We are reaching the end of the ATF Engine project, and this felt like a good time to publish an update on the goings-on at ProSIM Company. It is an ending, as we have completed work on the final revision of the ATF Engine (for The Star and the Crescent, see below), but it is also a beginning because it completely “empties our plate” so that we can work full-force on Air Assault Task Force.

Don’t worry, though. We are not leaving the ATF Engine in the dust. We have committed to making Air Assault Task Force completely compatible with the ATF Engine. So, when you get the new game, you can install it over any or all of the ATF Engine games and instantly upgrade them to the new engine! Plus, all of the great user content that has been developed over the years will work in Air Assault Task Force as well!

Those who have been following the ATF Engine project might be surprised to hear us say it is coming to a close. There were two titles announced that are not nearing release (The War in Afghanistan and Thunder and Lightning: The Battles of Operation Desert Storm). I will address both of those projects here, as well, hopefully putting speculation on the topic to rest.

Enough looking back, though. Let’s start with some news:

The Star and the Crescent

If you have been watching the Shrapnel Games Home Page, you have probably heard that The Star and the Crescent is nearing release. We are rapping up the final week of BETA testing now, and hope to “Go Gold” by 2 SEP 05. That means the games should be shipping to customers by the end of September!

To recap, for those who have not been following the release, the game is a study of Arab-Israeli wars from 1956 to near-future scenarios in 2009. The game’s true focus, however, is the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The game uses a heavily modified version of the ATF Engine (built on and compatible with the version used for The Falklands War: 1982) to put the player in command of battalion-sized elements in some of the most hair-raising combat of the past 50 years. It is much more armor-centric than any of our previous titles, and the brief, no-nonsense orders reflect the “seat of the pants” situations that characterized these wars.

To find out more about the game, go here:

The Star and the Crescent Product Page

You can also get information at the ProSIM Company page:

The Star and the Crescent Home Page

To try out a free demo, go here:

The Star and the Crescent DEMO

Right now, Shrapnel Games is offering $5 off of the regular price for pre-orders. To pre-order, go here:

Pre-Order The Star and the Crescent

The War in Afghanistan

As eluded to above, this game is not going to make it into the ATF Engine project. The development team has had a number of real world setbacks that make it impossible at this time.

However, the project is not dead. It is simply changing forms. First, portions of the original concept for this game will be featured in Air Assault Task Force (read below). Second, the core development team is still working as work is possible and hope to revive this title for the AATF Engine once the game is engine-ized (I may have invented a word here).

So this project is not dead, just on hold.

Thunder and Lightning: The Battles of Operation Desert Storm

I can now officially announce this this project is canceled. While some of the material from this project might appear in other titles, the game as it was originally conceived, will not be completed.

Things ended amicably. We wish the team and the project lead, Del Shand, all of the best. We regret that we will not be able to complete this project. It was a great concept. Perhaps, someday…

Out with the old, in with the new… or, “The Unamed Title”

In our last post, ProSIM Company Update, 21MAY05 we eluded to a “next ATF Engine” title. We still are not ready to make any announcements, but we can tell you that this title will most-likely be for the AATF Engine once the game is engine-ized. This decision was made because we have decided to allocate all of our resources to Air Assault Task Force.

Oh, yeah. And I can also tell you the game is going to be an Eastern Front WWII title.

Stay tuned to this blog, the ATF forum at Shrapnel Games:

Shrapnel Forum

and the ATF/BCT forum at StrategyZoneOnline:

StrategyZoneOnline

for more updates on this project, as we have them.

Air Assault Task Force

I have a bunch of announcements on this front. Buckle your seatbelts…

First, we have assembled the development team. And it is a cast of all stars. Here they are, along with their past work for ProSIM, in no particular order:

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Oh, yeah. And, of course, I am on the team, too.

Next, we have completed what we perceive to be all of the major technological hurdles in the title. This means that we are now well into building the wargaming engine that will define military simulations for the 21st century. Of course, game programming is not an exact science, and new, unforeseen hurdles will emerge, I can report that we are well ahead of schedule in every area. Unlike games developed by mass-market development houses, that doesn’t mean we get to reap profits faster. That means we get to add more gaming goodness prior to release!

I also have some more announcements to make on scenario content. We have hammered out a design document and we are ready to talk, a little bit, about what the game will look like. We are looking at doing a loose thematic title. By this, we mean that, rather than focus on one era or area of the world, we are going to do a number of campaigns set in different regions and time periods, as we did with Armored Task Force and BCT Commander before it.

Here are the tentative topics for the campaigns in Air Assault Task Force.

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We are being intentionally vague at this point. Please stay tuned to this blog and the links above for more info as it becomes available.

I’m done gabbing…

So for now, I will leave you with our latest crack at release dates (which, as always, carries a cautionary note on the unpredictability of software development). Thanks to all of our great fans for their support, suggestions, commitment, and energy over the years. You guys really are what keeps us going!

The Falklands War: 1982 OUT NOW
The Star and the Crescent September 2005
Air Assault Task Force September 2006

PS: We’re pretty new at this whole Blog thing, so if I am not addressing any burning questions you have, please let me know, and I will do my best to cover them in my next installment.

As everyone is aware of by now the game industry is once again under fire, this time for sexual content. Poor, innocent grandmothers who bought GTA: San Andreas for their teenage grandchildren are suing for the unknown trauma they have inflicted on their favorite grandsons (ya know, because the fact that they were buying a game that featured home invasions and carjacking was okay). Everyone’s favorite ambulance chaser, Jack Thompson, who I once interviewed and in that questioning called all readers of ‘Wired’ insane, has been let out of the nuthouse and is on the prowl. And let’s not forget the the real power behind the nightmare years of the Clinton administration, she-wolf Hillary Clinton herself is getting into the act. Yep, the three-ringed circus has set up in town. And to that?

Ho-hum. Wake me when it’s over.

Like every single time before this is just another frenzy of lawyers and lawmakers trying to look like they’re doing something to earn their paychecks. It’ll blow over, become old news, and vanish. At least until some kid mows down his classmates with a rifle, or some sort of secret perverse mini-game is found in Bejeweled. Then the baying of the hounds will begin anew.

At some point though some new cultural experience will enter into our collective consciousness, and that will become the new target. Television, rock’n'roll, comic books, XXX movies, metal music, Dungeons & Dragons, rap music…they’ve all been blamed on the decline of Western civilization at one point, at corrupted the impressionable youth of the day. In the end people grew bored and moved on to the next item to be angry at. The attacks on videogames have lasted longer than most, but I think that’s probably because people really have too much free time now. Boredom + 15 minutes of fame = pointless litigation and legislation.

But this has got me thinking in the past couple of days about the content of games. What exactly are the limits on games? Should there be limits? And why?

For example, is it the actual depiction of violence or can it be the mere suggestion? What is worse, a first person shooter where the targets fall down with ragdoll physics with a puff of blood when shot, or an interactive fiction game that describes in great detail the savage rape and evisceration of a young girl? Is it blood and guts that creates the line to cross, or is it death itself? If it is simply death then isn’t every single wargame hundreds of times more violent than Grand Theft Auto?

Isn’t it all about graphics? Load up the most violent game from the eras of 286 and tell me it would get a second glance today. “Hey, look, that blue blob of pixels just did something to that yellow blob of pixels and now there are some red pixels onscreen…”

So is it about taste? In movies, was the violence in “Saving Private Ryan” more acceptable because it was historical violence, as opposed to some splatterpunk horror movie? If so, does that mean if you were to have heads exploding in red mist and limbs being shattered in Call of Duty 2 that would be okay, but if you did that in Office Shooter 666 that would be wrong?

And what about sex? Haven’t games always sold the lure of sex. It’s not like many games feature women with anything less than a C cup after all. So where’s the line? How much worse is it if in one game you stare at the ass of the female protagonist throughout the game while she wears a leather g-string, or she actually does something sexual?

What made games like movies? Why not books? You can be of any age and pick up the most vile, reprehensible book you could want and read it to your heart’s content without anyone telling you that you shouldn’t, or you can’t. But not a movie. Movies have ratings, and a movie will never, ever equal what a book is producing in terms of setting the imagination alive. Games have ratings. Games used to not have ratings though, games were once upon a time like books. No one thought twice about them. So what changed?

The almighty dollar. That’s it, isn’t it? Games moved from becoming a hobby to an industry (anyone remember the good ol’ days of EA, when their games came in those small LP like packages and they weren’t a bunch of corporate whores?) and like everything else that becomes big it lost the magic. Now that it was acceptable to play games it was now important to protect the children. Funny though how they’re trying to protect the children, who by all rights shouldn’t be able to afford these games anyway, so really shouldn’t the parents be the ones responsible for deciding what comes into their homes? Oh no, guess that would demand parental responsibility. Something else lost in the ’90s…

What’s done is done though and at this point we have to live with it. The line for sex and violence has not yet been fully drawn, and will constantly be pushed, and at some point folks will finally realize what the line is. And as long as there are people out there who will spend money on it, it will be there, and there will always be someone out there decrying the horror of it all.

In the end gamers are a smart bunch, and quality will always rule the day. If that quality title just happens to have a little bit of the ultra-violence and the in and out, so be it. If it doesn’t, but it’s a blast to play, people will play. And this is something people like Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton will never understand. Games don’t need violence to be fun, and if they have it it doesn’t automatically mean they’re good. A game just needs to be good.

-Scott

Now playing: Wrapping up a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, wrapping up Europe Engulfed, and looking to finally get time to play the new Arkham Horror.

Now listening: Wishmaster - Nightwish, Killers - Iron Maiden, A Night At The Opera - Blind Guardian.