wodin
Posts: 10762
Joined: 4/20/2003
From: England
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Good news Iain. Good news indeed. Some fantastic boardgames out there that are crying out for a PC conversion aswell as your Ipads\Androids.
Death Ride Kursk series, GD'42 (Plus the other games in the TCS series), Streets of Stalingrad, Bloody April (amazing wargame that covers the air war better than any game yet), Wings of War (If you got a contract with Fantasy Flight Games then your on a cash cow), Gamers Case Blue, ATS series, Panzer series (just been re released and reworked by GMT games and getting high praise), Fighting Formations series, SPQR, Command and Colours series, Worthington Games Band of Brothers (got some great reviews since release with it's unique game mechanics), The Burning Blue, RAF Battle of Britain (John Butterfields solo masterpiece), D Day on Ohmaha (another solo Butterfield masterpeice, throw in Deippe aswell and it's a winner) Steel Wolves and Silent War, Landships, The Battle for Normandy (GMT games monster), Next War: Korea (getting some great reviews), Panzer Grenadier, plus many, many more. Lots of boardgames especially the monster ones are amazing games but take up to much room and lots of rules, all this would be overcome with a PC conversion.
I'd buy everyone of the above no problem.
As I said somewhere before maybe here, boardgame design and game mechanics as well as art from counters to maps is getting better not only in quality but also innovation. Sadly many PC wargames on the whole seem stuck in the old way of doing things, little or no innovation or nothing that really changes how you play a wargame that makes it play historically. Someone over at Command Ops (an amazing PC wargame by the way) said they are still waiting for a wargame that can recreate a certain situation, yet GD'42 can do exactly that, it's why it's on my list it also looks so much better than many many PC wargames. Or take urban\city fighting in a PC wargame, none have managed to do it well yet however a fair few boardgame scan do it and do it well. Boardgame art is in many games especially over recent years visually beautiful both maps and counters something many PC wargames lack. This really shouldn't be the case, infact the PC should lead the way both in mechanics and art. I suppose this is why I want to see all the games above converted. Not only for the AI but also the mechanics and art quality.
Thinking about it, maybe the game mechanics in board wargames are innovative in many cases because the designers have been designing wargames since the seventies or most likely alot longer time than our PC wargame developers. They have vast experience. They also work with what really is a restrictive medium, something again PC can overcome from to many rules to Fog of War issues, so maybe they really have to think in unique innovative ways when desiging a new wargame.
There is a boom in boardgames at the moment. Rock paper Shotgun a PC game website has a weekly boardgame section many love or take GMT games they converted a PC game Space Empires into a baordgame and are already on their 2nd reprint, people loved it. They are currently making some of their boardgame sin PC\Ipad games but not the wargames and again from what I've seen of the screens of Twilight Struggle are getting the art wrong or not upto scratch apparently the VASSAL module has better art. I really think Slitherine\Matrix to step in and talk with GMT about converting their wargames. They currently have PlayDek making some but they aren't experienced PC wargame publishers\developers. They have several of the titles I mentioned above.
Fianlly as mentioned above someone spent $300 for Streets of Stalingrad. So wargamers are willing to spend their money. If I was doing a PC conversion I think you should sell different types of packages, to give that tactile feel. Lest say basic is the download..or one up from that CD,Box and manual, then next tier CD,Box, Indepth Manual and small colour Map (very useful actually due to screen size compared to looking at the boardgame map on a table), then you could do one for even more money..give them the Box,CD,In depth Manual, Bigger Map, historical booklet on the battle and the leaders involved etc, OOB Chart, TOE chart, Terrain chart maybe even a book of photos of the battle as postcards, maybe a booklet of AAR's with colour photos from the boardgame and the PC game, maybe even a small discount of the price of the boardgame. Something along the lines of what many Kickstraters do with their pricing. This way your giving the PC conversion something tactile which is part of the beauty of boardgames by adding the stuff mentioned abpve your still giving the customer something tactile but for a price though I imagine the game would still be cheaper than the boardgame especially those monster out of print games. I'd even offer the extras on their own. SO say someone buys the basic digital download and loves the game they may decide to buy the map and historical booklet and charts etc or whatever it was that was in the higher tier versions.
< Message edited by wodin -- 10/31/2012 3:54:56 PM >
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Matrix\Slitherine..could you please.... - 
). The conversion has been on the trot for the past 10 years or more...I cannot remember the exact amount of time, but it is a long time waiting for one computer game. I think there is one person working on it. And apparently he has done bugger all lately because he has some severe health problems. He has my sympathies, but looking at the whole thing dispassionately, it doesn't say much when this is how a BIG wargame is treated for a computer conversion. 
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