CDV, Sproing roll out the heavy answering artillery to talk about Panzer Tactics DS
By Michael Lafferty

“… the game is really just about strategy gaming at its best, and about recreating historic battles”

It is a hexagonal turn-based war game, with a variety of control options, based on the historic battles of World War II. Now, all you video-game wargamers, before you start clearing space on your PC’s hard drive, you should know that this game is not on a PC or even home console system – it is on the Nintendo DS.

Panzer Tactics DS is the only WWII turn-based strategy title available on the platform, and will not only feature an historically based campaign mode and other single-player missions, but will also support up to four players in a robust multiplayer option package.

According to the press materials: “The graphics engine is designed to allow for an optimal battlefield overview, conveying the maximum amount of information without overwhelming the player, while displaying the excellent unit and terrain graphics available in the game.”

Intrigued? So was GameZone and thus we turned to publisher CDV and the development company, Sproing, for more details about this title.

Question: With the system specs of the DS, was it hard to create a full-on turn-based strategy title on the scope of WWII or did you merely find that reducing the scale of the battles made for an easier (not easy) transition of the genre to this platform?

CDV/Sproing: The Nintendo DS actually is a very interesting platform to develop for, yet also demanding in technical terms regarding system specifications. It was our focus to distill the essence of turn-based strategy - a classic PC genre - and adapt it to the framework provided by the DS. The experienced PC gamer will be familiar with Panzer Tactics at once, and the casual gamer will benefit from the unique DS features, such as the touch screen and some other things we came up with. We tried to combine the best of both worlds.

Q: Ok, everyone will want to know - how is the touch screen utilized in this title?

CDV/Sproing: The touch screen’s primary task is to provide a quick, fluent and intuitive game control so that you can swiftly guide your units across the battlefields. This is crucial for a turn-based strategy game and some past examples clearly show that there is a demand for new ideas in this area. Basically what we’ve implemented is a super-easy drag and drop kind of control mechanism; you’ll have to try it hands on though to get a real feel for it. We tried to reduce the number of clicks necessary to control the game as much as humanly possible, and to make everything as intuitive as we could. And we also had to keep an eye on those gamers coming from the GBA, who are not so familiar with the use of the stylus. Creating controls that work well with the digital input was important to us too.

Q: How many campaigns will the game feature and will players be given some flexibility in how they approach the missions or will they be locked into set scenarios with hard victory conditions?

CDV/Sproing: There will be three autonomous campaigns (Axis, Russians, Western Allies) containing 10 missions each, as well as additional bonus missions that can be unlocked. In every mission the player will be given a primary objective he has to fulfill, but besides that he can decide to pursue additional mandates, earning him unlockables and other bonus items. For example, a primary objective could be the capturing of a city. Additionally the player gets unofficial information that the old town center should, if possible, not be harmed, so he will get an extra reward when he manages to capture the city without air bombardment or artillery. Or the player could try to kill a specific enemy officer or similar things. There will also be some missions containing scripted events.

Q: In terms of gameplay mechanics, will players have to manage resources and can they call in for reinforcements? Does the game play out within a time limit to make moves or is it rather open-ended in terms of the deployment or movement phase? Can players save at any juncture to either continue to play later or to try a new tactic from a set point in their deployment process?

CDV/Sproing: The basic resource in Panzer Tactics is the fame the player gets when performing well. We decided not to integrate any form of money, because you don’t just walk into a shop and buy a tank for 1,000 bucks, right? Fame is the currency needed to recruit units and officers, pay for upkeep (ammunition, fuel) and replacement, in case of a unit getting damaged.

We are indeed looking at the player’s turn time in Panzer Tactics, but only to measure how well the player performs. If he needs too long for a mission he might lose. If he’s very quick and efficient he will be rewarded.

Those internal turn time “limits” help define how the game reacts to the player. The weaker he performs the more help he will get from the game and the other way round.

But just to make this absolutely clear, in single-player mode there will be no real-time restrictions putting extra pressure on the player on a per turn basis. That’s not what turn based strategy is about.

Yes, Panzer Tactics offers the option to manually save wherever you like. In fact this was a very important issue for us. That is why we go even one step ahead and give the player two independent player profiles (so that your friend can also play without deleting your profile and still save data) containing independent save slots for campaign, single scenario and multiplayer mode.

Q: Graphically, what was the hardest thing to realize in this game?

CDV/Sproing: Obviously it is a tricky thing to transfer a PC genre game, like turn-based strategy, to the Nintendo DS and its limited screen size. We have experimented a lot on how to offer overview and detail at the same time and we’re confident that we have found a good way to realize that. After all we have come to a visual style that has not been seen on Nintendo DS yet. We’re very proud of the amount of detail we’ve been able to cram into our maps.

Q: How does the sound add to the experience?

CDV/Sproing: Sound plays a very important role in a computer game. Even more so in a strategy game where it is very likely to happen that you play a mission for a quite long time. Music and sound effects have to convey the atmosphere and accentuate your actions without becoming annoying. We think we have done a good job creating a great orchestral soundtrack within the limited audio capabilities of the DS.

Q: Tell us about the multiplayer aspect and ladder system. Will multiplayer focus on scenarios, is there co-op or will we see the standard deathmatch-type modes?

CDV/Sproing: The multiplayer mode is a key feature of Panzer Tactics. Not only can you play with up to four friends in LAN mode or Hot-Seat, you can also compete against players all over the world via Nintendo Wi-Fi. We focused on classic deathmatch games where only one can survive.

All the player’s performing parameters are being tracked and added to the high score ladder system, a ranking list, where you can compare yourself to your opponents.

One key issue regarding the highscore ladder was to prevent players to cheat. We definitely don’t want players who are about to lose to leave a session causing the true winner to lose all his achievement points. We’ve spent quite some time preventing that.

Q: Why do you think people have a fascination with WWII and how will this game depart from the plethora of titles based on that period in history?

CDV/Sproing: It’s hard to tell. War games have a long tradition, and even chess is nothing else than two armies fighting each other. The difference is just the grade of abstraction. Maybe WWII is so popular because it is still very present in the media but too far way for the game consumer to be emotionally involved. It shows the archetype of good fighting evil and therefore fiction being depicted, not history.

Panzer Tactics definitely doesn’t want to communicate any kind of political message; the game is really just about strategy gaming at its best, and about recreating historic battles. Besides that we try to make the game fun and easily accessible using a diversified mission design and new ways of gameplay. For example, you will be able to perform secret commando operations behind enemy lines with units that are mainly invisible for the opponent.

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