The Roadmap

Maybe every Friday, or maybe once a month. Maybe all day, or maybe for just a 'happy hour'. We'll have to think this one through, but we'll definitely offer free Challenge sending periods from time to time, open to all players (subscribers or not), and advertised in advance on the website.

We plan to have regular events based on the winning overall team - red or blue. We may simply reward all the members of the winning team at the end of each month with Challenge Credits, then reset the wins / losses total.

We also have a sneaky plan to let the winning team take over the website, if their winning margin is great enough.

There are a number of top 40 charts for subscribers - most turns sent, most wins, fastest response times etc. We plan to offer prizes to those players who top these charts. At least Challenge Credits - maybe other items as well. We may also reset the charts every month to give new players a shot at being a winner.

Once we've got the battle between the red team and the blue team working properly, we may add one or more new team colours. Black team is the favourite here.

We never wanted too many vehicles, as they would all simply be cosmetic duplications of each other, and we want to keep the game straightforward and easy to understand. We're not trying to play the macho PR game where we boast of the 60 weapons, 100 stadiums, 200 car models or 500 unique facial expressions we've created.

New vehicles must mean new game mechanics and play strategies, and new opportunities for map designers. We've have a rough idea about 2-man vehicles which may come soon.

As with vehicles, we don't want to add more objects just for the sake of it. We have at least one object type planned but not implemented yet, which will add a new wrinkle to the gameplay.

There is a lot more we can do with the texture system on the maps (basically, what the floor of each island is painted with). Its possible to add large, pre-drawn bitmaps which are bigger than a single cell square - for example a town square or massive helicopter landing pad - and we can also add alternate texture graphics for the existing terrain types.

We hope to find the time to draw some additional textures, which we'll add to future releases or make available as free downloads, once the game is fully released.

Soon after release we will host the first knockout competition. A limited number of entrants (maybe 32 - possibly only Top 40 table toppers will be eligible?) will enter a competition where they must play each other, with the winners going on to the next round.

The games played will have every turn posted on the website, so all Naked War players will be able to download turns from competitive games and watch the action - maybe even suggesting strategies to players mid game through the forums!

Naked War as a spectator sport!

The system of subscribing to buy Challenge Credits, and spending them on Challenges is reasonably new for an indie game, so we'll wait until everyone is familiar with it before we start tinkering.

We have an idea though where players can gamble a number of their Challenge Credits on the outcome of their games. Challengers would set the stake using their credits, and Accepting players must meet or beat that stake with credits of their own. The winner of course would take the whole pot!

A simpler version of the idea would be a 'loser pays' system, where the Challenge Credit cost of the game is paid by the loser, rather than the initiator of the game. Of course this would only be possible between two registered players, with both players paying a Challenge Credit to start the game, and the winner receiving one back in return.