Ground Pounders

[RooksBailey]

It might be time for me to forgive Kerberos for their SotS II fiasco.  This sounds like the sci-fi wargame I wanted for a while:

Born To Brawl! Kerberos Productions launches Ground Pounders Kickstarter!

August 27th, 2013 - Kerberos Productions, the Vancouver-based indie developers who successfully used crowd-funding in 2012 to complete their sci-fi roguelike, Sword of the Stars: The Pit, are back in the saddle with a new crowd-funding project, Sword of the Stars: Ground Pounders. Inspired by classic wargames like Panzer General, Ground Pounders is a hex-based, turn-based science fiction strategy game, designed to give gamers a new twist on traditional turn-based warfare.

You can check out the Kickstarter campaign here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kerberosproductions/ground-pounders

Players will control an army from one of three playable factions, each comprised of several dozen of types of units. As the general of this high tech science-fiction army, you will lead your heroic Ground Pounders across a variety of alien worlds, increase their experience levels and abilities over the course of three military Campaigns, and use them to unlock special Combat Cards that can add unique effects to every phase of gameplay.

Ground Pounders can be played in single-player mode or head-to-head in multi-player battles. Multi-player match-ups will also be playable across MULTIPLE PLATFORMS—the game in development will allow players on a PC to lock horns against players on all Android-compatible devices.

If you'd like to check out a demo, you can find one hosted at Gamers Hell. http://www.gamershell.com/download_102535.shtml

The Kickstarter campaign for Ground Pounders is unusual, with the developers seeking just $42,000 to cover the final three months of development, rather than more typical campaigns which attempt to raise the full budget for a full dev cycle. Instead, Kerberos has plans to take the game from its current Alpha state (a playable Alpha Demo has already been released) through an exclusive Beta period to release at lightning speed—with the projected final release date being December 2013.

"Basically we're making the type of game we want to play ourselves," says Kerberos CEO Martin Cirulis. "Ground Pounders is a quick, deep, sci-fi wargame with modern, cross-platform, multi-player support. It'll let us wargame wherever we want--at home, on the bus, waiting for a coffee! And we get all this without having to trade off the depth, detail or style that a good strategy game needs."

If the Ground Pounders Kickstarter reaches its goal, the developers have promised additional stretch goals, concentrating on more cross-compatible multi-platform support, with Mac, iOS and Linux versions made available to all Backers of the project who get the full game. Further Stretch Goals will include free additional content available as future DLC's, including a 15-card Booster Pack of additional Combat Cards and a High-Definition Map Pack for Mobile Users. Additional Stretch Goals will include full DLC Expansions of the base game, with whole playable factions added, along with the supporting Units, Cards, Battles and Campaigns.

OFFICIAL GROUND POUNDERS WEBSITE:
http://www.sots-groundpounders.com

BASE FEATURES
- Control one of 3 armies - Human, Tarka, and Hivers
- 80+ units covering land, sea, and air
- Battle across alien worlds on exotic battlefields, including airless moons, lava plains, and meteor blasted wastelands
- Seize orbital superiority and call down bombardments on your foes
- Build airfields, fortify areas, and repair or destroy bridges
- Improve your unit's experience and abilities over 3 campaigns
- Unlock and collect combat cards for each race.
- Build unique decks and even tune them for specific battles
- Dozens of scenarios to play in skirmish mode or cross-platform multiplayer
- Scenario and unit editors will allow players to create and trade battles
- SotSdex filled with lore details on famous units, personalities, battles and weapon systems

I'm gonna try the alpha demo.

[Nefaro]

I believe Jarhead posted about this title in another thread.

[RooksBailey]

Oops! Sorry!  I did a search for it first and came up empty.   :-[

[JasonPratt]

That's okay, the other thread was much more negative. This thread works as dissenting positivity. Like black poles instead of black holes!

(I learned today that recent studies show more than 99% of material around a BH is repelled instead of sucked in, so scientists are thinking of a name change.)

[jomni]

Jarhead's thread is called Sword of the Ground.  Pretty negative comments so far based on the look.
http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=7139.msg174099#msg174099

[RooksBailey]

Thanks for the link to the other thread.  I'll check it out. 

As for the negative impressions, I've been hearing the same thing from other people.  Not surprised, this being Kerberos  - I am still recovering from their dreadful Fort Zombie.  I was hoping for them to have turned over a new leaf with a simpler game format, but I guess not....