Battlefront.com and Fury Software are announcing the Strategic Command Design Challenge!

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What started off as a forum discussion initiated by forum member Timskorn, quickly attracted a lot of activity and led to some really awesome design ideas for future Strategic Command games. Frankly, it’s been noticed by Hubert and we have now decided to turn this into an officially supported community contest. With Prizes to win!

So give it your best shot! Or multiple! Post your best design ideas and let others rate them. If your idea makes it into a future game, or among the top 5 rated designs, you’re going to win a free copy of a future StratCom game and a spot on the beta testing team.

Here are Timskorn’s original instructions for posting ideas in the Design Challenge:

The challenge with design is complex. You have to weigh in many different factors and intangibles that may not even have anything directly to do with your idea. For every idea should spring forth many more questions. So for this challenge, you will present your idea short and sweet within a tight framework. Your goal is to convince the reader (Ie, typically the designer/programmer) that this is a beneficial addition that has little reason not to be added. Below is the template to use when posting your design concept. It can be as complex or simple as you want, and could even be a design doc on why hexes should replace tiles. A really good design doc would also include picture examples of what you’re trying to describe, but isn’t necessary.

Engine: (Whether your idea should fit into the existing SC2/WaW game engine or for an entirely new engine, like if SC3 would be a real-time game for example: State NEW or CURRENT)

Synopsis: (A one-sentence description of your idea)

Design Summary: (Maximum 3 paragraph description of your idea and an example of how it would work in-game. If your idea requires more than that you should rethink what you are trying to accomplish. Be concise!)

Problem #1: (You must objectively think what problems your idea would create. You don’t need to solve it here. If you don’t fill these out you haven’t thought enough about it! One or two sentences max)

Problem #2: (Examples: It breaks another feature. Too programming/art intensive. Doesn’t fit with the overall design. Would it actually make the game funner, or just more tedious, etc.)

When fleshing the idea out, try to imagine yourself as the designer and not just the player. What are the pros and cons of this concept? Can you think of an alternative way to convey the same idea that would take less time to implement? It usually doesn’t make good business sense to invest a lot of time and money into an idea that you can get relatively the same benefits from doing an easier concept. Not many people want to spend 20 hours doing something they can do alternatively in 5 and get a similar effect. Is your idea FUN? Or do you want it simply because its historically accurate? Can it be both but with some novel compromising/sacrificing? One of the toughest things to do is having to trim the fat off your idea, but rarely does an idea go from your brain to paper to implementation without having to lop off its leg or arm in the process.

Here’s how it works:

- head over to
http://www.battlefront-store.com:8080/community/forumdisplay.php?f=16

- please open a new thread and post your design idea as outlined in Timskorn’s original instructions below. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REGISTER TO POST OR VOTE (in fact registrations are disabled). When posting an idea, please enter the same Username that you are using in the regular discussion forum or use your email address as Username. If you don’t do this then we may not be able to determine who you are and you may not be eligible to win a Prize.

- your idea/thread will be reviewed by the administrators and approved or declined. In order to be approved, it has to follow the outlines set by Timskorn.

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