Unit-68 Game Design

Command and conquer and total war are both highly successful strategy battle games, they have released countless games and expansions that have all sold in the tens of thousands! So they are clearly doing something right.

At a glance the idea behind these games are fairly similar, a third person (god view) strategy battle game, where the player has to construct buildings , recruit units/ armies and manage an economy for the sole purpose of beating back and destroying your opponent.

They both cater for various types of gamer including; the Casual gamer or ‘bottom feeders’ can create quick custom battles so they don’t have to play along with the campaign they can literally just battle a computer controlled enemy until they get bored. Then we have the Mid-core gamers who can get stuck into the campaign modes, but can choose to set the difficulty to low, and adjust the campaign lengths. This allows for a in depth gaming experience without taking up all of your time! Finally we have the Hardcore/ pro gamer, these guys are the ones that dedicate the majority of their time to a game getting completely amerced in the storyline almost to a ‘second life’ extent. Appealing to a larger more varied target market is a brilliant idea as it simply gives you more people to sell too, resulting in MORE MONEY!

Where these games differ dramatically is in the visual style and graphic quality, this could be down to the difference in times these games were released, as the technology available to the designers of shogun total war far surpasses that of the designers at the red alert studios. For example the WARSCAPE engine used in the making of shogun is one of the best on the market for making vast landscapes/ battle grounds, whilst still allowing incredible detail on the units.

Here is a screen grab from RedAlert