''Battlefront '' is a
computer wargame developed and published by
Strategic Studies Group
Strategic Studies Group (SSG) is an Australian software development company that makes primarily strategy wargames.
The company was founded by strategy game enthusiasts Ian Trout and Roger Keating. Trout was proprietor of a military books sto ...
for the
Apple II and
Commodore 64 in 1986. The game is a turn-based strategy set in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
Gameplay
''Battlefront'' is a
corps
Corps (; plural ''corps'' ; from French , from the Latin "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organization. A military innovation by Napoleon I, the formation was first named as such in 1805. The size of a corps varies great ...
-level simulation wargame. Upon starting the game, player chooses from one of four scenarios that depict battles of World War II. The scenarios are based on
Battle of Crete
The Battle of Crete (german: Luftlandeschlacht um Kreta, el, Μάχη της Κρήτης), codenamed Operation Mercury (german: Unternehmen Merkur), was a major Axis airborne and amphibious operation during World War II to capture the island ...
,
Operation Winter Storm
Operation Winter Storm (german: Unternehmen Wintergewitter), a German offensive in December 1942 during World War II, involved the German 4th Panzer Army failing to break the Soviet encirclement of the German 6th Army during the Battle of St ...
,
Battle of Saipan
The Battle of Saipan was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands from 15 June to 9 July 1944 as part of Operation Forager. It has been referred to as the "Pacific D-Day" with the ...
, and
Siege of Bastogne
The siege of Bastogne () was an engagement in December 1944 between American and German forces at the Belgian town of Bastogne, as part of the larger Battle of the Bulge. The goal of the German offensive was the harbor at Antwerp. In order to r ...
.
Development
The game was designed, programmed and finished in 14 weeks.
Roger Keating
Roger Keating is an Australian computer game designer. Along with Ian Trout, Keating co-founded of the video game company Strategic Studies Group, which is known for its strategic war and fantasy games with artificial intelligence. Keating and ...
created a dedicated disc operating system for the game that allowed rapid access to the data stored on the disc with subsequent reloading of the game screen. Additionally, Keating wrote a novel pathfinding routine that helped to minimize memory usage.
[
]
Reception
Jay Selover reviewed the game for ''
Computer Gaming World'', and stated that "''Battlefront'' is a very good game which does an excellent job of putting the player into an authentic combat role: that of a Corps commander."
A reviewer of ''
Computer and Video Games'' praised the game's historical accuracy and the possibility to create custom scenarios, but criticised the graphics. He stated that ''Battlefront'' "is a very good attempt, but it is not the perfect game that it might have been".
[
The game was nominated by '' Computer Gaming World'' for Strategy Game of the Year in 1987, but lost to '' Gettysburg: The Turning Point'' by Chuck Kroegel.]
Reviews
*'' Jeux & Stratégie'' #47
References
{{Strategic Studies Group
1986 video games
Strategic Studies Group games
Commodore 64 games
Apple II games
Computer wargames
Turn-based strategy video games
Video games developed in Australia
World War II video games