Wings of Armada

[berserker]

Hi guys! Here is the game we've been working since we released Armada Tanks. This game uses same engine, part of the art assests and is built with similar visual style and gameplay in mind so it's kinda spin-off, however it is fundamentally different. In general it's nowhere near lighthearted shmup Armada Tanks was, while sharing same gameplay fundamentals - we've tried to add more complexity in it. There is a big map for each level with various missions, some of them are optional, a lot of destructible scenery to break. There is also a lot of secrets and areas that can be unlocked once you obtain some key element on later level, therefore the game has quite some replay value if you decide to do more than following obligatory missions.

The core gameplay of Wings of Armada is similar to Armada Tanks - you shot and you shoot a lot! You control helicopter that has massive upgrade potential - various weapons and gadgets, but for some side missions you can control other vehicles like different tank modifications.

This game is quite reminiscent to the Strike series that was so popular in 16-bit era (Desert Strike, Jungle Strike, Urban Strike) except Wings of Armada is casualized reincarnation with all those tedious fuel and ammo stuff being thrown out.

Here is a few screenshots attached:




Sure this game is not a portal material so we will have to sell it on our own, but I am totally fine with it since our recent experience with portals was not very pleasant.

So what do you think about this litte game, guys? Would Jungle Strike reincarnation in a way we reincarnated Battle City with Armada Tanks is something you might be interested in giving a shot?

EDIT - videos:
Wings of Armada video #1
Wings of Armada video #2
Wings of Armada video #3
Wings of Armada video #4

[zoombapup]

Reminds me more of hertzog zwei (sp?) than the strike series.

Make it a bit more strategic and less like a blaster (which is what the strike series was really).

But it definitely looks interesting. Would like to try it!

[Roman Budzowski]

Damn you Yaroslav, I got so excited about this that I sent the link to this thread to my brother just realize a bit later that there's no download link



cheers
Roman

[Maupin]

Looks good. (Except for the shadowless trees floating in the air everywhere. ) I like the tank treadmarks in the first image. Very much looking forward to giving this tactical tank squad game, if that's indeed what this is, a try!

[berserker]

Reminds me more of hertzog zwei (sp?) than the strike series.

Make it a bit more strategic and less like a blaster (which is what the strike series was really).

But it definitely looks interesting. Would like to try it!

Well, it still has Armada Tanks roots in it's core, but we throwed in Strike elements into it. Plus we'll make persistent levels so once you complete level you can come back and everything will be at the same state you left. So you can complete later level to get a key to unlock door on earlier level. We did this in Totem Tribe and turned out to be extremely fun feature.

Well, maybe I wasnt clear enough, but this is not a true Strike remake, but we were inspired by them quite a bit.

[berserker]

Looks good. (Except for the shadowless trees floating in the air everywhere. ) I like the tank treadmarks in the first image. Very much looking forward to giving this tactical tank squad game, if that's indeed what this is, a try!

It's an art style - it has almost no shadows like Armada Tanks had. Maybe it's catches the eye on screenshots but in motion it's really not an issue. Hopefully we will be able to put up some videos soon.

[GolfHacker]

I'm looking forward to this as well. If it is family-friendly like Armada Tanks, I'd be interested in adding it to my catalog. Berserker, are your games available for affiliate sales? I got Armada Tanks through Reflexive originally, but prefer to sign up as affiliate directly with you, if possible. Thanks!

[berserker]

GolfHacker,
We have nice affiliate system through RegNow with custom builds and stuff. And we are giving away 40% of GROSS revenue to affiliates. Take a look here:
http://www.enkord.com/affiliate/paid/
There you can grab builds with your affiliate ID.

Yes, Wings of Armada will be similar to Armada Tanks in terms of family-friendliness as it shared same engine and core shooting. Differences are in huge maps and more involving objectives. Shooting is about the same.

[Twitchfactor]

Wow, I suddenly feel all relevant in my old age.

It's funny, when I looked at it, I thought, "a cartoony strike game... hmm... maybe I should get around to remaking that series again."

BTW, Herzog was top-down and Strikes were isometric (like the view of this game).

Looking forward to playing what you've got. Keep us posted.

[berserker]

Hi,
We've just uploaded first gameplay video of Wings of Armada showing basic shooting and level design. Check is out here:
http://www.enkord.com/forum/blog.php?b=51

[Colm]

Really like the art style. Keep up the good work

[mpdeveloper_B]

Posted.
I like it, it looks really good and seems like it plays very well. I really like the toon shader, would I be wrong to assume that it's a PPE?

[berserker]

Thanks for posting! What is PPE? Toon shader is actually kinda fake, it's not a true cell-shading, you can try Armada Tanks - technically it is the same in terms of graphics. Major improvement with this game will be gameplay

[mpdeveloper_B]

Thanks for posting! What is PPE? Toon shader is actually kinda fake, it's not a true cell-shading, you can try Armada Tanks - technically it is the same in terms of graphics. Major improvement with this game will be gameplay

I meant Post-Processing Effect

[Twitchfactor]

Hi,
We've just uploaded first gameplay video of Wings of Armada showing basic shooting and level design. Check is out here:
http://www.enkord.com/forum/blog.php?b=51

Would love to see this "Strike clone" but when I click on your link, Safari says your site's filled w/Malware.

Oh well, good luck with that...

[Twitchfactor]

This game is quite reminiscent to the Strike series that was so popular in 16-bit era (Desert Strike, Jungle Strike, Urban Strike) except Wings of Armada is casualized reincarnation with all those tedious fuel and ammo stuff being thrown out.

EDIT: Gameplay video #1 - http://www.enkord.com/forum/blog.php?b=51

BTW, just to let you know, all that "tedious fuel and ammo stuff" is one of the key things that separates Strike from any other shooter or Choplifter or Fort Apocalypse (which is what I used for inspiration for the original Strike games to begin with).

[degac]

Hi Berserker,

just one note: I tried to reach your site, but Firefox consider your site as 'not sure'

Malicious software includes 16 trojan(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 1 new process(es) on the target machine.

This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS32244 (LIQUID).

I dont' know if it's a false alarm, just check what happened!

L'ultima volta in cui Google ha visitato questo sito è stato il 2009-05-16, mentre l'ultima volta in cui sono stati rilevati contenuti sospetti su questo sito è stato il 2009-05-15.

Translated in english:
Last time Google visited this page is on 2009-05-16, while last time Google revealed suspected content is on 2009-05-15.

[desmasic]

Paranoid browsers (and Google). Site runs fine on Opera, no warning.. plus had antivirus running in background.

Game looks really cool, I am working on something similar at the moment, will be great to observe what you guys do with this.

[berserker]

We already had those issues with Google - http://forums.indiegamer.com/showpos...4&postcount=11
but now it strikes back again...

Twitchfactor, here is a direct link to youtube video -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVI1l...layer_embedded
and it's really hard to say this game is a Strike clone. We never meant to do that. All we did is took general idea of a helicopter flying around unlimited map doing various missions. I am not sure if those complications with limited ammo and fuel will be accepted well by today's casual players (even despite the fact this game is a shooter aimed at male demographics, most of the players are not hardcore). Instead of going that route we decided to make it more shooterish with various upgradeable weapon types, lot of enemies and non stop shooting. It is more like Alien Shooter in that regard.

[Junkyard Sam]

Wow! Here are my impressions:
1) I saw the art and was instantly captivated and curious.
2) On further visual curiosity I was afraid it would a complicated wargame or RTS.
3) But I liked the art enough to check the video...

So I watched the video, and when I saw those PARACHUTING TANKS with those big colorful 'chutes --- I fell in love!

This is a game I would definitely TRY, and if I liked it after trying it would very possibly buy.

There's almost an absurdity to the art style - it's almost toylike, and friendly looking - yet it's war. It really appeals to me a lot!

[Twitchfactor]

Don't take my words of "Strike clone", as a negative. I actually enjoy being copied. Makes me feel relevant.

I was pointing out some of the things you called tedious as being part of the core play of a Strike game. Removing them makes it an iso-shooter with a helicopter. That's okay, but is not quite "Strike". As you said, it's more like Alien Shooter.

I watched your video and the game looks very cool. A few observations, if I may:

1. Your chopper looks very low. It looks like you'd bump into the tanks on the ground (BTW, love the parachuting tanks... ). I'd raise the chopper up a bit, so it didn't look like guys could jump up to it from the ground.

2. Are there other weapons/power ups? One thing the resource management in Strike did was give the player a reason to move around the map, other than blowing things up. Having power-ups for weapons and armor power-ups gives the player a reason to move off of his path of destruction. If placed properly, it can be a "risk / reward" situation where the player might have to get close to some nasty gun and blow it up, to get the cool power-up.

3. In Desert/Jungle/Urban Strike, the camera was fixed because it was 2D on 16-bit hardware. When we went Saturn/PSX/N64 we made everything 3D. Now, truthfully, if I were to make a "new" Strike game for the indie/casual market, I wouldn't put the camera in the same position as the "32-bit" Strikes (behind the chopper, but still top-down). I would however retain the fact that the screen scaled out a bit when the chopper moved faster. It gives the player a wider field of view and makes it seem like you're moving even faster. It looks like your game's 3D. You might want to experiment with pushing the camera in and pulling it out, depending upon velocity.

Anyway, all suggestions/observations. Take them or leave them. I look forward to playing your game.

Keep us posted.

[berserker]

Thanks guys!

I was pointing out some of the things you called tedious as being part of the core play of a Strike game. Removing them makes it an iso-shooter with a helicopter. That's okay, but is not quite "Strike". As you said, it's more like Alien Shooter.

They wasn't tedious back then, but in current realities we really have to cut something down to appeal to a broader audience, and we decided to cut those fuel/ammo limits. Yeah, it makes the game closer to an iso shooter but today casual players don't like to feel pressured to keep an eye on their fuel/ammo consumption and honestly I enjoyed Strike games not because of those features but because of vast interactive levels and we are going to keep those.

1. Your chopper looks very low. It looks like you'd bump into the tanks on the ground (BTW, love the parachuting tanks... ). I'd raise the chopper up a bit, so it didn't look like guys could jump up to it from the ground.

Yes, it is low intentionally because we have 2 heights of objects, we use second height as a wall, maybe indeed we should make it fly higher, but not too much.

2. Are there other weapons/power ups? One thing the resource management in Strike did was give the player a reason to move around the map, other than blowing things up. Having power-ups for weapons and armor power-ups gives the player a reason to move off of his path of destruction. If placed properly, it can be a "risk / reward" situation where the player might have to get close to some nasty gun and blow it up, to get the cool power-up.

We have 5 weapon types with 5 weapons in each, plus we have 5 upgradeable paramaters which is shown on the helicopter itself when you upgrade. We also have a variety of items to collect - we have stars that unlock something cool when you collect them all on the level (like weapon, upgrade, or secret level), we also have other collectives and of course money packs. My point is to make a lot of optional stuff to do besides main mission. I enjoyed when you can occasionally find a jet crash or free someone from jail or another vehicle to drive in original Strikes. In this game we are trying to keep that. You will be able to control tank in some missions to access parts of the map unreachable for helicopter (through tunnels). Furthermore we added ability to go back to already finished levels if you missed some secrets. On some levels you have to finish later levels first in order to obtain the key to go back to earlier levels and finish optional stuff.

3. In Desert/Jungle/Urban Strike, the camera was fixed because it was 2D on 16-bit hardware. When we went Saturn/PSX/N64 we made everything 3D. Now, truthfully, if I were to make a "new" Strike game for the indie/casual market, I wouldn't put the camera in the same position as the "32-bit" Strikes (behind the chopper, but still top-down). I would however retain the fact that the screen scaled out a bit when the chopper moved faster. It gives the player a wider field of view and makes it seem like you're moving even faster. It looks like your game's 3D. You might want to experiment with pushing the camera in and pulling it out, depending upon velocity.

Nice idea, we will play with it to see if it fits.

BTW, from your comments looks like you had some relation to development of original series, but I know nothing except your nickname... Care to introduce yourself and your relation to those games?

[berserker]

There's almost an absurdity to the art style - it's almost toylike, and friendly looking - yet it's war. It really appeals to me a lot!

Yes, I am also like what we came up with, btw you might want to check Armada Tanks, our battle city remake in similar art style to get a better idea about this game in development.

[Twitchfactor]

BTW, from your comments looks like you had some relation to development of original series, but I know nothing except your nickname... Care to introduce yourself and your relation to those games?

Me? Well, my name is Tony Barnes. I'm a 25+ year video game vet and co-creator of the Strike franchise. Code, art, design, music direction, the whole ball of wax "back in the day".

Sounds like you guys are working on a more robust game than the video shows. That's a good thing. There's a fine line in casual with being too shallow and thus not providing enough incentive to push "BUY NOW" versus just playing the demo over and over. Sounds like you guys are on the right track, though.

I'm going to check out Armada Tanks, now that this project has me intrigued. Are you the same guys that did Clash and Slash? I really liked that one.

[berserker]

Sweet, I had no idea I will be able to discuss this game with original series creator
Armada Tanks basically nothing more than Battle City remake, it has no depth like we are plotting in Wings of Armada, however it shares same engine and visual art style, so it will allow you to see some playable bits from the upcoming game.

BTW, what happened with the Strike franchise? Looks like it was abandonned after those two 32-bit games...

[berserker]

Another video posted that shows some green scenery bits:
http://www.enkord.com/forum/blog.php?b=54

[berserker]

Wings of Armada video #3
- posted on Enkord website which shows new flamer weapon and volcanic scenery bits.

[JGOware]

Please tell me the helocopter can fly over things? Otherwise isn't it just reacting like a tank with a revolving turret?

[berserker]

Helicopter can fly over low obstacles like other vehicles, low buildsings, walls, and water, but he can't fly over high obstacles. This allows us to have non-linear level design with locked secrets and parts of the map. most of the areas are free-roaming though, it's rarely a maze.

[GolfHacker]

It would be nice to have some vertical control, to be able to fly up and over the canyon walls, for example. For those times when you do not want the player to fly over obstacles, you could always block their path with power lines, bridges, or other obstacles.

I'm not sure the music really fits this game... it feels too light-hearted. I hope the final game has some more appropriate music.

I do like the look of this game, though, as I did with Armada Tanks. I'm looking forward to this game. I hope it will be available soon!