I just finished my recent freeware-game and like to get some more feedback on it. I've been working on it in my spare time for the last year, and it's called
Projekt "W", where the "W" stands for the "Weltherrschaft", which is german and means world-domination. It's a
turn-based strategy game and as the name implies it's up to the player to take over the whole world (no victims allowed).
Story :Although the game is set in a not-so distance fictional setting, it can be seen as my take on the current world-political situation. Known structures like the United Nations and the European Union broke apart and only five huge nations survived in this setting. Each of the nation has it's own background story and I also designed unique flags and 3D-backgrounds for them, in order to strengthen their identification values. So the setting is totally hostile, the time of peace-negotiations is over and every nations just wants to take over the world.
Gameplay :The game basically plays like risk (the board-game), but there are a lot of additional gameplay elements that give it much more strategic depth. First one is that you
need to manage regions, which you can compare to the countries from risk. The globe is divided into several regions (a lot more than risk) and each region has building spots and different factors. Those factors are important and determine e.g. how many ressources this region produces and how loyal the population is. In order to balance those factors you need to construct different buildings (the game includes 40 different buildings, some of which need to be unlocked through research first), otherwise it's possible to loose this region.
Army management also plays an important role, as you need divisions to defend your own regions and to take-over enemy regions. For that you can construct different military units (some of them are unlocked through research) and group them into divisions that are assigned to regions, and which can be moved around the map then. You can even hire generals to boost the strength of your divisions.
Research will give you an advantage over your enemies by unlocking new (and stronger) military units, as well as new (more powerful, cheaper to build, better for the environment, etc.) buildings. So doing research, constructing scientific buildings and hiring scientists is always a good idea.
And in addition to the above, you can even
hire spies to spy on your enemy regions and divisions. This can give you a significant advantage when needed, and spies can even do some sabotage once infiltrated into an enemy region.
Phase 1?Since the project is rather complex, and working alone on such a game takes it's time, I decided to split the release into two phases. "Phase 1" is already a full game and there are no restrictions. It's just missing some stuff that I'll add for "Phase 2" (planed for 2008), like additional buildings, military units and multiplayer-modes.
System requirements :Minimal :Windows 2000, XP, Vista (Vista not tested!), CPU with 1 GHz, 512 MB memory, Graphicscard with 128 MB VRAM support for OpenGL 1.3, ~80 MBytes free HD-space
Optimal :Windows XP, CPU with 2 GHz, 1 GB memory, Graphicscard with 256 MB VRAM and support for OpenGL 2.0, ~80 MBytes free HD-space
Note :The game uses advanced shaders for the globa and the reflecting water surface. So if you want to see it in all it's glory, you should have a graphics card that supports OpenGL 2.0. So something like a GeForce 6800 or Radeon X1800 and up will give you the best results.
Known problems :As I already patched the game (the download below links to the most current version) there shouldn't be any serious bugs left. Though there may be some problems running under Vista, but as long as you have write permissions in the game's directory it should work. Also please note that the AI for this game is the first more complex AI I ever wrote. It's doing it's job, but not very well (and I hope to improve it for future releases). If you have any troubles running the game or if it crashes, just leave a comment here on the forums and I'll see what I can do.
Screenshots :Note :All shots are thumbnailed. Please click on them for a bigger version. You can find more shots on the game's page.
Download :Win32 Installer for Projekt “W” - Phase 1 - Version 1.2 (~34 MBytes) Note : The game includes an extensive in-game tutorial (both english and german), as well as a written manual (PDF). So if you don't know how to play, just start the tutorial and/or read through the manual.
Link :You can find more information and screenshots on the
game's project page on my homepage.
Final words :Thanks for reading this, I hope I'm not acting against the forum rules in terms of advertising. So have fun playing my game, comments are welcome!