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Indie Strategy Games - post 'em if you find 'em

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,694

 
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 22, 2020
Messages
2,510
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
Dayum. As a huge fan of the Pike & Shot period I have been waiting for something like this for ages. The KS campaign is unfortunately bound to fail, but hopefully the devs will manage to get this released anyway at some point.
 

Gostak

Educated
Joined
Jan 10, 2022
Messages
246



Anyone played the older demo?
A new one should be upcoming.
When that happens I want to take a look.

Backdrop art in video reminds me of Neofeud.
Some game icons are free stuff that also have been used in Star Dynasties.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
Patron
Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,464
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
One man's dream to make his own Total War (aptly named Formation Tactics Game):

https://gabe1010.itch.io/formation-tactics-game-prototype-battle

Hello! Thanks for linking it. I've substantially improved the basic prototype battle recently with more and better UI, line shift mode control (fallback, pushback, guard mode, recoil), much better performance, win conditions, and lots of bug fixes and such:

...

It's basically total war type gameplay + more tabletop wargaming rules like anarchy charges, zone of control, disorder, pursuits/evades, order delays and such. if anyone finds this interesting please give it a playtest and provide some feedback on the itch page community posts or here or in the dms. Thanks!
1. when i set new position of unit by holding Right Mouse button. would be handy to see arrow where would be the front of formation.
2. sprites would be sufficient for this scale of battle (like in M:TW1). Models are awesome, looks like from some warcraft3 clone - just better and more crispy. i think you outsource them because quality is way above your indie project.
3. the horseman that carry order for a unit, often merge with ground. Not sure if he is sent in straight line? (like an airplane?)
4. unit behaviors are interesting [intentional?]... i have 2x spearman units, and both block stop 10m from each other in formation, and from front lines few spearmen walk to the center to solo eachother.

thanks for trying it!
1) yes this is a good idea that a few people have requested, I'll add that
2) yes the models are from an asset, as I am just a programmer and not an artist. Interestingly, with modern GPUI mesh and animationg instancing the 3D models are actually more performant than sprites. The main performance bottleneck is actually not the rendering but the lerping/vector math movement of the individual soldiers around keeping formation.
3) yes their nav movement needs some work, i think it's mostly through hills they merge into, i'll look at that problem further.
4) yes they are intentional, but perhaps fit swordsmen better than spearmen, so I may need a different combat coordinator for them. The idea is to be a bit like the description of combat in Phil Sabin's Lost Battles and other essays where men don't constantly fight, as that would be impossible to sustain, but shift back and forth on the battlefield, locally coming into contact in a flurry of melee and then falling back to rest and throw missiles if they have them, but it still needs work.
I was also interested in seeing a proper representation of the pulse theory. But you could still represent it with a lower gap between the front and the rear of the unit, and the losing side giving ground whil the winning side regroups at the position of the frontline, before resuming the attack (that would also cover the idea of shield pushing contest, but less literally!).
 

Joggerino

Arcane
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Oct 28, 2020
Messages
4,588
I don't know if it merits a separate thread but I was looking for a modern day grand strategy/4x of the supreme ruler type and came across this game.



Don't expect much from it but will definitely try it out when it releases in a few weeks. (early access)
 
Last edited:

gabe1010

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jan 21, 2023
Messages
25
One man's dream to make his own Total War (aptly named Formation Tactics Game):

https://gabe1010.itch.io/formation-tactics-game-prototype-battle

Hello! Thanks for linking it. I've substantially improved the basic prototype battle recently with more and better UI, line shift mode control (fallback, pushback, guard mode, recoil), much better performance, win conditions, and lots of bug fixes and such:

...

It's basically total war type gameplay + more tabletop wargaming rules like anarchy charges, zone of control, disorder, pursuits/evades, order delays and such. if anyone finds this interesting please give it a playtest and provide some feedback on the itch page community posts or here or in the dms. Thanks!
1. when i set new position of unit by holding Right Mouse button. would be handy to see arrow where would be the front of formation.
2. sprites would be sufficient for this scale of battle (like in M:TW1). Models are awesome, looks like from some warcraft3 clone - just better and more crispy. i think you outsource them because quality is way above your indie project.
3. the horseman that carry order for a unit, often merge with ground. Not sure if he is sent in straight line? (like an airplane?)
4. unit behaviors are interesting [intentional?]... i have 2x spearman units, and both block stop 10m from each other in formation, and from front lines few spearmen walk to the center to solo eachother.

thanks for trying it!
1) yes this is a good idea that a few people have requested, I'll add that
2) yes the models are from an asset, as I am just a programmer and not an artist. Interestingly, with modern GPUI mesh and animationg instancing the 3D models are actually more performant than sprites. The main performance bottleneck is actually not the rendering but the lerping/vector math movement of the individual soldiers around keeping formation.
3) yes their nav movement needs some work, i think it's mostly through hills they merge into, i'll look at that problem further.
4) yes they are intentional, but perhaps fit swordsmen better than spearmen, so I may need a different combat coordinator for them. The idea is to be a bit like the description of combat in Phil Sabin's Lost Battles and other essays where men don't constantly fight, as that would be impossible to sustain, but shift back and forth on the battlefield, locally coming into contact in a flurry of melee and then falling back to rest and throw missiles if they have them, but it still needs work.
I was also interested in seeing a proper representation of the pulse theory. But you could still represent it with a lower gap between the front and the rear of the unit, and the losing side giving ground whil the winning side regroups at the position of the frontline, before resuming the attack (that would also cover the idea of shield pushing contest, but less literally!).
I've got a dedicated thread for the game here:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/total-war-like-formation-tactics-game.145970/
could you explain in more detail what you mean with the lower gap etc...?
 

Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
10,826
Was looking at new demos on steam and came across this indie 2d citybuilder, can't think of any other builder even on a smaller scale without rabbit hole buildings.

 

Joggerino

Arcane
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Oct 28, 2020
Messages
4,588
I don't know if it merits a separate thread but I was looking for a modern day grand strategy/4x of the supreme ruler type and came across this game.



Don't expect much from it but will definitely try it out when it releases in a few weeks. (early access)

Okay, I tried it for half an hour. Spent half of that adjusting visa settings for every country on Earth (because it all started as banned for some stupid reason) Spent 10 minutes setting the national budget. The last five minutes I was in awe of the awful and extremely basic tech tree (around 3 techs per decade per category, named Jet Bomber 1, Jet Bomber 2, etc). After that I got really bad flashbacks of Geopolitical simulator with it's avalanche of useless shit that doesn't do anything. Like, I have over fifty international airports and each one has a number of how many international lines it has signed (zero for everything in my case). I just can't be bothered with wasting time on stuff like this.
 

Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
10,826
This mechbuilder hit early access today:


Not enough gameplay in the trailer for it but here it is:
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
Patron
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
20,367
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria

There's a demo available during Steam nextfest.
Feels promising enough.

128E2B942706FB0AE766DFFB484B362A9F30A753
 
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 22, 2020
Messages
2,510
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
Ayo yo what up nigguhz. Just dropping in to say that I played the demo of the abovementioned gaym (Songs of Steel: Hispania) and I would say that shit was indeed p. cash. I highly recommend it to your attention.

The game offers simple but fun TB tactical battles
- you have various unit types that sometimes have special abilities, there are also named heroes/officcers that play a role in the story
- units get bonuses for attacking surounded enemies
- terrain plays a role (for example higher elevation gives bonuses etc)

There is also strategic layer in which you manage your troops (which can get upgrades and also level up to gain perks) and base and select missions. There seems to be some serious storyfaggotry going on through the dialogues of the heroes during the missions - writting seems OK.

I never heard about this until I saw this in this thread, proceeded to wishlist immediately after playing the demo.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
Patron
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
20,367
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria
Ayo yo what up nigguhz. Just dropping in to say that I played the demo of the abovementioned gaym (Songs of Steel: Hispania) and I would say that shit was indeed p. cash. I highly recommend it to your attention.

The game offers simple but fun TB tactical battles
- you have various unit types that sometimes have special abilities, there are also named heroes/officcers that play a role in the story
- units get bonuses for attacking surounded enemies
- terrain plays a role (for example higher elevation gives bonuses etc)

There is also strategic layer in which you manage your troops (which can get upgrades and also level up to gain perks) and base and select missions. There seems to be some serious storyfaggotry going on through the dialogues of the heroes during the missions - writting seems OK.

I never heard about this until I saw this in this thread, proceeded to wishlist immediately after playing the demo.
Readability of the tactical map is sometimes little iffy; I had some difficulties seeing which sides of the hills were traversable at glance.
 

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