I'm thinking about making a new brand and product line, of turn-based strategy games or war games. I haven't been able to google up much competition. Most war games (or so-called strategy games) are "real-time strategy".

My ideas are more along the lines of Jagged Alliance and Civilization. I don't want to focus on the "grognards", the few hard-core wargamers who know the names of every civil war general. I want to make these games in multiple settings; space, historical, fantasy, etc.

Can anyone point me towards my competition? Shareware PC developers selling turn-based war games?

Thanks!

PC Gamer magazine (I think that was the magazine) used to have a column called something like "The Desktop General" and the author wrote every month about turn-based wargames. He's one of the "hardcore" people but getting mentioned in that column would no doubt get huge traffic.

Take a look at battlefront.com (http://www.battlefront.com/index.htm).

I'm planning to make turn-based wargames/fantasy games too, but not in the next few months, have other project to do... :eek:
Wait about 1 year and you'll have a competitor ;) hehe

Galctic civilization , Dominions I/II, Starship Unlimited are most well known, all shareware from indie developers.

FaitH is also technically a turn based war game. (www.dragonclawstudio.com)

Additionally there are a couple more in Java that are turn based, I want to say the name of it was Civtarion or something equally bad.

Also, you have Star Chamber (www.starchamber.net) which is a turn based war game/CCG, and just released was Massive Assault, which is also a turn based war game, however, not really indie since its published by Matrix Games.

There's some competition in the field... Lets just say that

If you are making a game similar to, say, Civ, moreso than others, you have a long road ahead of you I think. Especially with Civ 4 coming out pretty soon.

Joseph Lieberman

You may want to check out the Warlords series. It is a turn based war game. I guess you can could say it's like Warcraft yet you take turns and you have to take over all the castles on the map. I remember playing it a few years ago. It was a good game back then. Although I think the series has kept going on.

World Domination does very well here. Was pleasantly surprised by response so have thought a lot about it. Feel it hit the right target audience, the casual adult male gamer (yes it does exist). It's simple enough that anyone can start playing and enjoy and has enough depth that can keep you in. Personally I love warcraft/starcraft/c&c type games but the competition is fierce and big budget and the very steep learning curve keeps the casual gamer away. Plus the big budgets necessitate a huge complex RTS so think there is a nice little niche for a good solid simple turn based game.

Hello,

Turn-based strategy is a very big category. I am one of your competitors within the field. I have a game that is based on the boardgame Risk. Check it out: http://sillysoft.net

Not too long ago I was considering casual-play-them-in-fifteen-minutes turn-based strategy games myself. However, I did not want to use war, fantasy, or space as the theme because those things are sooo boring. Obviously, there are many people who like these games -- but not me. So that leaves abstract strategy games like Logication (http://www.brainblock.com) or Slay (http://windowsgames.co.uk/slay.html), or wacky games such as Chris Crawford's Gossip and Trust and Betrayal. Considering the popularity of (non-computer) board games like The Settlers of Catan, you may wish to differentiate by choosing an alternative topic as well.

Thanks, everyone! I've looked at all the products you've mentioned, and I feel I have a good chance of making something different.

Now I want to nail down my technology design; I've got a long way to go!

Good luck :)
When you have a beta let us know, I'm interested in such games (still playing Rise of Nations, what awesome game!)

I would be very happy to speak with you if you create a solid turn based war game :)

Don't know if you were referring to techbear or me, but for sure I'll make a wargame in future, I like them so much! :)
Even if (this may disappoint you) I like more the fantasy setting.
Anyone here remeber "Fantasy General" from SSI ? awesome game :cool:

Another genre that is poorly represented is the old time RPGs (see Ahriman's Prophecy for an excellent freeware remake). Not sure how well these things sell, but I miss the old Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy type games.

The only indie devs that do RPGs is spidweb.com
I'll do some RPG too in future :D argh I have too many things to do!

The only indie devs that do RPGs is spidweb.com
I'll do some RPG too in future :D argh I have too many things to do!

Tons of indies do RPG's, it's just that none of them actually finish them :)

I know... before going indie, I was making a CRPG too with several friends on internet... but the project failed.
That's because I wasn't the main programmer, now is different ;)

I plan to release one by december of this year, already made the rules! :)

Whatever you do, please don't dip into 3D stuff. I am so sick and tired of everything becoming 3D-ified. Most of those games require a top of the line
video card which I am not willing to shell out for. Not to mention that the requirements are increasing with every new release. When you turn down the level of details so you can play faster than 1fps, then it feels like I am playing a game from the 80's with ridiculously huge triangles, limited texture and color pallette.

I would much rather play a 2D game with beautiful graphics than a 3D game that sucks because my video card is not 100X faster than my 2.8GHz Pentium CPU.

I know you are planning to make a turn-based game, so FPS is not important or relevant, but I just thought I'd stick the comment in anyway. Just some food for thought... :)

Don't worry, I think exactly as you.
I don't really see the need to use 3D with such games, infact with my boxing simulation, I did all graphics with pre-rendered images :)

(another reason is also because 3D stuff is really complex! hehe)

:rolleyes:
For me, one of the game more fun was the first of trilogy X-COM !
but is not wargame ;)

Heh - sorry. I do have a 3D RPG game concept in the works. Well, two or three, actually, but only one of them is likely to see the light of day anytime soon. However, I've had a career in 3D game development, so the question of difficulty between doing 2D and 3D isn't as significant as it is for some.

The problem I'm wrestling with IS the problem of making a 3D roleplaying game for a semi-casual gamer. Targeting lower-end machines is definitely a part of it (my goal - something that was top-of-the-line and cutting edge in 2000 should be able to handle it). But it's more challenging from a game-design standpoint. The casual gamer doesn't speak the language of Armor Class and Hit Points (well, some of them do now, thanks to EverQuest - which just goes to show that the casual gamers *CAN* be dragged into hardcore gamer territory by a compelling experience).

It's an interesting problem. One I'd like to tackle, once I have time to focus on a new game.

Oh, yeah! X-Com. X-Com, Master of Orion, and Civilization... three of the best turn-based strategy games (not wargames, really, though they did have those elements) ever created.

Civilization managed to cross the gender gap really well, too.

Nice to hear more people interested in making a shareware RPG :)
If you need a tester, I'm here... :cool:

p.s. a RPG for the casual gamers? hmm, don't even know if it is a good idea. There are so many "hardcore" rpg fan out there waiting for more content that you can just make a good RPG and be done I think!

Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest was an RPG for casual gamers. It didn't sell so well. Unfortunately, I was dumb at the time and I bought it because it was the only FF game that I could find that was inexpensive enough for my wallet. It was way too linear for my tastes, but it apparently did well for people who knew about it AND were not hardcore RPG gamers.

We'll see. Right now the concept I'm playing with is one that has received a LOT of enthusiasm from the casual female gamers I know. However, being a guy and somewhere between casual and hardcore gamer myself ("Hardcore-gamer-who-has-a-life?"), I'm going to be writing a game that *I* want to play as well. With luck, I may create a game that appeals to both genders.

To some degree, my wife is my target audience. She's not a purely casual gamer. Her favorite games include Solitaire, Bejewelled, a Mahjong game... as well as Neverwinter Nights (online only), the Monkey Island games, and a couple of the King's Quest games. She's also played Diablo II to completion, and played EverQuest for a couple of years.

As far as strategy games or wargames... She's really into the boardgame "Settlers of Cataan." So I think there's a real market for casual strategy games. Wargames --- everybody knows its a shrinking niche that's already being addressed by a few companies. Yet everybody knew this prior to the appearance of "Panzer General," yet that game went out and proved that a wargame could become a best-seller. We're probably due for another one. Maybe RTS games went and swiped that audience, but I don't think so.

I just finished a turn-based wargame called Battleship Chess. While it requires a 3D graphics card to play, it should run on any run-of-the mill card. It's meant to be much simpler than my Starships Unlimited, with play time running less than an hour. I love turn-based games. Currently working on a new one that's not a wargame. To me, working in 3D is easier than 2D once you've got the basic engine working.

Has anyone played "Advance Wars" on the Game Boy Advance? It's the best trun based stratagy game I've played for many years... there's an amazing amount of gameplay depth in that little cartridge.

About the only GBA game I'm still playing after 2 years!!!

Apparently it's about the 7th game in a Japanese series but this is the first release we've seen in the west. I highly recomend checking out it's unit balance (strengths, weaknesses, price) and how the units are effected by the landscape (only infantry can move over hills and are stronger when attacking a lower target).