Interview: Slitherine primes its DS/PSP invasion strategy with Commander: Europe at War

Over two years ago, we suggested that thanks to its touchscreen the DS might become second only to the PC as the best platform for strategy gaming.

It’s a trend that’s continued since with the likes of Age of Empires: Mythologies and Tom Clancy's EndWar recently released while ANNO: Create a New World and Jagged Alliance are still to come. And that’s not to mention the wave of DS (and PSP) games being planned by UK specialist outfit Slitherine Software.

First up will be Commander: Europe at War. So to find out more about the company’s enthusiasm for handheld gaming, as well as more details about the game, we got in touch with Iain McNeil, Slitherine’s development director, with Luigi Fumero, CEO of developer Impressionware, handling platform-specific queries.

Iain McNeil: Our background is in historical strategy games and recently there has been dearth of approachable strategy games out there. With Commander, we wanted to try and capture the fun and challenge of games like Panzer General, but update them.

Usually when people try to update these ideas they overdo the graphics and turn it in to a 3D extravaganza, which may look great but can detract from the playability.

We wanted to keep the game attractive but visually simple and focus on the gameplay. This approach would not have been possible on the home consoles because people expect explosions and the flashy 3D effects we wanted to avoid.

The handheld platforms, because of their more limited performance, were the ideal targets for the game we wanted to create. Commander is the ideal commuter game in terms of playing on the train, or sitting in front of the TV.

It doesn't require fast reactions and plays at your speed so you don't miss anything. It's also great for situations where you might be interrupted.

Luigi Fumero: Apart from having to deal with the usual memory and speed constraints, one of the major challenges was displaying the vast amount of information present in the game.

On the PSP we had to carefully design the input mechanics. We created large flow diagrams to plan how each order would be entered before we started implementing them to minimise the amount of rework later. As always, a certain amount of rework was required but the original plan held together pretty well.

LF: We had a very clear idea of what we wanted for the AI, which is half of the battle. We prototyped it on PC for rapid development and tweaked it many times to get it feeling just right.

From then on, the bulk of the work was optimisation to ensure the AI would run on the consoles. It has turned out really well. I think everyone will be able to find a difficulty level that will challenge them.

IM: The game has very accurate start conditions, unit types, leaders etc. However because of the nature of the game, the way things develop is different each time you play.

Any decision can have enormous knock on effects later on. Something as simple as focusing your research into fighters or armoured units on the first turn can completely changes your strategy later in the game.

If you have the best fighters you'll be able to rule the skies, striking death from above, but if you have the strongest tanks, your strategy will be based around punching through the enemy lines and enveloping them.

LF: Commanders are real historical figures and they play an important part in the game. They can be attached to units to give them combat bonuses.

For example, ground units led by one of those leaders can gain an attack or defence bonus. Leaders can also boost the effectiveness of units nearby through their leadership. A strong leader in the frontline can make a huge difference to an assault and they should not be overlooked.

IM: Not at all. There used to be a healthy market for these sort of games, but over the past few years we seen the genre diverge.

The mass-market games have become very glitzy, with special effects, requiring huge budgets and aimed at a wider demographic. These games tend to be much more simplistic to appeal to this wider market and don't have the depth and simple gameplay of the classics.

On the other hand, wargames have become more and more hardcore. Their graphical values have dropped, user interface design is often clumsy and they add more and more detail just because they can, without any thought about whether it makes the game better - only thinking that it makes it more realistic.

These games get caught up arguing about whether the 75mm gun is more effective with sabot rounds than with HEAT rounds...

We think there is a gap between these two new genres that is waiting to be filled by games like Commander. We have the simple and approachable gameplay that modern gamers are looking for, without too much depth but enough to keep things interesting, and all presented in a clean style that works on the consoles. There is a significant demand for this type of game and we intend to fill it!

LF: The game is exactly the same on both platforms. On DS, the stylus-based input is probably more familiar to a traditional gamer coming from a PC background, but after a few turns, the PSP's button-only user interface starts to grow on you and then you begin to wonder why you ever needed a mouse to play a strategy game.

The PSP's screen is higher resolution and brighter so generally things look better but the gameplay is exactly the same. The PSP version also features a lot more real World War 2 footage from the vast library over at HISTORY (TM).

Thanks to Iain and Luigi for their time.

Commander: Europe at War is released on 20th March in Europe for DS and PSP.