War of the Human Tanks on Steam Greenlight

Hi everyone,

Steam Greenlight is finally live. And I already made the submission for our first release there. You can find it at:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92918806&tscn=1346349420

I wanted to give residents of SteamGifts a more detailed explanation about the game and our company before you check it out and cast your votes.

This my first game introduction thread, so please excuse me if I make any mistakes. I was inspired by (nice way of saying “stole”) the format from the nice La-Mulana thread on Something Awful Forums.

Who are you?
I am Ozhan Sen. Together with Jakke Elonen and Yoshifumi Ishii we make the Fruitbat Factory.

What is a Fruitbat Factory?
It is an independent localization company of three people who have to date worked on a dozen Japanese to English localizations. Inspired by the successful releases of the indie games we love and encouraged by friends, we hope that we can become a positive influence in the scene. You can get more details from the Fruitbat Factory homepage.

So why do you disturb our peaceful slumber?
I would like to tell you about our first game release and answer any questions you might have about it. Maybe afterwards we can do something fun too. Our first release is called War of the Human Tanks, first game in the Human Tanks, Charge! series (or Charge! Human Tanks if you prefer, or maybe Totsugeki! Ningen Senha or evenとつげき！人間戦車).

Wait! Who’d call their game War of the Human Tanks?
Nice question. A duo of Japanese indie game developers calling themselves Yakiniku Banzai! (or since we started, alternatively Yakiniku Oh! Yea!) are responsible for this. They have made three games for the Human Tanks, Charge! series and now are working on a new game called Recycle Princess, a game somewhat similar to the Human Tanks series with a medieval twist.

What’s this War of the Human Tanks about?
The game is a mixture of a Japanese-style strategy and adventure games. The strategy parts employ something similar to a variant of the Active Time Battle system that many should be familiar from Final Fantasy series. It also reminds me of the Battleship game that I loved as a kid, given that trying to guess the enemy locations and taking blind shots at them is an integral part of the gameplay.

Did you say adventure, like Indiana Jones games from Lucasarts?
No, not like that. Fans of Japanese games would be familiar with story segments that the Japanese call ADV sequences. In these you’d see a bunch of characters talking to each other and sometimes a narrator filling the blanks. We call these “Scenario Phase”s. That’s what we have in this game.

How do these two mix?
War of the Human Tanks is made from thirteen chapters with its story branching into two different routes with two endings each for a total of four endings. Each chapter consists of the player reading “Scenario Phase A”, preparing his/her units in the “Battle Preparation Phase”, fighting in the “Combat Phase”, again reading “Scenario Phase B” and possibly developing new tanks and modules in the “Intermission Phase” before moving to the next chapter.

How long is this game?
Getting all four of the endings, unlocking all twenty eight battles (excluding the tutorial battle) and beating them took us some twenty to thirty hours, depending on the person. So it is a fairly long game if you want to see the whole story and beat each battle. I must warn you though, some of these can be quite hard indeed.

What do you mean Unlocking?
Each battle you win, or lose (yes you can lose most battles without getting a Game Over and still progress through the story, often to different branches) gets unlocked in the Free Battle menu of the Intermission Phase. From there you can replay every battle and stock up on supplies.

What do I need these supplies for?
The supplies you get as a reward for every battle you allow you to assemble tanks and modules and even develop new and better ones.

What is a module, what do I need them for?
Modules are items you equip on your tanks to customize them. Your tanks have one or more slots to equip these based on their models, and by equipping them with different module combinations you can customize your play style in many different ways.

You are saying tanks from the beginning but I see no tanks, where are the tanks?
In the setting of the Human Tanks game series, Human Tanks have replaced mechanical weaponry due to their high efficiency. In their basic form they may look like humans, but they're much stronger and somewhat dumber. The weapons they use are actually part of their body. They have a burning passion to fight for their commander, so don't hesitate to throw them up against impossible odds!

I’m not convinced! Show me a video! No, make it two!
You can find 3 videos and 10 screenshots on the Steam Greenlight entry:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92918806&tscn=1346349420

I'm not buying anything before playing it!
A demo featuring the first five chapters of War of the Human Tanks will be available 4th of September on all our distributors. Check it our by following the links from the game's homepage that day.

Hmmmmmmm, okay. It seems interesting enough. Where and when can I buy this?
War of the Human Tanks is being released 14th of September 2012 for $9.99. Currently it is available for preorders from Desura, Gamerstage, Greenman Gaming (page under construction) and Indievania (under construction as well). We hope, with your support, it'll be available on Steam as well.

That's all I can think of to tell you about our game and company for now. If you would like what you see, and/or want to see more Japanese indie titles on Steam and support Japanese indie developers, please give our game a thumbs up.

I'll drop the Steam Greenlight link here again for ease of access:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=92918806&tscn=1346349420

Summary for people who are thinking TLDR:
War of the Human Tanks is a Adventure/Strategy game. First release of Fruitbat Factory. Please give it a thumbs up to support us.