the BOX (not the DVD case) on my way home, and not be done reading through it by the time I got onto the bus.
disclaimer: it is possible there is more on the game elsewhere that make it more interesting, in that case they just fail at marketing as they lost me after their hollow video and the nonsensical pledge levels.
Well, they say quite exactly what they want to do and I don’t see anything bad in it. I mean it’s not like they needed to promote a single feature. If someone would tell me “We make Jagged Alliance 3, which will be almost exactly like Jagged Alliance 2” I would give them my money. They support it, by showing it in their video which other, even bigger projects like Wasteland, Torment, Project Eternety or the Double Fine Project didn’t even do.
The “self promotion” is also probably not as big as in other videos as the developers are German (same as BlueByte btw which did Battle Isle). In the German culture this kind of “self promoting” and exaggerating as done specially in the US culture isn’t really as present.
You are right about the manual thingy though. Don’t see much of a point and incentive in cutting the manual. Also the 50$ thingy is indeed quite pointless.
I’m going to have to support your ‘party pooper’ ways. While this design studio has made their goal, I’m sure they really don’t give a damn what I think; but for the record, their pricing scheme on Kickstarter is a laugh and a half. And csebal, don’t sell yourself short on missing the ‘old days’. More respectable companies still include a manual with a boxed version and not try to rape your wallet for it. I’ll probably have to put this one on my list of games not to buy but ‘borrow’ from friends. ;-)
Bought me the Battle Isle Collection from GOG, just to get a feeling of nostalgia. And you know what? BI2 still makes much fun. Just played the first 7 missions of the campaign last weekend.
And of course, I pledged for Battle Worlds. I wish them good luck.