Game Development Community

Reviving Bolo? (THE multiplayer action/strategy game)

by Erik Hallgren · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 11/30/2006 (8:12 am) · 2 replies

If you've not played it, i pity you. I am actually very lucky to have played it, as the game is older than myself, (i'm 14).

Bolo is a multiplayer action game, based very much on strategy and teamwork, each player stort out as a tank, with x amount of wood, ammo, and mines. On the play area there exists a finite number of pillboxes and bases.

A pillbox is much like a neutral tank, it fires on anything that comes near, destroying it leaves a token to pick up, which allows you to deploy it elsewhere, aligned to you, thus only attacking enemies.

A base in simply a refueling station, you can get ammo, mines and repair any damages there.

To get wood you need to cut down trees.

To deploy mines, pillboxes, harvest wood and build things, you have a "man". To build a piece of wall, in example, you click on the play area where you want it to be built, this costs wood. Your man leaves the tank, and rushes there, builds the wall, and returns. The procedure is the same for everything you build.

so, the goal, is like any "Team Deathmatch" game, get x kills for the team, and they win.
Seems like a simple raw arcade maybe, but it ain't.

Well, anyways, this thread is mainly directed to those who have played Bolo already.
So the new ideas would be adding some more buildings and stuff...

Ideas? Replies? anyone? :-)

#1
12/10/2006 (12:28 am)
Sounds a lot like Scorched Earth, which was another tank battling game with lots of weapons and assorted gizmos. Essentially, those games were the forerunner of newer games like Worms. Would it make a good idea for a remake? Well, it depends on how you do it. The resource gathering does put a different spin on things, but I'm not sure if it really adds anything as far as game enjoyment. I'd be interested in seeing this developed if for no other reason than nostalgia... but the jury's out on whether it would be as fun as it was back then. ThinkTanks is a faster paced version of that type of game, and I'm sure something similar could be worked out as a slower more strategic game, complete with different weapons, defenses, and resource gathering. Anyone else suddenly seeing ThinkTanks2?
#2
12/11/2006 (8:16 am)
Oh no, Bolo is definitely NOT like Scorched Earth (played scorched 3d), Scorched is a turn based game, where you choose angle and power on your shot.

Bolo is a fast action paced tactics game, like the offspring of Quake and GTA (the top-downs) with a touch of "thinking" as well.
Well, yes mebbe Bolo is more of a top-down ThinkTanks, but it includes "turf control" as well. Bah well defining it is pretty damn hard.
To get the real taste of Bolo, but without a Macintosh, try WinBolo (search on google).
Generally the idea is a remake of it, with more options and buildings, like a combination of RTS and Arcade, including different classes as well.

(how bout HUGE zones containing several hundreds of players in a MASSIVE battle!?)