First iPad specific game?
Bloober Team, a polish developer have announced their newest development Gender Wars and it is specifically being made for Apple’s newest piece of kit, the iPad. The iPad will be released stateside in March and Bloober Team are keen to make the most use of what the iPad has to offer:
The game is turn based tactic game that will redefine whole tactic games genre with its casual, story-driven approach and easy click&shoot interface. “We wanted to make tactic game that will be easy to pick and play by anyone, in a short burst of 2-3 minutes per game, while offering enough in-depth complexity to play for hours” says Peter Bielatowicz, lead designer of the game.
“In a way, and I understand that it’s a bit bold to say, we would like to create something similar to Metal Gear Solid for iPad” Bielatowicz continues. “MGS was a stealth game, and stealth games before, like Tenchu, were considered to be more for hardcore players. But MGS was extremely easy to pick and play and so strongly story driven that many casual people were playing it just to follow the storyline and learning more advanced gameplay strategies as they played” he explains. “We want to implement the same flow in our game so a player can choose to focus on the story or the gameplay – according to what he prefers” Bielatowicz adds.
“Most of current tactic or strategy games on the market have very long learning curves and overwhelm player with too many information at once.
It throws off most of casual players. We will show completely different, minimalistic approach in our game” Bielatowicz continues. “We are testing our interface on gamers, and look how they approach the game and what are the first things that come to their mind when trying to perform some command” says Piotr Babieno, one of the game producers. “Then we simply implement our user interface to work this way” Bielatowicz adds.
The game takes place in the post-apocalyptic SF universe, and its storyline involves themes such as time travels, tragic love and epic military operations. “Everyone will find something for himself in the game, from space operas fans to hard military SF geeks” says Paweł Kobyłecki, one of game main screenwriters. “But this is too soon to speak about details at the moment” says Bielatowicz. “We will reveal everything in proper time, starting with series of feature films” he adds.
Comments on iPad
The game is being prepared iPad. “We believe that tactic games will be one of best and most successful games on iPad platform” predicts Babieno. “This kind of touch device with big screen helps you to command your units in most natural and intuitive way” he adds. “You have to also remember that the people will play iPad in longer sessions and with more concentration than they did on iPhone” comments Bielatowicz. “iPad is perfect device for people playing in train or airplane or at home rather than on the move like it was with iPhone. All designers shall keep this in mind when thinking about designing an iPad game” he ends.
Teaser for the whole series
One of the most surprising things about the “Gender Wars: The Battle” is that the game alone is a teaser for other upcoming games from the series. It contains only the battle game mode and will focus on gameplay challenges. “It may sound weird, but after first tests of the battle module it turned out to play so well and entertaining on its own that we decided to release it as separate title” Piotr Babieno. “We want to tease players a bit and prepare them for the final game” Babieno explains. “The Battle will be released at very low price, so players can taste our quality without spending much” he adds. “Of course we will listen very closely to all the reactions and use players feedback to improve final game” Bielatowicz ends.
