WHAT IS BLADE THRUST TACTICS?
Tactical Combat Game
Blade Thrust Tactics is an isometric squad based tactical combat game with role-playing elements. The game allows you the chance to play the role of squad leader for Blade Thrust, a special operative squad working for the Alliance as part of their campaign to get rid the Idea Empire.
The world of Core is a dangerous place to live. The Idea Empire had invaded the whole world several years ago creating a global autocratic police state empire. Since then, the people has lived in oppressive condition fearing for the Empire who mobilizes it own massive army throughout the world. Something must be done about it and that is why the Alliance, an underground paramilitary organization has been formed to fight the giant empire.
Unfortunately, the Alliance lacks resources so it adopts unconventional warfare called guerilla warfare to fight the empire. This basically mean several small squads has been formed with the mission to attack soldiers throughout towns bit by bit until the soldiers give up.
The good news is you are in charge of one of the squads and some of the best fighters will fight with you. The bad news is you'll start with weak weapon, supply and armour and you need money to persuade these fighters to work with you. You and your squad will have to fight the way to get rid hundreds of enemy in several towns that stands between you and the victory. It is not going to be easy.
Mission Based Game
From the base, you can choose to carry out any mission in the town. There's plenty of mission type such as destroy cult/group, raid, prisoner rescue, supply line assault and strategic assault mission. Once you choose the mission, you squad will walk to the sector to carry out the mission.
Once your squad arrived at the sector, then the fun can begin. Basically your objective is to kill or destroy any enemy you can find but there are objectives such as assassinating a person, destroying an important object or unlocking doors/cabinets. Once you've completed any objective, the Alliance will reward you with money.
Combat is handled in real time and the game has plenty of options to suit your level of skill. You can pause the game at any time and you can even let computer to control some of your squad members. At the early part of the game, combat is easier as enemy use weaker weapon but as you progress through the game, enemy will use much powerful weapon so you need to be more careful in your action.
Personality Based Game
One of interesting elements of the game is squad members that will fight with you has their own distinct personality with them. Each squad member has their own unique dialogue line when they face certain situation - greeting, seeing enemy, managed to kill enemy, tired, bleeding, getting depressed, improve skill and goodbye speech. Each squad member also will automatically flee if they are injured up to certain level so keep this in mind if you want to hire certain squad member.
As you progress through the game, so do your squad members. Whenever squad member successfully perform a skill, they earn themselves experience points which will eventually improve their skill points. If you keep certain squad member in your squad and use his/her service to maximum, his/her skill point will show a significant improvement. He/she will become a valuable asset to you so getting him/her killed is a serious loss to you.
Money Based Game
Another interesting feature of the game is you can earn yourself a lot of money in the game. Asides from reward from the Alliance, you can earn money by selling items carried by dead enemies to traders at the base or you can even sell it to Lady Junk, a greedy but polite businesswoman whose available at your service 24 hours a day.
You can measure your success in the game by completing all missions in the game or getting as much money you can get from your fallen enemies. Who knows probably you can become a millionaire in the game?
Target Audience
I specifically make this game for any player who has played isometric squad based tactical combat game such as Jagged Alliance 2
I've decided to use real time combat instead of turn based combat. This provide a new set of challenges for squad based game. This is possible and has already been implemented effectively in recent squad based games such as UFO series
My purpose for developing this game is to get as many target audience to play the game. That's why I choose to use real time combat which makes it much easier for player who aren't used to turn based combat.
But this does not necessarily mean I neglected turn based combat. Convince to me why you think turn based combat is good to be included in this game. Who knows I might integrate turn based combat in upcoming release or patch. Anything is possible!
How can I effectively control a squad in real time combat?
System Requirement
Any recent Windows version can run the game from Windows 98 all the way to Windows Vista. The game requires different amount of memory based on game version or colour quality. The total memory limit has been set to 88 MB of your PC memory. This is how much memory the game is allowed to use. It will try to use any available video memory on video card before it switches to using system memory. So having plenty of video memory will make the game run smoother.
Game Engine
The game has 2 versions - GDI version and DirectX version. Both of these versions are included in the game download. Although GDI version is much slower than DirectX version, you can run GDI version if your PC does not have DirectX installed or you are having problem while running DirectX version of the game.
The game world is rendered in isometric perspective using old school method of 2D tile-based rendering. This gives the game a sense of retro look. So there's no zooming, rotating or other 3D tricks to play around. But you can scroll the view to any place within the game map. Developing the game to run in 3D is very complicated.
Nevertheless, the lack of 3D doesn't necessarily mean the game looks bad. The game world is shaded (you can play the game in night or day setting) and creature can change cloth/pant which changes its colour.
I have a plan to develop the game to run using open source 3D graphics engine. The idea is the game will still use isometric view but all the graphics rendering in done in 3D. There is possible option to pan/scroll, zoom and rotate the view in 45 degree. Since Blender 3D can model and animate ortographics objects ( fancy name for isometric ) and Ogre 3D has reach a development stability, this is a realistic possibility.
Estimated Gameplay Time
Campaign game takes about 20 hours to finish if you keep non-combat session (collecting item from dead bodies and trading those items) at minimum. Depending on your gameplay, non-combat session might take much more time than combat session.
Trilogy Release
There's no way I can combine the Alliance effort to fight the Idea Empire in just one release of game. This is because the Empire has invaded many regions throughout the world. Each region exhibits its own quirks and sets of problems. That's why the game will be released in 3 different phases.
1) First release only contain South East campaign. This is a relatively easy campaign as the Empire underestimate their capability.
2) Second release contain Middle East and North East campaigns. Upon hearing the effectiveness of Blade Thrust squad, the Empire will send a lot of bounty hunters and assassins to cripple the squad. Each game levels will contain surprises.
3) Final release contain South West, Middle West and North West campaigns. After failed in their attempt to neutralize Blade Thrust squad, the Empire unleash their act of desperation by releasing virus, nuclear and weapon satellites. Most of missions are centered around disabling these threats.