Hi, we are Michiel and Willem, the creators of Powargrid. We've been developing the game for a bit over a year and we thought it was time to put the first version up on the web. We also decided to add this blog, to keep you posted on what we're doing. In this first post, we'll give you an overview of Powargrid and of what we've done in the past year.
For quite some time, I (Willem) had been toying with rules for a computer game on a grid, which plays a bit like a board game. A bit over a year ago, I came up with a set of rules that I felt might actually work, so Michiel and I spent one evening setting up a rudimentary version in Java (or more correctly, Michiel did that, since my programming skills were in no way up to that task, something I'm remedying now). We then tested the first gameplay and it seemed promising enough to develop things a bit further. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into...
At first the idea was just to build this abstract game, with the goal of making it easy to learn and hard to master. I was testing and tweaking the rules and drawing buildings to use on our grid, while Michiel was building stuff in Java. And then, while we were cruising along happily, Michiel found Unity 3D. Now, for those of you who don't know Unity 3D, the best short description I've read is that it is the best game development tool on this side of a million dollars. Add to that the fact that it is both easy to use and free (that is, unless you are a company with more than 100 k dollars of yearly gross revenues... no trouble there for us just yet ;).
And suddenly, with Unity, our little project became more ambitious. We are now able to achieve a quality of game we wouldn't even have thought of while working in Java. So Michiel switched to Javascript (and later BOO) and I switched from 2D drawing to making 3D models for our buildings and experimenting with creating terrain.
And then Powargrid started to look like a game. I know that's just about the most obvious thing I could say here, but endulge me if you will. Working in Unity made things more real and exciting. So we did what came naturally; become more ambitious about our game. We added the plan for a campaign mode. And for that we also needed a world for the game to be played in and a back story that would explain this peculiar way of waging war without moving units.
That was easier said than done; I had to catch quite a lot of inspiration particles to reach (some weird sort of) consistency. But at least things now make sense, to me that is. So when you play Powargrid you find yourself on the planet Globkar, which is populated by species of blobbies of varying colours who are continuously at war with one another. I'll write a bit more on them in later posts, but the way to go if you really want to know about the awesome blobbies is to simply play Powargrid :).
And now would be the moment to talk about the game itself, but I think this is enough for this first blog post. You can find an overview of the rules on our about page or, even better, you can play Powargrid. Hope you enjoy the game and we'd love to hear what you think of it, either through our contact form or in the comments below.
-Willem-
For quite some time, I (Willem) had been toying with rules for a computer game on a grid, which plays a bit like a board game. A bit over a year ago, I came up with a set of rules that I felt might actually work, so Michiel and I spent one evening setting up a rudimentary version in Java (or more correctly, Michiel did that, since my programming skills were in no way up to that task, something I'm remedying now). We then tested the first gameplay and it seemed promising enough to develop things a bit further. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into...
At first the idea was just to build this abstract game, with the goal of making it easy to learn and hard to master. I was testing and tweaking the rules and drawing buildings to use on our grid, while Michiel was building stuff in Java. And then, while we were cruising along happily, Michiel found Unity 3D. Now, for those of you who don't know Unity 3D, the best short description I've read is that it is the best game development tool on this side of a million dollars. Add to that the fact that it is both easy to use and free (that is, unless you are a company with more than 100 k dollars of yearly gross revenues... no trouble there for us just yet ;).
And suddenly, with Unity, our little project became more ambitious. We are now able to achieve a quality of game we wouldn't even have thought of while working in Java. So Michiel switched to Javascript (and later BOO) and I switched from 2D drawing to making 3D models for our buildings and experimenting with creating terrain.
And then Powargrid started to look like a game. I know that's just about the most obvious thing I could say here, but endulge me if you will. Working in Unity made things more real and exciting. So we did what came naturally; become more ambitious about our game. We added the plan for a campaign mode. And for that we also needed a world for the game to be played in and a back story that would explain this peculiar way of waging war without moving units.
That was easier said than done; I had to catch quite a lot of inspiration particles to reach (some weird sort of) consistency. But at least things now make sense, to me that is. So when you play Powargrid you find yourself on the planet Globkar, which is populated by species of blobbies of varying colours who are continuously at war with one another. I'll write a bit more on them in later posts, but the way to go if you really want to know about the awesome blobbies is to simply play Powargrid :).
And now would be the moment to talk about the game itself, but I think this is enough for this first blog post. You can find an overview of the rules on our about page or, even better, you can play Powargrid. Hope you enjoy the game and we'd love to hear what you think of it, either through our contact form or in the comments below.
-Willem-
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