iCombat

I have had an idea for a while now to create a tank game that would utilize some of the new features of the iPhone such as the accelerometer and tap firing.  I had always been fairly certain that it would be a 2D game, as I assumed 3D costs would be much higher (I don’t actually think this is true at this point but I never did really check into it), and I wanted to replicate some of the playability of the games of my childhood without screwing up the game play with unnecessary gimmicky features.  My last console was the Sega Genesis and I had owned many of the preceding consoles from the 90’s and 80’s including the N.E.S. and Atari 2600 so I was used to simpler graphics, fewer keypad options, but much better game design.

I decided to develop a basic tanks game that would leverage the 2 player via Wifi as well as accelerometer and tap features of the iPhone, but include little in the way of characters, story line, etc.

This stems from the assumptions that 1) I have no idea how to develop an interesting game narrative and 2) it is the playability and 2 player component that I think will have people signing up.   I decided to use the tank theme of the original Atari Combat game that so many of us know so well as the inspiration behind my game.

Atari Combat - Tank game

For me, this was the first game that captured my imagination and got me obsessed with gaming as a boy.  If you recall, there were several playing modes all of which looked the same but had slightly different strategies but all were 2 player. The game was so addictive primarily because of this social component, so I hope to recreate that effect on players when my game launches on the iPhone app store.

Of course I had to make sure such a game had not been done, and while I found atleast 6 tank related games on the App store, I found none that used similar functionality nor tackled the 2D approach as well as I had wanted to.  Even in the flash games world I had not found a version of this other than an exact replica of Combat, so I knew I had an idea that could be different enough from everything else out there.  Let’s hope it stays that way until well after game launch!!

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