Hey guys! Sorry for the long wait between posts! I don't have any gameplay to show off yet, but I'd like to respond to the posts and can show you some more pictures.
I think the night condition looks good, but I think fog would be a little better if it still had that outline around the characters but rather than just being white around have animated "clouds" rolling through maybe.
Thank you! That's a great idea with the fog. I think having more dynamic clouds for the fog will look much better. I used dynamic clouds for the artillery shells too and it definitely looked better, so I'll get onto that.
This is amazing. Kudos for treating the subject matter in a humane way and not glorifying war. I really think there needs to be more games like this to help broaden the horizons of gaming, in the same way that papers, please did. It's the same reason we're tackling a subject like politics in the 3rd world with hour own game.
I'm excited to see how this turns out!
Thank you. I actually really love your project. I'm particularly fond of the fact that you are using the Philippines as inspiration for your Island's culture (and geography). A very underappreciated culture!
I'm all about exposing underappreciated or overlooked cultures and perspectives, which is one of the main reasons why we're having French VS German in our game, from the German perspective. During my research I found it was almost impossible to find English-language media that uses anything but the British or American perspective, which is a real shame. (The most famous exception being "All Quiet on the Western Front")
WW1 is interesting in part because of all the horrors, but I read a lot about it neither for that or for the glory, but mostly because the problems faced by everyone fighting the war was so interesting. If you look beyond the cliches, the advances in tactics from 1914 to 1918 was mind-blowing. The (military) world took a leap from essentially Napoleonic ways of fighting to modern ways in just 4 years.
Not that I don't mind reading a good book about soldiers suffering in muddy trenches now and then as well, and I look forward to playing this game. I tend to play (and
design) more wargamey games, but that always comes with learning about all the horrible things as a bonus.
Being a wargamer myself, I definitely understand the sentiment! WW1 is absolutely fascinating, historically. All the strategic, tactical and political backgrounds and the differences between the different theaters of war are absolutely fascinating. Having the static trench war in the West and a dynamic war of movement in Eastern Europe, guerillas in the colonies, beachhead invasions in Turkey, the war is incredibly diverse. The technological and tactical advances were really immense too, as you said. The Germans essentially invented the Blitzkrieg in 1918. As a wargamer, I am really fascinated by the period '72-'18, because of all those changes and development. As a history-nerd I'm fascinated by the social and political changes.
But there is a rather large issue with that fascination. It leads to people ignoring the terrifying realities that came with these developments. Reading of technical and strategic advances and developments really lets one forget the small pictures. And that is that even if guns and tactics might have changed throughout the war, a single soldier could have simply sat in his trench in a quiet part of Belgium without ever seeing anything of those changes at all.
We are purposely making a point of leaving out the big tactics and strategies of the war, because an individual soldier simply doesn't get to hear any of that. Doesn't get to see any of that. They see a hundred meters of trench in both directions and that's their picture of the war, until they get moved to a different place or the war is over. When the corporal tells to run, they run where they have to, if they can. That's what the individual soldier sees of all those fascinating tactics. And that's what we want to portray. Give people a real picture of what it was actually like.
And here's the promised pictures!
Some artillery, that might end up in the game when Fritz is on break from the front and gets to see the world behind the front lines.
And a little test piece that I did with watercolours. Very crappy for now, but that's what practise is for. Our plan is to kickstart this, and I'd like to have watercolour illustrations on the kickstarter.
I also have some idle animations to show off, but I sadly don't have time to convert that all to .gifs for now, will update that soon though!
-Dan
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