Dev update - What's next

Post Next Fest update.

Firstly I have to thank everyone who downloaded and played the demo, especially those who left valuable feedback. Even though I could go with every suggestion made I did give thought to them all, some of the suggestions like map zoom and a combat log did make the cut and I managed to get them into the demo too.

Getting seen on Steam is hard and Next Fest was a great help. Wishlists are vital for visibility pre-release just as reviews whether good or bad are post release. Whilst I set a fairly modest target for Next Fest as this is a fairly niche genre I am pleased to say I comfortably doubled what I had hoped for.

Going back through the comments you guys left the most common word used to describe CWB has been fun which is fantastic. I love getting into a deep WDS title or Flashpoint Campaigns campaign but rarely get time to give them a couple of hours, never mind the time they actually deserve. Sometimes I just want to push some units around and achieve something in short order and it seems I am not alone.

How is the full game coming along?

Well, progress slowed a little as I spent an awful lot of time updating the demo every time I added a requested thing into the main game. Whilst that is great for people playing the demo it is time consuming and a couple of mistakes crept in because of it.

The Soviet 1983 mini campaign is finished. This has been great fun to make and play as the focus is on a Tank Regiment. With only one mechanised infantry battalion in a tank regiment, normally broken down into companies to work with each tank battalion this means really preserving the small amount of infantry you have to capture objectives after the tanks have broken through. The final battle see's the bulk of the regiment deployed, 2 tank battalions, the whole infantry battalion plus artillery support and a recon company and is the first time I scored 100vp in a scenario.

As well as the campaign I added a random battle option. Not a true random battle generator as the engine simply wont allow it so the variants have to be made manually but it is a much quicker process for me than making stand alone or campaign scenarios meaning there are already dozens of variants with many more to come. The player will have no idea which map they will be playing on, which forces they command or who they are going to be up against. Random battles generally take the form of meeting engagements.

So what next?

Well there are still a lot of folk who downloaded the demo but have not got around to trying it yet so the demo will stay live for a couple of weeks at least.

There are still suggestions from the community page I want to test out such as merging depleted units, range highlight etc. As ever no promises that any of the suggestions will happen but I when I can I will give them a go and see what sticks.

I need to spend more time on how the player gets information like cover values, terrain move cost and look out how to better highlight units that have no actions remaining. The sound needs some attention too and there needs to be a full screen toggle which is simple enough.

Aiming for release between between late August and late September, hopefully the former. Price TBD but certainly less than the £30-40 GBP of other wargames.

And after release?

Sometime very soon after release there will be a free update which will add Dutch units to the game along with a scenario or two to play them with and some random battle variants with them in too. Why not with release? Because there are 380 units in the game already and I want to make sure all of them are actually in scenarios first. It is all to easy for me to add units to the game rather than doing the hard work of coding or making scenarios so having made the counters and sorted the unit pictures I decided to be disciplined and leave them until after release.

The same rule applies to various Middle Eastern factions. The aim is for a paid scenario pack featuring scenarios from the various Arab-Israeli wars, Aden and maybe even the Iran-Iraq war or Cyprus.

Additional free scenarios, random battle variants and any new units they require will arrive in periodic updates. Beyond that everything really depends on the reception the game gets. I would love to expand into some of the lesser known conflicts between 1945-1991 as well as going deeper into what may have happened in the European Theatre. Plenty of possibility for the future but only if the demand is there, would love to hear folks suggestions as to where CWB should go in the future.

That's it for now,

Thanks again,

Chris.