Southers

Solo dev building Field of Command.
Discord

[Southers @SouthersDev]

I’ve been playing around with historically accurate squad sizes (8 man section for British and 10 man for German). Here you can see a platoon vs platoon engagement on everyone’s favourite little map Etaples.

I also recently added in suppression, going prone, MGs, and grenades (which get thrown automatically when men have them and are close enough).

Todo: sort out the lag (this is on iPad but still it’s not good, although I know the root cause it’s to do with animations). Sort out cover (bigger squads need more cover). Sort out balance. Sort out visual effects. Test on more and bigger maps. Test with tanks etc. Test in 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 etc

Would love to hear initial thoughts! 🙏

#WW2 #ScreenshotSaturday #IndieDev #RTS #FieldOfCommand

[Southers @SouthersDev]

Flanking to win in Field of Command🎖️

Play in browser (No download)
https://t.co/1e9SA25K8j

#ScreenshotSaturday #gamedev #solodev #threejs #RTS #StrategyGames

[Southers @SouthersDev]

@dangreenheck @threejs Amazing job it looks stunning. Big fan and I’m sure I’ll be buying some time soon…!

[Southers @SouthersDev]

@dxcore35 I don’t know but I want to try it! In an ideal world we would be able to generate a map from real world data and then modify it if we want

[Southers @SouthersDev]

Working on the map editor and added new procedural trees, rocks and spline tools. Especially happy with the trees 🌲 🌳 🌴

#screenshotsaturday #rts #gamedev

[Southers @SouthersDev]

@bridgemindai Insane! Not sure how you can run continuous on three though ? I’m on one and keep hitting 5 hour limit in like 30 mins. I’m running maybe 4x Opus 4.8 1m agents for that time…

[Southers @SouthersDev]

Currently available for testing at https://t.co/kz6C6KOemH

[Southers @SouthersDev]

@aavaa44 Okay I think I’m copying this nice work! Looks awesome 🙌

[Southers @SouthersDev]

@nickdiazofnauts @threejs Great points! Im thinking of adding a settings prompt to use “high performance GPU” then use some JavaScript to try and push for it. I’ll see what I can do and report back!

[Southers @SouthersDev]

Wow lots there to look at thank you! Especially that last tip about browser GPU. I wonder what we do to get players to check too? Or can you force the check maybe? 🤔

I’m using WebGPU myself. Thank you very much means a lot. I’m trying to work out how to scale and make it look better at the same time!

[Southers @SouthersDev]

@unity3dvfx Wow unbelievable!

[Southers @SouthersDev]

@aeoridev This looks stunning! 🤩

[Southers @SouthersDev]

Forgot to say turn the sound up!! 🔊

Spent most of Friday evening with headphones on remixing the various layers. It’s getting close to what I wanted 🙌

[Southers @SouthersDev]

I’ve been playing around with historically accurate squad sizes (8 man section for British and 10 man for German). Here you can see a platoon vs platoon engagement on everyone’s favourite little map Etaples.

I also recently added in suppression, going prone, MGs, and grenades (which get thrown automatically when men have them and are close enough).

Todo: sort out the lag (this is on iPad but still it’s not good, although I know the root cause it’s to do with animations). Sort out cover (bigger squads need more cover). Sort out balance. Sort out visual effects. Test on more and bigger maps. Test with tanks etc. Test in 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 etc

Would love to hear initial thoughts! 🙏

#WW2 #ScreenshotSaturday #IndieDev #RTS #FieldOfCommand

[Southers @SouthersDev]

Flanking to win in Field of Command🎖️

Play in browser (No download)
https://t.co/1e9SA25K8j

#ScreenshotSaturday #gamedev #solodev #threejs #RTS #StrategyGames

[Southers @SouthersDev]

If anyone’s interested in playtesting you can jump straight in at https://t.co/pHvS8QB7X9 and provide ideas, feedback, reports directly in game! 🫡

Even better why not join our little discord https://t.co/7gH6mOauuU

[Southers @SouthersDev]

@ALASKANmagpie @tripoai Thanks! Are you making your models or using Ai?

[Southers @SouthersDev]

Remodelling the Matilda II tank with some help from @tripoai 👌🫡

[Southers @SouthersDev]

Will be added to the beta tonight. Check out https://t.co/pHvS8QB7X9 for more info and join the discord if you want in! 👇

[Southers @SouthersDev]

Been trying it all day. It’s so incredibly fast it’s insane, but it deffo ain’t the best at “coding”. It knows what to do and where, it’s quick to find the changes needed, but then it just jumps in and doesn’t stop to think what else it could potentially impact. This is where Opus / Codez still win…

[Southers @SouthersDev]

@InOneProjects Thank you so much for mentioning Field of Command in your top 10! 🙌🫡

[Tone @InOneProjects]

TOP 10 GAMES I REVIEWED OUT OF ALL 945

After reviewing all 945 games in #vibejam (unofficially!!) these are my picks, not presented in any order. The genre's and what's on display are so diverse that it really feels like a disservice to pick any of them as a true top spot winner.

As a reminder, I'm not an organizer or involved in the judging in any way. These are my personal opinions and I have no connection to the actual competition except that I submitted my own game and took the time to review the competition (they beat me).

Links for all of the games below.

Vibefall by @imkieransmith
This titanfall homage is one of the smoothest experiences you can have from FPS offerings in the vibejam. It’s got great onboarding, sound, visuals look good without looking vibey, feels like part of a much larger game, and is overall the sort of game that pulls from you an astonished, “This was vibe coded?”

Fight life @fightlifemobile
There aren’t many games that I loaded up and which had my jaw drop, but this was unquestionably number 1 on that list. This is the best mobile first boxing game since Punchout and it captures the feel of NES meets modern gaming like no other. The retro vibe is exactly my style, so there’s bias here, but I think the quality bar is set high enough that even non-mobile, non retro loving gamers can start this up and be impressed.

Tiny Skys @DannyLimanseta
The simplicity disguising a deeper game and the unmatched approachability of this make it a perfectly scoped, gorgeously packaged entry. It’s performant, plays well, looks good, and packages multiplayer and meta progression alongside the single player experience. It’s also just an absolute stunner from the very first load.

Pawnfall by @rnschiehll
A stylish, run-based strategy roguelite somewhat reminiscent of Slay the Spire or FTL, Pawnfall packs incredible depth into a package that in no way feels vibecoded. Music is perfect, animations are great, gameplay is chess inspired and easy to take in and get a feel for, everything just clicks. It’s brutally hard, but to me, this is a sleeper hit I heard nothing about and I think is likely criminally underplayed.

Vibe Inc. by @cadostropia
While I saw a number of games approach the genre of “automation and number go up” this one impressed me earliest and still does with it’s depth and polish. There’s a lot of complex games on the list that are really well done, but this one feels the most complete and the most approachable, not overplaying complexity as a cheap trick to reach depth.

Aeralis by @duckocancode
The most fun 3rd person shooter I played in the whole jam. A few tried to reach this level of fast paced, feels great to play, high skill ceiling shooter but none of them have the polish, feel, or vibe that Aeralis has. It’s a bit much putting the lyrics at the bottom of the screen for the music but, damn it, I DO like the music.

Nebula Zero G by @Rev12Studios
It’s simple, it’s not super pretty to look at, but this game more than any other on this list captured me as a player. I put another hour into it today over lunch. I can’t stop. It doesn’t bury the lead in complexity or force you to spend an hour discovering its true worth. You either pick it up for a second run and don’t put it down, or you give up. I just wish it was on iOS already.

Capybara delivery by @leocooout
My one qualm about including Capybara on the top 10 is it feels too complete, too good to have been done in a month. Maybe some people (teams?) are just built different though. A lot of these games struggled with identity - is it a shooter? A survival roguelite? Adventure? “A Game about Capybaras Delivering Food” feels like you’re John Malkovich going into his own head in the movie “Being John Malkovich” except instead of everything being Malkovich... It’s Capybara.

Orbital Ops by @sidriff
This game fought neck and neck with Null Range (honorable mention) to be included in my top 10, but there’s only room for one low poly, retro neon vibe space shooter and this one edged out the spot. From the very beginning it impresses, with a menu that feels hand crafted, a depth that is only hinted it, and an easy to learn difficult to master play style that gives it feel on par with commercial games built by teams.

Field of Command by @Southers15
Unquestionably the fullest game I played among all of the standouts. A full, voiced tutorial, tight RTS controls, deep respect for the historical context it lives in, and it plays great. There’s a campaign, skirmish, and multiplayer (though I didn’t get there in my reviews). It feels like the kind of game you’d pick up at the store and pop the plastic only to get lost reading the manual, not wanting to miss the smallest bit of the nuance that goes into the play experience