Iron Strike at the Independent Games Festival

**WILL** · 09-09-2006, 04:30 AM

Hey everyone!

This is just to give everybody an little update as to the current status of Iron Strike. The game was finally completed and packaged about an hour ago. Dirk hard to the grind stone trying to peice it all together. I aswell was working last minute to get the tutorial completed in time.

All in all, we are both quite proud of this release. Dirk is now going to get his well earned 1 and a half hours of sleep. Hence why *I* am the one posting this announcement.

For those that are not familiar with the original release of the game, prevously known as 'TANX', this is a revision of the same game released in the 2006 PGD Annual Competition which ran for about 4 months. 'TANX' won first place and earned the sponsorship to the Independant Game Festival from PGD and Savage Software Solutions.

After the competition I spoke with Dirk Nordhusen aka Huehnerschaender, the game's creator and he liked some of my ideas so he took me on as the story writter and mission designer. I then created the Iron Strike story and adapted a chapter for the game. The game was then renamed to 'Iron Strike' and 'Iron Strike: Stormfront' was to be released for the IGF competition.

Also, Reid Blanco of the AIR Team that entered the game 'BLOCKED' into the PGD Annual competition chipped in to help along with Alex Rosendal aka Traveler, who is a popular Staff Member of PGD, both contributed with some great 3D models and background graphics.

Unfortunately the PGD member 'Chebmaster' never told us his real name so we cannot thank him properly. He helped a lot of the geography and historical economic data used to add realizim to the game maps.

We worked under a very tight schedule, even back before the PGD Annual's finish, but I think overall that all of that has paid off. As of now, we'll have to wait for the judges at the IGF to release their results next year(2007). And then we shall see how the public feels about the game.

Pending a response from the IGF, we will see if we are allowed to release a copy to the public ourselves here on PGD. If we are given the 'ok' then hope to see it posted sometime in the next few days. We are anxious to share it with everyone.

**Robert Kosek** · 09-09-2006, 05:04 AM

Awesome work everyone, I look forwards to hearing how well Iron Strike, and pascal itself, ranks within the competition!

**WILL** · 09-09-2006, 05:37 AM

For all those who can use Flash in their browser you can check out how the previous IGF competition finalists won at this link: 2006 IGF Award Video

**Huehnerschaender** · 09-09-2006, 09:49 AM

Hi, it's me

I think noone can forbid us to show screenshots of our entry, so I'll post some here. This way the community can get an impression of what we did the last weeks.

The engine changed A LOT since PGD entry TANX. We had so many ideas... we were able to add many of them, some ideas needed to be left for post IGF times.

Friendly units fight at your side. A scripted dialog system lets the player get the feeling the units are talking to him. Also cinematic like cutscenes are possible. A lot of game switches were added, which let units create ingame (eg for ambush scenes), destroy specific units on command and much much more. WILL needed this stuff to create his mission design, and he did very well! I had never been able to make such missions with my own editor *lol* He is very creative! We had only so few objects and buildings, but he managed to let every mission has it's own feeling and look. Great work WILL!

Here are some examples of ingame scenes:

- 3 friendly units help you taking over the radar pole in mission 1 -

Misisons partially take place in desert. I made some new graphics for this task.

- Taking out air bases can be fun, especially when you have to shoot much planes and helos -

- the new "smoke engine" in action: here after taking out some planes in an air base -

- one of the new features: gain air support points and drop colored smoke flares for specific support types. In this screen you ordered a friendly tank which is just "arriving" - A parachute will bring it safe to the ground -

Ok, thats it for now.

Greetings,
Dirk

**Traveler** · 09-09-2006, 11:51 AM

Hi Dirk,

A huge weight must have lifted from your shoulders now, eh

Anyway, my hat off to you for this great accomplishment!

I can't wait to see the endresults, to see what the judges have to say about your entry (although I'm afraid it's going to be a while before results are released). In the meantime, I hope they do allow us to play your game, as I'm equally looking forward to that as well.

Again, great job, and go take some rest now. You've earned it

PS. you do realize you need a webite, for people to get more info, right?

**Huehnerschaender** · 09-09-2006, 12:09 PM

Indeed... I feel a little relieved now... I know there are still some bugs in the engine, hopefully we have the chance to patch later on. But all in all, having a working game now with all those features is a great start for post IGF complete game with much more levels, objects, features etc, no matter what comes out in the end of IGF. I never thought I could win something there.... there are too much too good entrys I think (I saw 150 upload directorys when I uploaded this morning).

Being part of it is a great thing I think. Many people will at least notice the game.

Webpage?

I am no webdesigner... I already thought of a webpage... but I need some holidays first... next wednesday I am flying to Gran Canaria for two weeks. After that I am "open again" for new things

And Alex, thank you very much again for your help with the briefing screen!

Greetings,
Dirk

**NecroDOME** · 09-09-2006, 12:17 PM

Screenshots look implessive!! Nice work!

**savage** · 09-09-2006, 03:03 PM

Looks great guys! Keep up the excellent work!

**technomage** · 09-09-2006, 03:38 PM

Looks good , great wook guys. Good luck

**jdarling** · 10-09-2006, 01:53 AM

Congrats Dirk. Show em what Pascal is made of and take some awards. Seariously I think that you have a chance at some. Can't wait to see the final game, and it would be really cool if WILL could come up with a T-Shirt that had Iron Strike and PGD on it for IGF. Re-sale them on the site to help offset some of the costs associated (if you all are going there in person that is).

BTW: Why isn't this an announcement on the front page?