I wasn't entirely sure if this warranted a demo alarm, and I'm still not entirely sure, but there's tons of work put into it, so it gets a mention. The topic today is Ustor's Verge Wars. What Ustor's done here an exact rip of Nintendo's Advance Wars series, bless his heart and hope he doesn't get sued. I'd actually been considering something like this, just because free AW netplay would be so awesome, but I have a lethal combination of lazy and busy going on here, so that's a negatory. But that's okay because someone else did it! What a swell guy.

The reason I was reluctant is because at this point, the demo's little more than a proof of concept, and it has several unpleasant bugs. At this point, functionality is essentially complete, but the only kind of play is hotseat, as there's no AI and netplay isn't in yet. I can totally understand the lack of AI -- making a competent opponent for a game like this is really hard, and even in the actual Advance Wars games the computer is pretty stupid. However, I hope and pray for a netplay expansion in the near future, as should all of you. I also ran into a couple quirky bugs -- you have an option to destroy your own units, but doing so crashes the game. I also ran into an unpleasant image-allocation bug during fog of war. So I'm not sure you should necessarily get this right now unless you really like the novelty or have someone you don't mind passing the keyboard back and forth between, but you should definitely watch it because if it lives up to its promise it could be super awesome.

I played this for a bit yesterday, and it's pretty rockin'. I look forward to the Campaign and Netplay modes like nobody's business!

Kudos to Ustor! :D

Heh, this does look a lot like Advance Wars. Great job :D

First, thanks to everyone for all of the positive feedback. Part of the reason that I decided to release at this point was to gauge the community's reaction to it to help me determine whether to continue, and how much energy to commit to it. In short: I'm happy with the response, so it's a go.

Touching on the points that Gayo mentioned, I had considered mouse support pretty early on and decided against it to help preserve the original form of the game. Unfortunately, because it was built with this in mind, it would take a huge amount of work to switch over to or include a mouse based input system in game. That doesn't mean it won't happen, but it is *very* low on the priority list right now. The game settings screen(s), however, you can pretty much count on having optional mouse support, as I don't like how slow and clumsy if feels using a keyboard/gamepad.

As far as the CO/troop power level chart, you can expect it to arrive down the line as well. I kind of skimped on the CO details for now because I didn't have the powers/super powers in place and I figured a small description of what their major points were would be enough for an early release.

The last thing that I'd like to mention is that any and all reports of bugs, unusual behaviors, performance issues, etc. are greatly welcomed. I am but one man, and have neither the time or energy to give this game the mind numbingly thorough testing it needs.

I plan to try this demo as soon as I'm off work, and it looks really cool. It's missing one thing though.

A really cool/mysterious subtitle!!

Looks very cool. Glad to see someone doing something awesome like this in VERGE.

The game crashed for me, however. I don't know anything about VERGE 3 or I would help. It said it was out of image handles or something, so stop leaking images. This was after I had just ended turn a bunch of times so I could read the tips. :P

Excellent work. I hope this gets a lot better, because it deserves it (most notably the graphics and music will make it more fun).

- Thrasher

The part where he says it's a ripoff of Advance Wars didn't clue you in to that?

Minor Status Update For the Curious (and Overkill):

- Netplay is the next major feature to be added and is currently underway.

- AI is under consideration. Given the volume and difficulty of work it would take just to create some stupid AI compared to what it would add to the game, though, leaves me feeling like it's not really worth it.

- I do intend to add big, colorful CO character artwork.

- Animated battle sequences would require an immense amount of art resources (and the time that goes with them). Although I think they're fun, they don't really change the gameplay at all. So, much like AI, the work to benefit ratio isn't looking so good.

While there aren't any specific plans regarding new units, I did throw a few new things into the current version just for the sake of doing it, but my focus right now is getting the game itself to function properly. When the time comes, adding additional units is just a matter of dropping them into the game and playtesting them to death. Some of the SFC Wars units might make the cut, but I also feel like maybe there are reasons why Intelligent Systems cut those units out for the most recent versions. Additionally, the US release of Advance Wars for the DS is creeping up on me, bringing with it all sorts of new stuff to make my version that much more inadequate. The reality is that, while VERGE Wars does 'borrow' heavily from the Famicom/Advance Wars games, its purpose is not to be Ultra Hyper Famicom Wars: Omega Compilation, but a game all its own (or at least partially its own). We'll see what happens a little further down the line, though.

Campaign mode would have some merit, but its dependency on AI (in addition to creating heaps and heaps of scenarios) is keeping me from tackling it at the moment. Further down the line, when all of the other major features are in, I may end up doing it -- or if I somehow acquire limitless volumes of time. Whichever comes first.