Interviews

In focus: Panzer Tactics DS (part one)

DS strategy games are getting serious

In focus: Panzer Tactics DS (part one)
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DS
| Panzer Tactics DS

They're short, ugly and ambitious, so it's not the fault of the upper echelons of Pocket Gamer management that they suffer from a Napoleon Complex.

Sadly, we don't yet have medical insurance to cover the extensive psychiatric reconditioning they require. We do though have high hopes that Panzer Tactics DS will let them satisfy their world conquering tendencies without harming their fellow workers.

And that's not the only reason the turn-based WWII strategy game has been moving up our Most Wanted list since it was announced last summer.

Combining wargaming with neat DS touchscreen controls, Panzer Tactics promises to break the hardcore hex-based gameplay out of the crusty PC niche it usually inhabits to somewhere much more accessible. Yet equally, according to Johanna Schober, the project manager at gamemaker Sproing, it's definitely targeted at a more serious market than most DS games.

"With Panzer Tactics, we wanted to take Advance Wars to the next level. We like Advance Wars a lot, but Panzer Tactics is more complex and more serious – kind of like a grown-up version," she says, explaining how Nintendo's classic strategy game affected Panzer Tactics' design.

"We often had the feeling that once you got the basics in Advance Wars, there wasn't much more that surprised you. Also, while its cartoon style and the dialogue is sweet, somehow it doesn't seem to fit so well to a serious strategy game. In Panzer Tactics, the strategic challenge comes first," she adds.

Helping to reinforce this atmosphere are the game's historical settings, with campaigns available for each of the Axis, Allies and Russians. You can choose to play the campaigns in any order, as the tutorials and eight training missions are available from the start of the game.

Schober says the Axis campaign is designed to be the easiest starting point: "The Axis campaign starts with the German attack on Poland and covers several battles in Western Europe before the focus moves to North Africa and finally to the Eastern battlefields. It ends in Stalingrad, where the German expansion reached its peak," Schober explains.

The Soviet campaign starts roughly at this point, and covers the advance through Eastern Europe and the Black Sea. The Allied campaign begins with the landings in Italy, before switching to D-Day.

Both Allied and Soviet campaigns end with the capture of Berlin.

"We opted against alternative war scenarios and remained true to the historical events," Schober says. "The only exception is the one fictional bonus mission per campaign, but we're not revealing anything more about them yet."

Part 2 of our interview (now available here!) will cover how Sproing has designed the detailed game mechanics as well the innovative online multiplayer mode. Click 'Track It!' to get a link in your email when we post it.

Panzer Tactics DS is due to be released this summer.

Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.