Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Hello 2012! The observant among you may have noticed that I appeared to write something yesterday but I actually wrote that in 2011. Yesterday, I was still in a burrow eating the last needles of the Christmas tree in preparation for emergence. The first thing I saw as my eyes adjusted to the light was a developer diary for Gratuitous Tank Battles, so I brought that with me. Within, Cliff puts forward two game design proposals. One, “a sort of Upper Class World War I English General Simulator”, the other a game taking place during a war that has spanned centuries, leading to battlefields strewn with laser-spewing Tiger tanks, tiny infantrymen and robots alike. He’s making the latter. We must demand the former as well.

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The lovely Cliffski has put up a new developer diary detailing the forthcoming Gratuitous Tank Battles, this time talking about what exactly Gratuitous Tank Battles is. Which appears to be a blend of the sensibilities of previous fleet commander sim Gratuitous Space Battles with the pathfinding of a tower defence game. No, quiet in the back there, settle down. It isn’t your typical tower defence game, see. Let Uncle Cliffski explain.

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Cliff Harris has sent word that the first footage of his next game, Gratuitous Tank Battles, is now available. You can see it below. Cliff describes this as “a video showing early work-in-progress footage from battles in ‘Gratuitous Tank Battles’, the RTS/Tower Defense/ Sim strategy game.” In it you can see elements of both the attacking and defending games, as well as some of the conditions of battle, such as pesky darkness. For more on this you can have a read of my interview with Cliff, in which he explains the inspiration for the game and his aims for building on Gratuitous Space Battles with a more complex and strategic game.
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Observant eyes may have noticed that there’s a new expansion out for Gratuitous Space Battles, the fleet building slice of indie goodness from Positech. While this fresh bit of DLC doesn’t add any new game modes, it does add 10 new ships, three new pieces of equipment and a new scenario. The new ships belong to the titular Parasites faction, who sound very unpleasant indeed. Swanning around the galaxy looking for host species to grow their larvae in? It’s not on. There’s a trailer showing some particularly gratuitous space battles below and a new pic from Positech’s upcoming Gratuitous Tank Battles for your eyes to look at.

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