Turf Wars

Game Design (Mobile J2ME)

Turf Wars is an original I. P. from Nephin Games that sees players from two factions battling for control of a persistent city map. The game is designed to handle up to 875,000 players across high-latency mobile networks.

A turn-based strategy game where players join one of two factions and fight for ultimate control of the city - the war rages from city block to city block. Players defend their turf using a range of traps, barricades and soldiers. Players can increase their wealth by increasing the turf they own. Players then use this wealth to A). better defend the turf they already own and B). take over even more territory and increase their factions dominance in the Turf War.

Key game features include:

1. Persistent Game World
2. Choose your faction: Demons or Blades
3. Player-created content (Turf defenses)
4. Support for up to 875,000 players across high-latency mobile networks
5. Dominate the city to rise through the ranks
6. Player matchmaking features
7. In-game chat
8. Buddy lists
9. World, faction and player rankings
10. First team to dominate the map wins

I was lead designer on Turf Wars - from a game design perspective, it presented many challenges. Balancing the game was a significant task considering the scale of the two factions, over 400,000 potential player on each side. Also the in-game economy was a challenge to balance, especially, given the progression curve in the game. Overall Turf Wars was a fantastic project and a very valuable learning experience - the entire team are very proud of the finished game.

See below for some selected screen shots from the game.

Demons Attack
An in-game attack as seen by a player from the Demons faction