If you’re going to make a game about the Civil War, you should probably make it steampunk. Such is the premise for designer Danny Greene’s upcoming Gettysburg: Armored Warfare, a real-time strategy/shooter hybrid that puts Confederate soldiers in wielded plate armor and tanks on Little Round Top.
It’s a cool concept, but what’s more impressive is that Greene programmed the game without any outside help. We spoke with Greene at his showing of Gettysburg: Armored Warfare to learn his thoughts.
GameZone: Tell us a little bit about your game.
Danny Greene: Gettysburg: Armored Warfare is basically a real-time strategy/action hybrid. It’s an online-only game, supporting up to 64 players per server. So it’s going to have pretty detailed battles.
Players will be able to give orders to their units from above, and at any point in time kind of jump down and take control of one of their units. It’s going to have the best of both genres, in my opinion.
GZ: It’s unique that there’s some time traveling involved. A guy goes back in time and brings technology with him. Explain that for us.
DG: Exactly. This guy goes back in time to try to change the outcome of the Civil War, so that the South comes out victorious. And the government finds out that he’s doing this and they send technology back to try to stop him.
And so it almost creates this time traveling arms race in 1860s America. So it’s going to create this fusion of 1860s technology and 2060s technology. It’s going to turn out to be pretty interesting.
GZ: The new technology comes from this guy’s know-how?
DG: Basically, yeah. Picture a guy like Tony Stark—you know, Iron Man—going back in time. There’s a quick infusion of technology.
GZ: So what does that lead to? Tanks? What kind of units are you thinking about?
DG: We’re going to have futuristic tanks that got sent back and sort of cobbled together using technology that was available at the time. So it’s going to create this almost steampunk-esque result with these futuristic units with old repairs.
GZ: And when you jump into a soldier’s body to control him you can take cover behind fences and things like that?
DG: Yeah, I’m going to have a cover system in the game pretty soon. And it’s going to have all the traditional functionality of a real time strategy game, as in you can set the aggressiveness of a unit and what they’re going to do when they encounter an enemy. You can set their defensive postures, formations, and things like that.
The game’s free-to-play. About a thousand units on the battlefield. Terrains are pretty large, about nine kilometers by nine kilometers.
There’s a command hierarchy system so that orders are passed from high-ranking players down to lower ranking players in real time. There’s also a commander mode. So like in Battlefield, one guy is basically the leader and he passes orders down to the players, and if they execute the orders they get points. That’s the incentive for players to actually do what other players ask them to do.
GZ: And you told us earlier that you programmed this game entirely yourself?
DG: Yeah.
GZ: You’re a true auteur.
DG: [Laughs] Yeah, sure. Yeah, I’ve been working on this one for about three months. I’ve been working in technology for many years. So I’m really looking forward to getting this out there and showing people what I can do.
GZ: I heard you started programming C++ at age ten, right?
DG: [Laughs] I did start programming C++ when I was ten years old.
GZ: Very cool. When do you think Gettysburg: Armored Warfare will release?
DG: We’re shooting for a summer beta, so hopefully we can stick to that and get the game in people’s hands pretty soon.
GZ: So we’re going to be able to machine gun down confederate soldiers?
DG: You will be able to machine gun down Confederate soldiers. And don’t forget about the War Zeppelins. We are going to have War Zeppelins.
GZ: Sounds great, thanks a lot for your time.
