A while ago I stated some goals I had for the Star Hammer shooter I was working on last year. I figured it was worthwhile talking a little about what I wanted Star Hammer Tactics to be. So, here goes.

I really like the concept of strategy games. I like the idea of marshalling your resources, devising a plan, and crushing your opponents with your strategic brilliance. The problem I’ve found with most of the strategy-type games I’ve played over the years though, is complexity.

Complexity in a number of forms. Controls that take a while to learn, and even longer to master – whether it’s menus that are nested quite deeply to get to the command you want, or needing to learn a gazillion shortcut keys, or HUD’s that look like they belong in a stock trading system. Complexity in the form of dozens of unit types, with multiple upgrade paths, resulting in hundreds of combinations of unit types to choose from when deciding what to deploy and where.

Now, I’m not saying these things are bad or wrong. Just that I feel that perhaps not everybody wants that much complexity in a strategy game. Sure, a lot of people do want things to be as complex as possible. Fine. Great! You’re pretty well served by the existing games available, or in development.

I wanted to make something that had the feel of a strategy game, with a bit less complexity. Enter Star Hammer Tactics.

In Star Hammer Tactics, there are two sides : the humans of Novus and the alien Nautilids. Each side has a total of 4 units types – a small fighter, a larger fighter, a medium sized “warship” and a larger “destroyer” class vessel. A fleet is usually no more than 10 ships, meaning two things : battles are fairly short, and each ship is individually controlled by the player. Rather than giving “high level” orders (go here, guard this area, etc), you move each ship into position, fire a missiles at a specific enemy, attack a specific ships in close range combat, etc. Each ship has precisely two stats : Attack and Defense. Attack is the firepower of weapons, Defense the power of shields or hull strength.

So, the gameplay goal in summary :  Create a strategy game with enough variables to make  the experience interesting and compelling, whilst maintaining a  simplified control scheme  and a rule set that makes the game accessible to players that might not currently play strategy games.

I guess I’ll find out if I’ve succeeded soon enough.

L8r, Paul