"Easy to learn, but hard to master"

(06.06.2007, 18:44:45) Weewar seems to be one of the shining new stars in the browser games' round based strategy scene. The fresh look and the exciting new features made it grow faster than lot's of it's opponents. Enough reasons for us to speak to Alex, one of the game's lead developers.

Galaxy-News: When and why did you decide to create Weewar?


Alex: Bert is an avid gamer and had already experimented with various online game concepts while I had a lot of relevant experience though my position as Creative Director with Soda. Recent shifts in technology usage (web 2.0, ajax) have created a massive opportunity for online gaming outside of consoles and desktop applications.

And since we live in different countries we also just wanted to create a platform enabling casual gaming without much technical requirements or set up for ourselves.



Galaxy-News: Please describe Weewar and it's main features.



Alex: Weewar is a round based strategy game. Up to 6 players compete against each other on one of a growing number of maps. They each control and build a diverse army of Troopers, Tanks, Artillery and more. Each game features a powerful private in game chat, a replay functions for both the last turn and the entire game. Games can be public or private allowing the community to have a peek.

Most importantly Weewar is as slow or fast as the participating players want it to be. You can play rapidly or just play a few rounds every day with easy email notifications altering you when it is your turn.

Another key factor is that all games are persistent. So if you close your browser window at any time or navigate away your game will be in the exact same state when you return. This is quite handy for "office play" :)



Galaxy-News: Your game description says "Forget forms and numbers - this is not Excel". What annoys you about other browser games and makes Weewar different from these games?



Alex: It is not so much that we are annoyed about these other game's interaction. In fact Bert has enjoyed some of them in the past. But we were really keen to recreate a desktop like experience while maintaining all the browser's advantages. There is a very shallow learning curve in Weewar as everything is clearly visible right in front of you. You can see what your opponents are doing - right when they are doing it. You can watch other players' games. It is just so much more accessible and truly: Easy to learn, but hard to master :)



Galaxy-News: How many people work for Weewar and what are your plans for the next years?



Alex: We are only 2 people doing it full time but a number of people are working on graphics, system administration and all the other things one needs doing. But we are definitely planing to bring more staff on board in the near future. All the signs indicate that we are doing something very right with Weewar. And major part of that is to be able to respond to what our fantastic community requests.

You can count on a whole new set of units, a whole new class even. We are almost ready to release a powerful map editor so player can create and play their own scenarios. We have plans to greatly improve our community features (friends, messaging, etc) and .. and ...



Galaxy-News: I heared you brought a little present for our readers as well?!

Alex: Weewar features a Pro-level account that allows you to play more games at a time, access to special units (berserker anybody?) and a few other neat things. And since anybody who plays with a Pro-user gets the same benefits pro-users are hugely popular.

Update: Thank you everybody for participating. Check the comments to see who has won.

Autor: Redaktion

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The new Weewar forums are live

(15.06.2008, 22:17:47) May 29th's launch of the Weewar forums went smoothly and we have seen hundreds of new posts in the first 24h alone. Seems like there was a big need and we are very happy to have adressed it.

30.000 User spielen "Gott"

(18.03.2008, 00:03:30) Beim preisgekrönten Spiel Weewar wurde kürzlich ein umfangreiches Update eingespielt. Darin enthalten war der von vielen Spielern heiss erwartete Karteneditor, der es erlaubt eigene Karten zu erstellen und zu tauschen. Wir haben mit Alex, einem der Entwickler des Spiels gesprochen, der uns auch erklärt was es mit der Liaison zwischen Weewar und Google's Social Graph API auf sich hat.

Nominiert für "Next Web Awards"

(14.03.2008, 19:52:35) Helft uns mit eurer Stimme und unterstüzt Weewar bei den "Next Web Awards".

Weewar nominated for Next Web Award

(14.03.2008, 19:05:54) Vote for Weewar at the massive european web 2.0 conference in Amsterdam.

30.000 users playing Wee-god

(12.03.2008, 23:24:08) Weewar has recently launched a massive update including the highly anticipated map editor, enabling some 30.000 players to create and share their very own maps. We have talked to Alex, one of the creators of the game. He will also shed some light on how Weewar is now fully compatible with Google's Social Graph API through the addition of XFN and MicroIDs.