Hello all!

In another deposit on my pledge to keep our fans abreast of the latest developments at ProSIM, I thought I would take a few moments to update everyone on our latest progress and what lies ahead.

Remember, as you read, that we are not “throwing the baby out with the bath water”. We are making a firm commitment to maintain back wards compatibility. It is taking a little extra time, but it means that when you buy the latest ATF Engine game, if you install it over previous ATF Engine games, those versions will immediately get an “upgrade” enjoying all of the features of the newest version of the engine.

It also means that all of you budding scenario builders will not see your work go to waste when a new version is released. You can load it up in the latest version of the ATF Engine and it will run perfectly, and be ready to receive the latest tools the new engine has to offer.

And this includes Air Assault Task Force. All of the ATF Engine scenarios will run in this engine, too!

Well, might as well dive in.

The Falklands War: 1982

If you’ve been keeping your ear to the ground, you have probably been hearing quite a bit of rumbling. Another ATF Engine release is just about to hit the street, and there are a lot of developments.

First, a playable demo has been released. You can download it here:

TFW Demo

This playable demo includes two scenarios: a tutorial that covers a SAS raid on Pebble Island, and a regular scenario detailing a British attack on Argentinean defensive positions. It highlights a few, but not all of the new features in this revolution of the ATF Engine.

If the demo whets your appetite, you can purchase the game in pre-orders right now. You’ll get $5.00 off of the regular price and free shipping! You can place your order here:

Buy TFW

A lot of the changes in the ATF Engine will be immediately obvious. Some of the “under the hood” changes include an overhauled graphics engine that eliminates the irritating “DirectDraw disable” problems many modern video cards had with the engine. We have also upgraded the friendly and enemy AI to reflect dismounted tactics, added vastly improved weather effects, and introduced disparate training levels that allow scenario designers (including those that designed TFW) to configure training levels in many different areas throughout a faction (to facilitate coalition warfare).

NOTE: Keep an eye out for updates to ATF and Raging Tiger that also incorporate this video engine improvements, eliminating the “DirectDraw disable” problem for good!

We plan to have the game to Shrapnel Games in just a week or two. We are just tyeing up a few loose ends in post-production. This means deliveries should start before the end of June!

The Star and the Crescent: Arab-Israeli Wars, 1956-2009

Curt Pangracs and PanClan Games are hard at work on this project. The early builds look GREAT. The scenarios are also a big departure from previous ATF Engine releases. Curt has really captured the sense of “skin of the teeth” defense that was the early hours of the October War in 1972. He has also taken me to school on several engagements earlier in the history of modern Israel.

Highlights of this release are the introduction of radars of all descriptions, including air defense and airborne radars and counter-battery radars, a really stunning visual style never seen in an ATF Engine release before, and the use of digitized, military contour maps that are period specific and 100% authentic. There are also a ton of other engine tweaks, facilitating the unique ferocity of these wars, including the presence of distinct, discrete buildings and structures, and tools that allow the player to better target close air support.

I don’t want to spoil the surprise, or steal Curt’s thunder, so I will save the rest for my next entry.

War in Afghanistan

Well, the upside of enlisting active duty military officers from the world’s best armies to lead development teams is that our products are the most current, most accurate available in the modern wargaming market. But there is a downside…

The team lead for this project has postponed work on this project due to his military responsibilities in the increased operational tempo of the global war on terror. The project is still alive. He is sneaking in work where he can, and is committed to completing the project.

Right now, we are exploring options for “redesigning” this project, so that we can get the best game possible out on the street. We will have more on this when we settle on a solution.

Thunder & Lightning: The Battles of Operation Desert Storm

This project is currently on hold. Expect to hear some news about this release soon.

Next ATF Engine Project

We are not ready to make an announcement, but we can tell you that we are assembling a new team, and are exploring some possibilities for a WWII game built on the foundation of the ATF Engine.

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

We have made a LOT of progress on our newest wargaming engine since our last post here at the blog. Several technical hurdles, that we thought would be mountains, have turned out to be mole hills!

Here is where we are at now.

We are currently building the user interface. The game runs full-screen by default, or windowed by option. It is player configurable, to allow you to “tweak” it to take best advantage of your video card, if you like. It replaces the “select an order-select the unit” paradigm with an interface that is more recognizable to novice and advanced wargamers (selecting a unit and then adjusting its paths and settings).

The idea is an interface that is more intuitive, and reveals its depth as the player explorers, rather than putting all of the complexity up front. As the player gains confidence with the game, and wants to use more advanced features, he “overrides” the default settings and artificial intelligence of the companies, platoons, and vehicles that he controls by customizing their behavior. Or, if the player prefers, he can stay “out of the weeds” and make only the high-level decisions. It is very much a fulfillment of the original concept that was Armored Task Force.

I can also tell you a little more about the concept for the scenario content, as well. We are looking at three full campaigns, and one “mini” campaign (which will also be the tutorial and demo). This is much as it is with Armored Task Force. The idea is to give the player a wide array of scenarios, spanning many different terrain types, vehicle databases, and periods of time.

Tentatively, we have “locked-in” if you can do so, this early, several of the topics for the campaigns. We are pretty sure that our demo/tutorial will be set at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, the world’s best light infantry training center. We also anticipate building a campaign in Vietnam, though we are not ready to announce a location or battle yet.

As for the rest, I can just tell you we have a lot of good ideas, and will release more as we can.

That’s a wrap…

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!

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 I mentioned in my first blog post, I would like to address the problem of losing data while working on a game. I know, I know, EVERYONE who works on games or other software creation KNOWS this already. My dilemma is WHEN you save! I save all the time, but always seem I get an error or a crash of some kind when I’m saving something I’ve spent a particularly large chunk of my life completing.

I have tried to find the reason this happens for more than 2 years now, and the only answer I keep coming up with is that whatever I took so long to create is important to know HOW to create, so God is forcing me to REALLY learn it! Yeah, kinda weak, but it tends to keep me from tossing my expensive laptop across the room. Seriously, though, I’ve found that when I did have to go back and rebuild what I’d labored so long over, I have found errors that would have been very difficult to find and fix outside of the beta-testing process, or a better way of doing the whole process.

What’s strange is that I don’t always look on the bright side of life. Maybe having the power to destroy a laptop and all it contains in my hands makes me cautious!? Anyway, I’ve yet to figure out the PERFECT time to save my work, beyond what I’ve done at the end of a session of manipulating enemy AI or painstakingly recreating a new piece of military equipment. The save process can be excruciatingly time consuming as well when you work with a program that can, due to circumstances which don’t reveal themselves, also CORRUPT the data you have already saved! AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!

This has happened to me 4 times over the last 2 years, and each time I figured I had learned my lesson and would avoid any problems in the future. Each time I got cocky with my skills, God slaps me back into place. It’s hard to describe what it’s like when you get into a game-designing groove (my phrase, but feel free to use it!) and nothing can stop you! Your AI is working perfectly and all of your vehicles are performing as designed, and you just have to plot a route for the final enemy air strike and “POOF”, it’s all gone! Some of you know exactly what it’s like. These are the times when prayer, even for the anti-Christ, seems appropriate!

Even beyond these things are the times when you ARE saving often and in numerous places, and there is a power surge or your CPU decides it’s had enough. We are at the mercy of electrons, as it were.

So, the whole point of this blog is to let you know that first, you aren’t alone if you’ve suffered through something similar, and second, when you have taken all of the precautions to avoid losing your hard work, sometimes you should just look at it as the journey being the reward and the process is what’s important…

…or something like that.

Well, here we are. My very first “blog” attempt, and I seem to be suffering from writer’s block! Seriously,…people who know me know I’m rarely at a loss for words, and writing is really no exception.

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Curt Pangracs, and I am the designer of Raging Tiger: The Second Korean War, published last August 15th by the wonderful folks at Shrapnel. I retired from the US Army in April of 2003 after serving as a combat medic in numerous roles from Armor to Mech Infantry to Cav, and even a prison! Not as an inmate, but running a 24 hour clinic in the Army’s max security prison at Fort Leavenworth. Gives you a new appreciation for freedom, believe me!

I attended the Origins gaming convention in July of last year, and I had the distinct and unforgettable pleasure of meeting Tim and Annette Brooks, Richard and Mindi Arneson, Todd Gillissie of Space Horse fame, and two guys from Sweden or the Netherlands or Norway,…some really cold place that doesn’t have many women! (Just kidding Johan and Kris!). They built Dominions II: The Ascension Wars, and boy, do they know how to knock back a few beverages,…barely! Last, but not least, I met Pat Proctor. We had been dealing with each other by phone and email for the better part of a year, so I felt I had known him for quite awhile, and I think he felt the same. Even as we showed ATF and Raging Tiger at the convention, wheels were turning in both of our heads for the next game I would work on.

At the risk of upsetting Tim or Pat, I think this is the PERFECT venue to make an initial announcement of my next game. Towards the end of Origins, I pitched an idea to Pat about how I would love to use ATF to create a game about the numerous Arab/Israeli conflicts over the years, and how these battles would fit well in the scheme of the ATF engine, especially with all of the new capabilities Pat was planning for the game engine. We slipped easily through the preliminaries, and The Star and the Crescent: The Arab/Israeli Wars 1956 to 2009 was born,…even BEFORE Raging Tiger hit the shrinkwrapping!

Without getting too in-depth, I will say that this game is looking VERY nice, with better looking maps and some very smooth engine and graphics changes. The game will offer a variety of units throughout 50 years of armored combat in the embattled region, with an emphasis on the Yom Kippur or “October” war of 1973. I’ll let Pat add detail if he desires, but my attempt in building this game is to be faithful to many of the weapons of the periods as well as the many challenges the Israeli military has faced (and continues to face) surrounded by enemies for its entire existence, and give the player a chance to fight some of the same battles, on the exact same terrain, as some of the greatest Israeli commanders in history.

I have been interested in this period ever since I created an exercise for the School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) here at Fort Leavenworth in the winter of 2003. It was my second project working directly for LTC Hamlet, an instructor there. In researching the period, I quickly realized that concrete ORBATS and TO&E’s are almost non-existent, and vary from source to source. I have always tried to provide the very best for anyone I’m working for, so I threw myself into my research. LTC Hamlet, in no small measure, is responsible for this game being made, and I can only hope I can create something that would make him proud. I also hope that this game will please period aficionados and tactical wargamers alike.

Keep an eye out on the Shrapnel Forums and Warfare HQ for more information as the game gets closer to completion, as well as a call for beta testing. I am confident this game will provide the pickiest and most discriminating wargamer hours of enjoyment, and, as always, the scenario editor and the power toolkit will keep this game fresh and exciting for years to come.

In my next installment, I’ll stress the importance of saving your work and making backups,…GRRRRRRRR! Until then, stay alert – stay alive!

Curt Pangracs
Designer
Raging Tiger