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I didn’t write a blog last week although I had done a lot of work over the holidays. So here’s a little catch-up.

Battle for Korsun

I have now started on the Russian AI. I spent a few days working out what the objectives should be and how the AI should react. So I felt there were 3 stages:

1. Very aggressively cut through the German lines and create the pocket
2. Widen the gap between the trapped forces and the relieving forces
3. Defend

To help with this I have given each Hex a value. This helps drive the Russian AI when making decisions on what to do. Each turn it will make some checks – Has pocket been formed? Is there a wide enough gap? where are the German forces concentrated? etc.

As an example, if its the early stages of the game and the pocket is not yet formed it will be guided into where it needs to go next by the hex values.  As it must form the pocket to stand a chance of winning it will attack very aggressively. Units that cannot help with that objective will look to pin German units in place.

Invaders from Dimension X! 

I also did a lot of work on this with testing the various possible Marine and Alien moves. In addition, I prepared the second Map for this game. Finally, I talked to my Graphics designer about the menus and he has roughed up some drafts which look great. When I get the final versions I will show on here.

Flipboard

I have now got into the daily routine of adding articles that interest me or I think are of interest to a wargamer. Do check it out here.

Book Review

While doing some research I came across a magazine that needed someone to review books. I read a lot and had a secret desire to write reviews. So I signed up, chose a book, received it and am currently reading Battle of Wills. I will publish my review here once it’s submitted and published.

Iwo Jima

In between all of the above, I also did some research on Iwo Jima (and broke one of my 2018 resolutions to stay focused!). I thought I might try out a new graphics artist so gave him the job of graphics for the island. I also put together a potential splash screen and unit counters.

The graphic was based on US aerial photos taken in 1944 and an army report I found produced at the time with various maps of the island.

Feedback welcome.

Finally

I have been thinking about computer wargames and wargaming in general and how to get more people interested in what I do and what I am sure others are also trying to do in this area.

I feel there is a gap in the market between the type of games I make and what companies like Slitherine make and publish.

Some ideas I have had are:

1. Redo some maps and counters from old board games and offer them here free as downloads. I know there are a lot of wargamers who make their own counters but may not have the expertise to make them look good. Another alternative would be to do some good Vassal mods.
2. Reach out to a company like Slitherine and see if they would look to work with small independents and have an Indie developers section on their site. They could perhaps take a 10% cut of games sold. It would act as an incubator for the next generation of programmers.
3. Reaching out to other small wargame developers like me and forming a collective group to support and advertise each other’s work.

If you have your own opinions on this please do email me your thoughts.

What is planned in 2018 for yobowargames?

Battle for Korsun

I was originally hoping to release this around late November but as usual I underestimated how much effort it takes to really finish a game.

As of now, the two player game is almost complete and I have all the translations for the game. In the new year, I will focus on the AI and really test it out.

The planned launch is now sometime in March/April 2018.

If this game does well there is the possibility of a follow-up game that has the same ruleset – meaning a lot less work for me to release.

Invaders from Dimension X!

I am also tentatively looking at April/May (possibly earlier) for the launch of this game. Presently I am testing one of the scenarios out and making sure all the Alien and Marine actions work correctly. Once that is done I will work on the second map/scenario and the campaign game. I also need menus to be created and designed.

As for Korsun, if this game does well there is the possibility of a follow-up game.

Kampfgruppe

One of the things I have learned is that creating games that have different rule sets means I cannot reuse a lot of the code I have written. This means a long time span between games coming out.

With Kampfgruppe I am planning to release smaller incremental modules to the game. I am pretty much decided on the base game being free. This model seems to be working for Slitherine’s Order of Battle. Also, I want to appeal to fans of games like ASL who are used to a game coming out in modules. As a side note, the rules for this game will not be based on ASL.

This will allow me to work on a smaller subset of the game with each release. Also with the base game being free, I am hoping there will be more people playing it. Finally, I can get community feedback a lot earlier and adjust the future of the game based on that.

I will be adding modding tools to this game. For it to be successful I need to have community involvement.

Social Media

In today’s world to get noticed you really have to be active in the social media.

I am going to tackle this in a couple of ways. First up is I have started a Flipboard Magazine that puts together a lot of stuff I read on the web on a daily basis.

I will also use my Facebook and Twitter feeds on a more regular basis.

Finally

Happy New Year and thank you for all your support in 2017

Lance

To my loyal readers – Happy Holidays!

Thank you for your support during 2017.

Normal service will be resumed in 2018 when we have Battle for Korsun and Invaders from Dimension X to look forward too.

This week has been a pretty intensive week working on two games at the same time.

First up is Invaders from Dimension X. I had more graphics arrive and I spent time plugging them into the game. So now I have almost all the in-game graphics. Next up will be the Menu, splash screen, and some chrome items.  Followed by work on the scenarios the game comes with.

I probably have about 70% of the gameplay working – its a case now of getting everything working together nicely.

Battle for Korsun

I sent off and received back translations for Battle for Korsun. I used contacts that I have built up on fiverr.com. Now comes the laborious task of making sure all the strings fit in the spaces I have allocated. With 6 languages it’s going to be a lot of work…

Below is the start of working on the German menu – notice the rather long word for Manual!

I also had the manual translated – so 6 sets of them to tidy up and publish.

For some reason this week I suddenly had a lot of hits on the Steam page I have set up for the game. I can only assume the game appeared in a list somewhere. Good news for me as now have more people who added the game to their wishlist.

Also, I am very heartened by the fact that in the top 5 languages of users who visited the page are Chinese, Russian and German. I am hoping this is a sign that the game will do well with these users.

This Thanksgiving weekend I took a break from Battle for Korsun and plugged in most of the new graphics I received last week for Invaders From Dimension X.

I now have most of the Alien actions (they are card driven) working and its starting to look really nice. Below are the Marine units. If you are interested in looking at the original boardgame then go here.

This weekend there was another steam sale and I had roughly the same number of sales as the Halloween sale for my Kursk game. I am interested to see how the game continues to sell next year.

My wife has just started taking painting classes. So naturally, I commissioned her to do one for me!

Little does she know but she is now part of the wargame community….