Hey everyone, I'm proud to announce T-Go Co Games' upcoming game Diesel Tactics! It's an asynchronous turn based strategy game (like Hero Academy) that also allows players to build their own custom armies to bring into battle, similar to the table top games Warhammer or War Machine. The world and art style are inspired from World War I and II imagery with a steampunk/dieselpunk vibe to it. The game will be 3D with 2D background elements. Right now we only have the first concept art pieces to show (though modelling and animation have begun, we just aren't showing anything yet!), but we have new announcements several times per week on our website (and twitter and facebook pages) and if you're interested in following the progress of the game please follow us on any (or all!) of those! We're hoping to launch the game in summer 2014 (we hope!) with the beta being available about a month or so before release. The game will be available on both iPhone and iPad. It will also be available on Android devices, but I don't think this is the place to bring that up. You will be able to play against each other though, so you can show those Android gamers what's what! Here's some concept art from some of the units in the game: And here's a 3D model of one of the units from the game: If you want to see more and to keep up to date with our progress, check us out: Web: www.tgocogames.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/tgocogames Facebook: www.facebook.com/tgocogames
Updated information about Diesel Tactics Hey everyone, New information has steadily been coming out about Diesel Tactics, and here are some highlights: - There will be (at least) 2 armies available at launch - The game will be free with one army available to the player and additional armies purchasable for $1.99 - Each army will have 8 units (at least) available to them, 6 Infantry units and 2 Vehicle units - There will be 3 mission types at launch: Take and Hold, Assault, and Engagement - There will be an Elo style rating system for players to help create more evenly matched games There's plenty more to be revealed, so check out our website for more information and you can find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on all the updates about the game! In the mean time, here's some more concept art and models from some of the units in the game:
Updated information about Diesel Tactics Hey everyone, More information has been revealed about Diesel Tactics! Here are some highlights: - Artillery units have been revealed - Healing will not be part of the game! - Terrain randomization is in! Much more information has been added at our website As usual, I'm adding a few more images from Diesel Tactics for you to check out! The walking tank! Flying tank concept art Flying tank 3D model Motorcycle unit concept art
Updated information about Diesel Tactics Hey everyone, A bunch more info on Diesel Tactics is available on our website! If your interested in keeping up with what's going on with our development, check out the site or Like us on Facebook or follow me on Twitter! Here are a few more images for you to see some of our progress! Automaton Infantry! Rocket Pack Trooper Concept Art Bazooka Soldier Flamethrower Soldier
Updated information about Diesel Tactics Just wanted to let everyone know that there have been a ton of added images to the Diesel Tactics image gallery, go check them out here!
Thanks, ultimo! The initial launch won't have a Windows Phone version, but I'd really like to get it out on them if the game generates enough interest on iPhone and Android devices. Basically, after launch we will be focusing on PC, Mac and Windows Phone versions of the game.
That was a QUICK response, I can't wait for this to be released on iOS alone, waiting for a copy to windows phone is going to be a long one.....
Well, the more successful the game is the faster we'll get it out on other platforms, so spread the word when it's released!
Looks cool, the only thing that raised a flag for me was that it looks like there are separate movement and combat phases? From my experience with asynch games, the number of asynch exchanges matters because you dont want games to take forever and some people just dont move that often. Hero Academy is actually on the high side in terms of average number of asynch exchanges (avg is around 35-40), and games can really go on a long time if people are being slow.
Thanks, ArtNJ! The amount of time exchanges can take, and how many exchanges a game can take, is extremely high on our list of important things to get right. The first thing I will point it is that Diesel Tactics will not have healing, which may seem like a bit of a non-sequitur given your concern, but the reality is that it gives a game a certain pace and urgency when damage is permanent and entropy is pretty much guaranteed. Second, given that the attack phase is simultaneous it really can't be considered as an additional complete phase in the same sense as a turn in Hero Academy, since there's only one exchange for two phase executions. Sorry, that was a bit convoluted, but I hope I made at least a little sense. Finally, and probably most importantly, we're going to implement many options to establish a game pace that suits the individual players. When searching for a game we are going to allow players to select an acceptable range for the time limit for turn input. For example, a player could look for games where they are okay with a time limit of 3-5 days and it will match them with another player who had a limit of 1-3 days and sets the limit to 3 days. This is just an idea we're tinkering with right now, and needs to be tested to see if it's viable or too complicated. We're also going to have a 'live' game option where the turn time limit is measured in minutes (no specifics decided on yet) so players must essentially be playing live. We're going to limit the number of possible concurrent games running with this option. We may end up just having a standard turn input limit (like Hero Academy) and have the 'live game' option available for players wanting a quick game. The turn time limit option may just be too complicated for players, and would also reduce the number of acceptable matches available, and that would increase queue times. Sorry for rambling, but I'm excited about these options and I want to get feedback from everyone in the community. So, what do you think about those turn time limit options?
Thanks for the reply, I have played just about all of the asynch games, and run the player league for Hero Academy, so I definitely have thoughts I can share. The only examples of flexible matchmaking I'm aware of is Uniwar, which is similar to Hero Academy, and Dominion, a risk variant, both of which use what I'll call a lobby system. When you start a game, you arent auto-matched behind the scenes, rather an open game, with all the selected options visible to folks, can be seen in the lobby. There are good things and bad things about the lobby system. The good is flexibility; the bad is that it all involves more effort for the players, and maybe you never get matched if too many new games get created after yours. In general, I like the lobby system a lot, but it would certainly be challenging to use the lobby system for a hit game -- there would really need to be a lot of ways to filter the lobby. The Chinese version of Hero Academy supposedly has a quick mode. I have never tried it, but my skepicism is that all asynch games seem to have problems with push at times, so I'm not exactly sure how it works. I do know that for Dominion, the 10 minute time control option works pretty decently, but there is no "live" play. Hero Academy's time is 7 days for random match-ups, and 14 if you challenge someone specific (i.e. a friend). I forget what Outwitters is at. Uniwar's usual time limit is 24 hours, dont recall if its selectable, but think its not. Dominion (the risk variant) has a really large number of options, be it minutes to days. Flexiblity really is good -- Dominion nails it here, but again, the price for this flexibility is a lobby system, not automatchmaking. Hero Academy still automatches folks looking for a random game in an average of 20 seconds. It used to be more like 5 seconds. That is awesome obviously, but the price is a single time control that inspires a lot of hate. The worst of all possible worlds is behind the scenes automatchmaking that takes a while, but only has one time control. This is Outwitters. You are matched in a narrow band of your hidden skill rating, and can wait hours or days if someone isnt available -- and you still dont get to pick a time control.
A problem with time limits is that if you give people 7 or 14 days between turns (so that, for example, people don't have to forfeit if they go away on vacation), then they come to think they should always take at least 6 or 13 days to consider their next move, and then games take forever. An upper limit can quickly become essentially a suggested pace, if you aren't careful with the cues you give.
It's great to get input from you guys who have clearly given this some thought, so thanks very much for your time! The 'live' mode I referred to is what you describe Dominion as having: a set number of minutes (10 or so seems about right) as the maximum between turns. Not exactly 'live', but as close as an asynchronous game will get. My hope is that someone playing 2 or 3 of these games will essentially be playing constantly without down time. Our goal is to have a behind the scenes matchmaking system with more options available. The tricky bit here is appealing to those people who want a more complex matchmaking system while keeping things simple enough for more casual players. I play Hero Academy daily (amongst other games, but HA is my main go to game) and I find that I don't really notice people taking too long to make their moves. I tend to have enough games going at any time that I always have enough to play. Is that not the standard way of playing? Is that how you play? Do you guys play with push notifications on? I'm thinking of basically having the choices of 1, 3, 5 or 7 days as the options in the minimum/maximum turn times, so a player could have a 1-5 acceptable range or 3-7 or 'ANY' or what have you. I would then put in a 'maximum wait' option (which would either be a default or user set) which would determine how long the game would look for a match with these criteria before expanding the search for an opponent. You can see how complex this is already, and if you add in the fact that a single player could have multiple different time limits in different games it just gets more complicated. We'll have to see how this works in testing. I'll also add that Diesel Tactics will have an open rating system, and the game will try to pair you with an acceptable opponent, but it won't really delay too long finding someone based on this. The fact is that Hero Academy is the most popular of the games that you mentioned, and a lot of this is due to simplicity. One thing I could do is sort of hide the more advanced options away in a menu somewhere, so the average player will just have no particular preferences set. What do you think of that? I wrote on my blog today on this topic, since it is something that I've put a lot of thought into and wanted to share my ideas with everyone. Here's the link. Thanks again for all your input!
You "get" the asynch thing. This is how I play my random games. League games are not dissimilar. In the League, people can pick who they play based on time preferences, but we dont enforce anything other than a 7 day time limit. We just say if you dont like their pace, dont play them again. If you started HA in the early days, or were playing after Steam added new players, you probably saw that there were tons of people that did not "get" it, and abandonded games mid-way after making comments like "Go!" 2 minutes after you moved. Robot's forums and the Steam forum for HA were full of baffled people that didnt get it, and didnt like it. I actually think the system you are describing is pretty close to ideal, and might hold the attention of some of those people that rejected HA as too slow. Of course, for some, even the 10 minutes will be maddening, but you can only do what you can do. Of course, be sure to build in the option to match with people whose username you type in as an adjunct to random games. Outwitters chose to make those personally selected matches be unrated, for fear of people manipulating the system. Its a legit point, but it really hoses the hardcore fans, as well as more casual people that want a rated rematch. In any event, the option to pick your opponent has to be there, even if you dont want to rate it. This is good. I strongly suggest ELO, as used by Great Big War Game (built in support for ELO) and the Hero Academy League that I run. Outwitters' hidden and non-elo based formula caused significant problems which really turned a lot of people off. Uniwar has a secret rating formula that is not ELO, but is ELO-ish, and thus works reasonably well. Dominion has a screwy rating system that doesnt work well imho. Its just really hard to invent a rating system that makes sense from scratch -- ELO is the way to go. Robot certainly believes this very strongly, and, as you probably know, there are hidden rules and features in HA. Mechanics are not disclosed -- like the fact that the Heavy does double damage in melee range. The option to start at 3 action points (moves), requested by the League for fairness, is hidden. The list of items that have been used, which the hardcore users begged for months for, was resisted on grounds of supposed complexity, and when implemented is hidden. Many dont discover it on their own. I have no problem with the keep it simple principle in the abstract, and no problem with having certain features only described in an advanced tutorial or accessible via settings, BUT I think Robot went way off the deap end on this issue. My main problems with Robot's HA decisions were: (1) Robot's specific judgments about what adds complexity (for example, they resisted the used item counter on this grounds); and (2) hiding features and mechanics to the degree that interested folks cant find them is absurd, and probably a turn-off to a good chunk of people. Keep in mind that while the Hero Academy League only has 1200 players signed up (compared to 350,000 HA players listed on game center), the League has never been advertised inside the app. I think a *much* higher % of HA users would have dug competetive play if it were offered. It sounds like you are going to strike a good balance and not take the "casual first" philosophy too far.
Oh, and just as an FYI, since you are using Hero Academy as a comparitor, I do have data on the average length of games. Not official from Robot, but from nearly 10,000 games. Basically, the average HA game is around 45 turns, or 20ish turns for each player. Games of over 60 turns (30 each) are rare, but longer games are possible. You probably knew all that from your own experience, but hard data is nice.
I really want the game to be accessible to casual players, but to have enough depth to really keep the interest of the more hardcore. I'm not going to hide any of the rules from players as all stats and functions of units will be readily available and we'll have a rulebook either in game or linked online. The only thing I might tuck away are the additional game options, as they will likely only appeal to players who are more serious anyway. I will certainly let players know that these options are available. I know exactly what you mean by players saying "Go!" and having to explain the concept of asynchronous play to them. I want to try and explain this base concept somewhere in the game. Maybe on a loading screen or something, but I'm hoping they won't be shown long enough to explain anything like that! As for using ELO, here's my blog post explaining how we're using ELO! If you want to see the specifics of the system from our design doc, here it is: I was somewhat concerned about the possibility of players playing people they know to modify their rating, but ELO makes that sort of pointless since the wins will have seriously diminishing returns. Fewer starting moves and showing the remaining items a player has were two features I really thought should be available as well. I still find myself telling people about them though, so I agree that Robot may have tucked them away a little too much. Since you seem to have a very strong understanding of how a game like this should work, I'd love to have you in on the alpha/beta testing of Diesel Tactics if you're interested. I'll be posting here when we're at that point in development, so you can let me know here if you want in or you can contact me at [email protected] if you prefer. Thanks again for all the input!
That's great data, thanks! One thing you might have read in my blog post about turn timing (and that I forgot to mention in my reply to you) is that Diesel Tactics missions have turn limits. We haven't figured out how many yet in each mission (this will need to be play tested), but unlike Hero Academy the games won't necessarily go until one side has been totally destroyed or had its crystals destroyed. An example would be the Take and Hold mission, which requires players to occupy certain areas for capture points. The game ends after a certain number of turns (with a random element to this as well) and the players get points based on how much of the target areas they control. Overall, we'll have much more control on game length than Hero Academy has, which has positives and negatives, but is something I prefer.
