Task Force Admiral News

Nothing too fancy today, we just wanted to give you a sneak peek at what's brewing right now. Things are going well enough, and new content is so numerous and diversed that it's hard to keep track. Still, here are a few highlights.



[h2]Shooting stars[/h2]
Our dev has been busy with AI over the last few weeks - more specifically air to air behavior. It delivered pretty cool results that those who've been following us on Twitter and Discord have probably seen by now. Here's a little bit of a tease for you - but it gotta stay in the shape of a link, because otherwise Steam will tear us a new one (watch out if you're using a phone, it's GIF time!):

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2144353172

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2144370355

We will also let you have a look at our prototype AI for the Thach Weave - another affair that isn't exactly easy to orchestrate. We sincerely hope you will appreciate the work that is being done to make it happen!

[h2]The girls are alright[/h2]

Kate & Val (and their friends) are making themselves pretty in the meantime. We're trying to get our plane roster up to speed so that we can cowardly make the most of our 2D artist free time these days. Here are a few screens showing the magic happening:



When it comes to gentle Kate's dive-bombing sister, we actually have a video that we released just today for Screenshot Saturday. If you're into plane art, hopefully this one will talk to you!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The Aichi D3A Navy Type 99 Carrier Bomber, otherwise known as "Val" by the Allies from 1942 onward was the standard carrier-based and shore-based dive bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1941 to 1943. It will naturally feature as the player's counterpart to the SBD Dauntless for the duration of 1942, having served in every single carrier battle of the era. Hits were achieved on USS Lexington, on USS Yorktown at Coral Sea and Midway, on USS Enterprise at Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz, and finally on USS Hornet at Santa Cruz, which included two suicide runs by damaged planes.

This D3A wears the colors of the Zuikaku air wing at the time of the battle of the Coral Sea (early May 1942).

Here! That will be all for today - come back in a few days from now for the update proper, hopefully we'll have a couple other gems to show you (spoiler: we will). In the meantime if your weekend is boring (I sure hope not), don't forget to have a look at our past updates. The April-May one can be checked in this previous post.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1281220/announcements/detail/2229791404494717955

And here's a direct link to the content itself:
April/May 2020 update - dev website

Please enjoy whatever is left of your weekend, and see you soon for some additional stuff!

Cheers and take care,

The DDG Team

First of all, because it's Midway Day - decades ago, sometime around this very moment (don't cringe, I am not very good with time zones), dozens of SBDs were hurling themselves down at the Kido Butai, altering dramatically the balance of power in the Pacific and inspiring generations of wargamers and history nuts since then. I am ready to bet that every single person reading these lines has seen a movie or a documentary about the battle, and we will all agree that it was iconic enough a date to deserve some special love.

Secondly, because it's the day we chose to give a big shout - and a big hug - to Cyril Jarnot's own carrier wargame, the much awaited Carrier Battles 4 Guadalcanal. A bit of context, if you please.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1163340/Carrier_Battles_4_Guadalcanal

Cyril is a very hard-working, brave French wargame designer (like us - at least, the part about him being a French wargame designer that is) who is passionate about the Pacific War, and especially them carrier battles, and decided to roll up his sleeves and make his own dream game - another trait we share, as you might have guessed by now (you clever lot).



After releasing his first version of the game on iOS years ago, he undertook the great journey that is bringing him now to the doorstep of your desktop or laptop computer with a new version improved in every single way. Carrier Battles 4 Guadalcanal is as strong an offering in the genre as it gets, and I am not ashamed to claim that it is perhaps the most advanced carrier wargame in existence in 2020.

Yeah, it's that good.

And if you don't believe me, just go check the videos on Youtube and see for yourself (Waz has a few great videos on-going, be a chomp & pay the good man a visit!).



What does it have to do with us, you might ask? Well, we're not being published by the same guys that's true, but in baguette country that doesn't matter much anyway - the perks of living in one small place, I'd say. More seriously though, it's not like carrier wargames were exactly aplenty and pouring out there these days. These are rare enough a commodity to warrant all of us to find ways to work together rather than face off in a silly and self-destructive manner.



That's the reason why we humbly lent a hand in the making of Carrier Battles - an offer which Cyril kindly welcomed to our greatest pleasure and honour. Rizki, our 3D artist, provided Cyril with our very own 3D models, which are now part of the background images of the in-game air ops screen. It's that simple - and now, it's profit time for you all, lucky bunch.



To mark this important day in carrier history, and knowing we're 24 hours away from the release of Carrier Battles, here's your chance to get a piece of the action by joining this special draw for the community of Task Force Admiral.

[h3]All you need to do to enter this contest is to post under this announcement some cheering, some joke or any other sort of sentence containing the words "carrier battles". [/h3]

Five winners will be drawn from all the participants and will receive a key of Carrier Battles 4 Guadalcanal which will allow them to redeem the game the moment it will go online tomorrow.

No other rule - although, of course, you are only allowed to enter this once, and any double post will automatically disqualify you, so be nice!

At any rate, you are allowed to enter this contest until tomorrow 8 AM EDT (New York Time). Ladies & Gentlemen, thanks for joining us and good luck!

I am happy to introduce you to our April/May Development update, with many riches of all kind to enjoy. We are usually trying to keep a monthly cadence, but the work implied by our Steam reveal last month left us with little time and barely enough choice. We sure hope that the contents of this one update will more than compensate this sore lack of manners on our part.



Come have a look at our little nuggets of PTO fun by clicking on the following link:
A New Dawn - April/May Dev Blog update!

For those who might not be inclined to indulge in such a long and painful read, we will split more thoughtfully the contents of this update over the following weeks in this very column.

In the meantime, please have a sweet look at these few screenshots, enjoy the week to come, and of course - above everything else - stay safe!

Cheers!

The Team

Hello there everybody!ːsteammockingː

Honestly, that's our first news item in here on Steam, so the contents might very well change if we need to debug whatever we're about to write. I don't doubt we'll get somewhat better at that exercise, eventually!

First of all, a word of thanks to all those who follow us in here. The fact that we are now together with a publisher - and as such enjoy a larger audience and greater financial security - doesn't change a thing when it comes to the core nature of this development team. We are still a rather small affair of a few guys relying mostly on our sweat and on the moral support provided by our community. Your presence, your approval and your feedback in general mean the world to us, and are the ingredients to the fuel that keeps us going day after day. So, thank you for your time and your trust, we will make sure that the former isn't wasted, and that we do right by the latter. ːsteamhappyː

Now, about the aforementioned news!

[h2]MagzTV: What is... Task Force Admiral?[/h2]
Back in November last year, Magz got in touch with us expressing his interest in our project, when we were even smaller potatoes than we are today. We are happy to see him go live about Task Force Admiral with some new footage to boot!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Some of these scenes are taken from unused content originally made for teaser trailer, while some are much older than that and date all the way back to the state of the game as of December 2019. As Magz points it out himself, all of this is still very much pre-alpha material. Nevertheless, he is right when he says that it should give you already some idea of where we are heading to in terms of art direction and gameplay mechanics.

We will still need some time before we are ready to show you actual gameplay interface in action, but in the meantime his analysis of the general feeling is, I dare say, pretty all right. We certainly were lucky and happy to have someone with some actual knowledge of the trade make a commentary about us, and we will soon have the opportunity to talk about the mechanics in more depth during our upcoming interview with him. In the meantime, feel free to ask your questions in the comments section of his current video. Stay tuned for more goodies!



[h2]Single Malt Strategy: Microprose, The Legend Returns[/h2]
As a podcast, Single Malt Strategy is by now easily considered one of the most respected references when it comes to covering the strategy genre on PC. Together with our brethren of the newly announced Microprose publisher label, we were the main event of their latest Podcast session that went on air this week. The Strategy WarGamer, TortugaPower and the Historical Gamer were kind enough to express their feelings regarding the rebirth of Microprose as a label, what it meant to them.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And here's the menu, for your kind ears to savour without moderation:



It sure makes our choice all the more fitting, but the burden of our responsibility also all too critical in order for us to claim & deserve this decades-old legacy. We cannot afford to give such a name a bad rep for its long-awaited come-back, and you can be certain that we will do our best to honor its flag all the way in, and beyond. At any rate, let's hope that the wise yet daring words of Rock Paper Shotgun's Tim Stone in his latest piece will verify themselves in the most glorious fashion, all for the best!



Finally, regarding Single Malt Strategy, you are into computer wargaming and strategy gaming in general, don't forget to follow the hosts on their own platforms!

YouTube
The Strategy WarGamer - http://www.youtube.com/thestrategywargamer
TortugaPower - http://www.youtube.com/tortugapower
The Historical Gamer - http://www.youtube.com/thehistoricalgamer

Twitter
The Strategy Wargamer - @strategywargamr
TortugaPower - @TortugaPowerYT
The Historical Gamer - @historicalgamer



I am afraid that will be all for today - but it sure ain't for this month! We have a big dev update incoming (as we didn't make an update back in April due to the launch of the Steam page), so we will certainly see each other again very soon. Until then, if you see anything you like - or don't like - in this column, please don't hesitate to express your feelings in the comments section, that's what it is here for!

In the meantime everybody take good care, and stay safe!

Yours, truly!
The DDG Team