Incline Walküre - development thread (a Ukraine War, Jagged Alliance 2 spiritual successor)

[droozy]

You got this much of the tactical part done in just a few months? you're insane, keep it up.

 

[shihonage]

Too soon.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

You the player, are a CIA agent who gets to make their own special ops battalion made up of various foreign volunteers and soldiers from Ukrainian units.

Can the player character also take part in fights or is he just droning on and on?

 

[tomphonse]

Too soon.

I have thought about the appropriateness of this game for quite a bit.
What settled it for me was that Ukrainians and some other Europeans themselves have started to make games on the war.

Glory To The Heroes
Death From Above
War Drone FPV Quad Simulator
Hollow Home
Likewise the Russia has also begun to make games on the war.

Another thing that settled it for me was how soldiers in the war are presenting it themselves in the videos and posts they make. See here:


When I first had the idea and got the drone and a single dude moving about working I showed it to a couple of my friends who are currently volunteering in Ukraine. So far from them and others who have a personal connection to the situation I have only had a positive response to what I am doing. Also I think games are singled out in this regard. Lots of music and visual art have been made about the war and other wars as they have been going. I don't see why a game necessarily is anymore 'too soon' than these other mediums depending on how the mechanics and presentation is executed. I think the end result I am aiming to execute is respectful and authentic to those involved. I really want to shine a light and tell the story of heaps of military units and battles that are completely outside of the public consciousness. I believe the in game Codex and Historical Battles will do this quite well.

 

[tomphonse]

You the player, are a CIA agent who gets to make their own special ops battalion made up of various foreign volunteers and soldiers from Ukrainian units.

Can the player character also take part in fights or is he just droning on and on?

Nah. The CIA player character is basically the equivalent of the laptop dude who is "the player" at the start of JA2 and will just be at a command center in some underground bunker in Kyiv.

However, unlike JA2 I do want this to take a bigger role. There will be various briefing sessions and people you can talk to in the command center and stuff. The purpose of this is mainly for exposition for the Western audience as you and the foreign CIA player will be brought up to speed on various events, characters, units, and pieces of history.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

We can also create at least one dude, like JA2's IMP right?

 

[droozy]

Any plans on tactical vehicles? It'd be sick to see a bukhanka make it in lol

Will there be long distance units like snipers in the game?

 

[tomphonse]

We can also create at least one dude, like JA2's IMP right?

Yeah I'm thinking there will be a section on the recruitment page where you can create your own custom mercs and this will be contextualised as creating a sort of job advertisement in the mercenary world and then after some in-game time has passed said mercenary with your specific stats will appear for you to hire. These custom mercs will be more expensive than recruiting from Ukrainian military units or the volunteer pool.

 

[Karwelas]

Thread watched, very promising game. I hope it succeeds!

 

[JarlFrank]

Soundtrack request:

 

[Alienman]

Will there be vehicles?

 

[PsihoKekec]

The concept looks promising, I'm just worried that OP is aiming too high for the first try.
It would be better to have a game with single campaign, like Artemovsk meatgrinder to establish the base concept and based on experience from the first try, go for the full war experience in the next game.

 

[tomphonse]

Will there be vehicles?

Yes. From the OP:

In addition to this will be the implementation of non-character units and systems such as calling in artillery, dropping grenades from the drone, calling in (player controllable) kamikaze fpv drones, and vehicular units such as tanks and APCs.

 

[tomphonse]

Soundtrack request:

I would love to have music from М8Л8ТХ, Nokturnal Mortum, Dub Buk and others. I am definately going to make a pitch to Militant Zone when I have better looking material to show. I can just imagine it now, Слёзы Осени (Tears of Autumn) playing on full blast as you fight the final battle in the game.

 

[tomphonse]

The concept looks promising, I'm just worried that OP is aiming too high for the first try.
It would be better to have a game with single campaign, like Artemovsk meatgrinder to establish the base concept and based on experience from the first try, go for the full war experience in the next game.

We'll see. The hardest thing by far is the tactical layer gameplay and that remains as complicated and difficult to make regardless of the scope of the campaign. The Campaign's scope mainly effects the strategic layer and the main challenge that increases with scope with that is more just long term game balance than coding really complicated stuff or making assets and animations etc.

But I could be completely wrong about this when I go to start making that part.

 

[Hydro]

Would a player be able to pick a pro-Russian side?

 

[tomphonse]

Would a player be able to pick a pro-Russian side?

Nope.

 

[Demo.Graph]

My target audience is Western Grognards and Ukrainian & Russian (the М8Л8ТХ kind) nationalists

Nope.

Retarded from OP till the end. Have fun failing.

edit: lol @ butthurt brigade. You don't get it as well.

 

[Hydro]

Would a player be able to pick a pro-Russian side?

Nope.

Fuck you then

 

[MarathonGuy1337]

Would a player be able to pick a pro-Russian side?

Nope.

I hope that means their isn't a campaign/historical chronicle mode included, I hate games with a sad ending or maybe anti-climatic if the whole thing ends with a Treaty (Heavily favoring Russian one at that) as is currently likely with the Geopolitical world order shake ups and the current advances made by Russia in the war.

Then again that be actually kind of interesting, detailing the day by day, offensive by offensives account of the conflict with maybe historical channels involved to give insight on the political, strategic, operational and tactical level defeats and victories of the Ukraine, with interviews from Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, the civilian populations of both sides (including the somewhat controversial Donbas Region) and political figures, maybe some news reel highlights as well.

Never-mind what I've said I really now want a historical campaign mode.

Similar to the upcoming Master of Command: Seven Years' War by Armchair History Interactive

 

[tomphonse]

I hope that means their isn't a campaign/historical chronicle mode included, I hate games with a sad ending or maybe anti-climatic if the whole thing ends with a Treaty (Heavily favoring Russian one at that) as is currently likely with the Geopolitical world order shake ups and the current advances made by Russia in the war.

Then again that be actually kind of interesting, detailing the day by day, offensive by offensives account of the conflict with maybe historical channels involved to give insight on the political, strategic, operational and tactical level defeats and victories of the Ukraine, with interviews from Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, the civilian populations of both sides (including the somewhat controversial Donbas Region) and political figures, maybe some news reel highlights as well.

Never-mind what I've said I really now want a historical campaign mode.

As stated in the OP the plan is for the main campaign to largely be a sandbox similar to JA2 with a couple big objectives that end the game. Depending on how many are fulfilled will determine the ending you get and whether Ukraine wins, stalemates or loses. I'll see how I feel about this and may change it if the war ends part way through development. Read OP for more details.

In addition to the main campaign will be a Historical Battles mode similar to the ones in the Total War games but a bit more in-depth. These will be recreations of battles from the war, that can be played outside of the campaign. In these your troop placement and lineup will match as close as possible to the real life data we have. And they will have long and detailed intro and outro briefings explaining everything. With these I would be trying to replicate these sorts of Battle of... videos. In-depth and long and explaining everything in autistic detail. Before software engineering my background was video editing and motion graphics so I am optimistic about being able to make these:

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What melee/improvised weapons ya got.

 

[soutaiseiriron]

Realistically melee has zero use in realistic tactical combat and IRL too in 99.9% of circumstances, but a funny anecdote is that Valgear, an active Ukrainian soldier on YouTube who covers various SALWs, grenades, grenade launchers, etc mentioned that he knows of 2 kills with knives, compared to zero kills with handguns.

 

[tomphonse]

What melee/improvised weapons ya got.

There will be a basic melee action and a couple knives but melee isn't much of a focus. The game's damage model is realistic so if you walk up to an enemy and don't kill/stunlock them on your turn, a single burst from the enemy at that range is pretty much assured to kill your character.

As far as improvised weapons go I am not sure. Will have to do more research on how, when and where IEDs are being used in the conflict. I do plan to have some of the insane technicals I have seen though like the Bakhmut 3-Series Rocket Launcher.

 

[Alienman]

Damn, no battlefield karate chops to the neck.