WW2: History

In early March 2000 I was getting really fed up with working on the Java Texas Hold'em for the Poker Room site and needed something to take my mind off it. There had been several requests for arcade games development that I politely had to turn down due to lack of time, but when yet another one appeared in my mailbox I decided to accept.

What they wanted was basically a Warp clone (not Warp 1.5) set during World War Two. All graphics had to be approved in advance, but apart from that and the rather lame game title I was given free reins. And it had to be finished in one month. (This was later extended because they had problems getting their site in order, but never mind.)

I liked this project for two reasons: it had a short time span (not long enough for me to tire of it) and I could build everything using only techniques I was very familiar with. Java programming is surprisingly fast when you know exactly what you are doing and don't have to experiment or invent new solutions -- don't let any overpaid consultants tell you otherwise.

Most of my inspiration came from an old Commodore 64 classic: Blue Max. Though the controls and perspective are different, the main gameplay elements are similar. You can dodge and shoot at airborne objects and bomb things on the ground (like vehicles on the roads and boats on the water, but also just about any stationary object).

A hastily drawn palm tree before and after size reduction

Designing the graphics would be the only really time-consuming part. Normally I take my graphics very seriously and don't stop until every last pixel is exactly where I want it. But now I had to work fast, so I used the unorthodox approach of drawing everything at 200% in a very sketchy manner and then shrinking it down to half size. This evens out the rough edges and hides a lot of tiny mistakes. It worked really well for the backgrounds.

Drawing trees, roads, rocks and water is fairly straightforwards, but what about the moving objects -- airplanes and tanks? My artistic pride demanded that I do some research and not just make things up. Fortunately there were quite a few websites devoted to WWII vehicles. I got most of the planes from this page. Some of the ones in the game were drawn from photographs, coupled with my guesses of how they appear when seen from above. Others are based on blueprints, but usually fattened up a bit in order to look better on screen.