Sunday, August 25, 2013

"Wargames of 1939" is released

I've uploaded the final version of "Wargames of 1939", the World War 2 counterpart of Populus Romanus to Google Play at last. By the time I publish this post, the game should already be downloadable from there. Amazon Appstore will follow in nearby days as soon as the Amazon review process has approved the app.

To open Google Play to download the full version, click here.

To open Google Play to download the free trial version, click here.

If you like these kind of games, please rate "Wargames of 1939" on Google Play and/or share the app on Facebook and Twitter! Those things will help to get the game noticed and enable me to keep on creating more strategy games.

(Own blog for that game is at www.ww2strategy.com, from now on I'll try to post updates and such mainly to that page.)

Thursday, July 25, 2013

My next hex strategy game, coming soon

The next game ("Wargames of 1939") is nearing its completion! It is based on the engine of Populus Romanus, but has many additions and game-specific tweaks.

I posted an extensive set of screenshots to the game's own blog at ww2strategy.com ... take a look there if you like WW2 era wargames! I'm hoping to release the game some time in late August but don't take that as a definite promise. :-)



Saturday, November 10, 2012

Populus Romanus 2: Britannia ... released!

Phew. Finally got Populus Romanus 2: Britannia completed and uploaded it to Google Play, in a few hours(?) the links below should be active. I'll put it also on Amazon Appstore soon (should take about 1-2 weeks to be accepted there due to approval process).

The game has 8 scenarios set in the times of the Roman conquest of Britannia. Graphics have some updates since the original game, unit types are the same as in original game (but with some subtle changes: Praetorians and Praetorian Cavalry have more health than others, spearmen and bowmen have less health than others, and bowmen see farther away than other units), and AI was slightly changed.

As this is the very first released version of PR2, it might still have some bugs I haven't found yet, even though I've done my best to ensure the quality. If you encounter something odd, please let me know and I'll fix it promptly! Also if some scenarios feel too easy, too hard, or too boring, I'd be happy to address such issues as well.

The full version is here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.populusromanus.britannia

Alternatively, here's a direct link to Google Play application if browsing this blog on Android device:

market://details?id=com.populusromanus.britannia

A free version containing the first scenario of the game is here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.populusromanus.britannia_free

And the direct Google Play link for that:

market://details?id=com.populusromanus.britannia_free


P.S. If you like this game or the previous one, please consider spreading the word on Facebook or Twitter (there are sharing buttons in the game main menu). Getting more people to notice these games will ensure the continuity of the game series! There is already a World War II themed game using the same engine in the pipeline, so in 2013 there will be PanzerKampfWagen II's rolling around hex maps. :-)

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Update 1.4.1 released, adds difficulty levels

Populus Romanus v1.4.1 is now released on Google Play. Amazon Appstore will follow up in 1-2 weeks when the new version is approved. The new version adds difficulty level settings: there is now easy, normal and hard variant for each scenario. Also, scenario #6 (Adriatic coast) is made somewhat easier based on feedback from several players.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Populus Romanus 2: Britannia

Happily announcing that I've been spending time on a sequel to Populus Romanus. The sequel is called "Populus Romanus 2: Britannia" and it will be released likely in September or early October, with the obvious "force majeure" reservation of course :-) 

It has a new campaign of 8 scenarios situated in the area of modern day England and Wales, starting from the initial landing of Romans and continuing up to Boudica's rebellion. There are some gameplay related changes (e.g. units have different spotting ranges, making some of the weaker units better scouts) but the overall the gameplay experience is very familiar to veterans of original Populus Romanus.

Naturally the original game will continue to be supported as well. On that front, I'm going to make those Hannibal scenarios harder as requested by several players.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Version 1.3.1 released

I released a minor update (version 1.3.1) today; it has the following changes compared to previous version:

- Added a setting to define the odds, above which attacking unit will always win. This is by default 75%, but you can set it to any value between 70%-100% on 5% intervals. Value of 75% here means that whenever any player (human or AI) attacks with odds equal or better than that, the attack is considered to be so overwhelming that the defender does not have a chance against it. To disable this and get back the behaviour of version 1.3.0 and earlier, just set this to exactly 100% and it's like it used to be.

- Feature request: Settings for screen centering behaviour. You can disable centering on unit selection, and/or centering after unit has moved.

- Bugfix: Fixed a rare OpenGL ES crash when switching between the game and other applications. Occasionally happened while switching back to game after some time had already passed since playing, and Android had killed the graphics context already.

- Bugfix: Fixed a crash that sometimes occurs when last enemy unit was killed and AI then recruits a new unit in a town.

- Bugfix: Long range skirmisher can no longer be hit back when skirmish fails (thanks for the bugreport, this completely eluded me earlier!)

- Several variants of plains hex background textures to give a bit more varied appearance. I'll be tweaking these still a bit, also the forest hexes are going to see some variance in a future version ...

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Version 1.3.0 released

Version 1.3.0 released, with the following bugfixes/improvements/feature requests implemented:

- Added setting to allow/disallow screen dimming
- Added setting to enable/disable a player color marker under units (disabled by default)
- Town names are now displayed always (including when under fog of war)
- Small villages have their own graphics now (seen in Hannibal campaign)
- Rule adjustment: Failed skirmishing has now 50% chance of hurting the skirmisher
- Minor bugfixes for savegame handling (skirmished enemy units don't lose skirmish status prematurely)
- Performance enhancements for Android 2.2 and later (2.1 is unaffected)
- AI performance optimizations (should be now somewhat faster on maps with larger distances between armies)
- Fixed one more rare Force Close issue

Version 1.3.0 is initially available on Google Play (Android Market), with Amazon Appstore version following up in nearby days if/when Amazon QA is passed.