Kursk 1943

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A fan of the old Avalon Hill/SPI WW2 strategy war games? Like to think about your next move rather than having quick reaction times? Battle Series Eastern Front - Kursk 1943 is the game for you.

Battle Series Eastern Front - Kursk 1943, covers the largest single tank battle in the history of warfare. Approximately 1400 tanks and assault guns met head to head near the town of Prochorovka, in a battle that became a desperate close range shoot-out which would decide the ultimate success or failure of Operation Zitadelle.

The 2nd SS Panzer Korps began it's attack on July 3rd, and spent the next 8 days breaking through the dense Russian defensive positions. During the late afternoon and evening of the 11th, they broke through and repulsed a counterattack by the Russian 31st Tank Corps. Reorganizing during the night, the panzers struck northward before dawn on the 12th. As dawn broke, the lead German elements ran head-on into the lead elements of the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army and the battle was on. It was to last all day, in confused and savage fighting at close ranges.

This game recreates that day with the player being able to play both as the Russians and Germans or against the AI. Go to yobowargames.com for the latest updates as the game develops

Key Features:



  • Turn Based with each turn having a Move and Attack phase
  • Units are at battalion level and represent the actual units present on the day of the battle
  • Units have an Attack, Defense and Movement Allowance
  • Artillery units also have a Range allowance
  • Map represents the key features at the time with the embanked railway line and river causing the fighting to be fought almost as three separate battles


Infantry Battalion with Attack of 2, Defense of 3 and Movement of 6

Artillery with at top Range Attack of 1, Range Defense of 2 and a Range of 18

Tank Battalion with Attack & Defense of 6 and Movement of 7

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How should an Indie game success be measured?

Feature

As I develop and prepare for my first commercial game (meaning I will charge for it) I have probably been doing what others do:

  • Checking out Postmortems
  • Wondering what my sales will be like (ok so this should be top of the list)
  • Looking for as many tips as possible on successful launches
  • Learning about Marketing, Publishing etc

Actually to be honest I have been getting a little stressed over it. What happens if no one buys it? What happens if it has a critical bug? What happens if I get a ton of online flak for a poor game? Am I doing enough testing? Do my graphics look ok?

Underneath it all what I am stressing over is "Will my game be a success?". But what is success? Is it money, happy gamers, a job well done or something else. What were my expectations when I put my first game onto Google Play? In order of importance I believe they were:

  1. Write a game and publish it
  2. Hope a couple of people download it
  3. Hope I get some useful reviews so I can improve the next game

So was my first game a success?

Write a game and publish it

Well by any measure this was an outstanding success! I did indeed write a game and published it on Google Play - Operation Typhoon. Not only that I then published it to the Apple store ( Operation Typhoon ) and then a Windows version to itch.io ( Moscow 1941 ). You got to love libGDX that has allowed me to write once and publish to three different OS's.

How did I make this a success?

  • I kept it simple
  • I did not add anything that was not in my original design
  • I did my own graphics - not that good but made me appreciate graphic artists
  • I learnt a lot
  • and the most important thing - I had fun.

Since that first version I hired a graphics artist and for $75 got much improved graphics which I re-released mid December.

Hope a couple of people download it

This one exceeded all my expectations. I would have been happy if I had one or two downloads. The game is free but I think it is in a niche area.

google downloads

So to date I have had just under 2500 downloads from Google Play. In addition my game is available on many 'alternative' sites (Read - they stole my APK file) and I am guessing the downloads are around the same.

In addition I have had ~650 iOS downloads and 11 Windows downloads.

The upward trend on Google Play in December and January are I believe solely down to me adding links/blogs to various sites. Post marketing does work!

Hope I get some useful reviews so I can improve the next game

So this is an interesting area. I have not had one review for the iOS version. Nada. Nothing. Tumble weed rolls through the review section. I have read other blogs that say the same. Those iOS downloaders are a breed apart.

On Google Play I have 32 reviews and currently stand at 4 stars. So that to me is another success.

So was my first game a success?

Yes! Yes! Yes!

What about my new game?

I need to stop stressing and go back to my simple ideals on the first game. So same as before but with one tiny amendment.

  1. Write a game and publish it
  2. Hope a couple of people pay for it
  3. Hope I get some useful reviews so I can improve the next game

Anything else will be a bonus....


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