I know there are a few naval arcade games out there, but after playing Empire Total War over the weekend, ( and finishing book 5 of the O'brien series ) I'm curious if anyone would actually be interested in a true naval game. - Focus on the Napoleonic era. - Command a squadron of 2-8 ships to keep it manageable. - Slower than an arcade-style game to give players time to plan. - Option to change shot, board, take ships and add them to your squadron. - 2D or iso... prob not 3d at this time. Just curious if there's even a market for something like this. The platform favors shorter gameplay experiences, so not sure people would have the patience for it. Thoughts?
I love the strategy genre... but I feel like a good naval real-time strategy game has never been accomplished, on any platform. However, I think the platform is moving towards longer and more complex games - and the touch screen might provide the ideal interface for a game of this type... Do you imagine the ships being navigated in a Flight Control / Harbor Master fashion? I I would be very interested.
That sounds very good. Are you offering to make one or are you just seeing if others want one also? Please say the first.
Well, we've published Embargo for the iPhone, which is a 3D naval combat game against multiple opponents, with heaps of cinematic cameras and special effects. The feedback I got from users and reviewers is that the iPhone userbase prefers casual games, not hard core strategy games. We were suprised to see how players criticised Embargo for being too hard and too sim-like - they just wanted to press a magic button and win every time. We were thinking of adding multiple player controlled ships in a game update, but we still haven't even earned enough money to cover the soundtrack licensing fees, yet alone translation costs, or the cost for 3 months of development on top of an existing game engine. At the current sale rate, I dont see that happening. Users always say "yeah, I'd love to play a game like that", but you'll only get 200 or so sales. With the AppStore prices the way they are these days, 99% of developers are NOT breaking even.
The first, but our development queue is a little full at the moment, so it would have been a pet project for down the road.
Nicely done. I was thinking more of a timed or turn-based game actually, but you've absolutely hit upon the reason for the question. Anymore unless it's something that can br programmed in a few weeks, it's not worth investing the time into. As a developer you get about a week after release to "wow the masses" and move up the ranks. If you hit at a time when the focus is on other titles and slip... that's it. Wasted effort. Embargo is a great example. I can only imagine how much time and effort was put into it... it's different than a lot of other games out there now... and yet even though I was specifically looking for something like it, this is the first I've heard of it. I blame apple for this. And I don't think it will be fixed anytime soon.
Are there any gameplay videos of Embargo. I'm very interested... especially at $1.99. And I agree -- Apple really needs to figure out a better way to sort through the huge mess of games being released for the platform... I've never heard of this title. EDIT: There are videos... just follow the link in the original post. I'm an Idiot.
Off topic, but this the link to the touch arcade thread for the Embargo game: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=15664&highlight=embargo It seems like the primary concern was with the depth of the gamplay.