Blue Water Development Diary

[ChiefCommander33]

Originally Posted by AzureSkies

Hello everyone!

I'm pleased to announce the committed development of this new naval strategy game, Blue Water.


[in-game screenshot with UI overlay disabled. Post edited to replace old art]

The name is a reference to the maritime geographical term, "Blue-Water Navy".

It's been a long time since either Sonalysts' Jane's Fleet Command or Eidos Hungary's Battlestations: Midway graced the naval game community, and Blue Water intends to fill the big shoes they left: That of a surface-fleet, real-time naval strategy game.

Set at the end of 1983 in a "Cold War gone hot" scenario, you will take command of NATO and Soviet battlegroups, airbases, submarines and land installations to decide the world's future. You will be able to take command of one vessel at a time and switch between them, or issue orders from a strategic map.

The Soviet and US Navies were very different, however, it is possible to find some ships that had striking similarities in the most important metrics (such as range, type and effectiveness of armament, etc). As such, there's planned to be two different kinds of missions: Symmetric and Asymmetric. In Symmetric maps, roughly equivalent battle groups will be pitted against each other. In Asymmetric, the fleet composition is more broad and better reflects the different doctrines of the two navies.

There will be realistic weapons and ranges, an adjustable "world scale" slider that modifies the range of all weapons and sensors, skirmish and multiplayer modes, and much more. All these features may not be available on the early alpha version of the game, but will be released with free future updates.

On that note, I'm proud to say I'm committed to the old-fashioned, microtransaction-free model of gaming.

But as for now, it is extremely early in development, but with dynamic water interaction and a unique and immersive order/control scheme, it's already looking very promising and I'm very excited to be working on it.

Be sure to check out the development diary and suggestions thread.

Sincerely,
Azure Skies, LLC

I'm excited for this game. All I see are WW2 submarine games. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing them but I want to play a sub and surface more modern day naval game with modern day navies and weapons. A simulator game in that capacity where you can still give order, move around inside the vessel and command it like a modern day vessel would be awesome. I even thought about learning how to code and to become a developer to create a game of this sort if no one was going to create one. I wish you guys the best of luck and I will be following your progress! I can't wait to play this. Let me know if you need a tester. I would be happy to assist.

[Sea Demon]

Checking in. Still watching this product closely with great interest. Fantastic update on May 23rd in the Development Diary. The Juliett sub model looks great! Can't wait til we see shots of weapons on their way to the target. The sky looks great (sunset), and the water is equally as good as what we're seeing in DCS. Haven't seen it in motion yet though.



If you do an early access release, do you envision monthly updates for completion? Or do you see large block updates that come much later?


I for sure would purchase an early release, even if bare bones....but would hope updates would come routinely. (for what it's worth)



Waiting for screenshots of your next vehicle.....

[AzureSkies]

Originally Posted by ChiefCommander33

I'm excited for this game. All I see are WW2 submarine games. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing them but I want to play a sub and surface more modern day naval game with modern day navies and weapons. A simulator game in that capacity where you can still give order, move around inside the vessel and command it like a modern day vessel would be awesome. I even thought about learning how to code and to become a developer to create a game of this sort if no one was going to create one. I wish you guys the best of luck and I will be following your progress! I can't wait to play this. Let me know if you need a tester. I would be happy to assist.

Honestly not too far off from what I did. I was already familiar with code and I've been modding games - even here on SUBSIM with my personal account - for over a decade.

Like most things, it's more difficult than it looks but still possible with enough commitment.

Originally Posted by Sea Demon

Checking in. Still watching this product closely with great interest. Fantastic update on May 23rd in the Development Diary. The Juliett sub model looks great! Can't wait til we see shots of weapons on their way to the target. The sky looks great (sunset), and the water is equally as good as what we're seeing in DCS. Haven't seen it in motion yet though.



If you do an early access release, do you envision monthly updates for completion? Or do you see large block updates that come much later?


I for sure would purchase an early release, even if bare bones....but would hope updates would come routinely. (for what it's worth)



Waiting for screenshots of your next vehicle.....

I'm very happy to hear that - and that's kind of funny you mention seeing it in motion - I keep thinking to myself, "it doesn't look nearly as good in still pictures...", so I can't wait to capture some video of it.

Monthly updates may be possible, but also may not be practical. We'll have to see. But I'll keep in mind that the playerbase would prefer more frequent updates.

The bigger updates will certainly take time, though. There's one in particular that I really look forward to seeing the community's reaction to, but that's a long ways down the road.

[Medley1991]

Yeah, nice to see the advancement in the dev process. That's look amazing !
In case of Early acces, it's very important for making a devblog on a website, and making a weekly news. Not necesery a update but keeping a contact with comunity is very important.

For exemple, you can see the devblog form Airport CEO dev's.

I am very exiting about this project, and i buy day one the early acces.

[hellfish6]

Just found out about this and I'm really interested.

[AzureSkies]

Originally Posted by Medley1991

Yeah, nice to see the advancement in the dev process. That's look amazing !
In case of Early acces, it's very important for making a devblog on a website, and making a weekly news. Not necesery a update but keeping a contact with comunity is very important.

For exemple, you can see the devblog form Airport CEO dev's.

I am very exiting about this project, and i buy day one the early acces.

Thanks! And I'll be sure to try to keep the updates more steady.

Originally Posted by hellfish6

Just found out about this and I'm really interested.

Glad to hear! As it's still rather early in development, we're open to community feedback and suggestions. Be sure to drop by the other two threads here in this forum - the suggestions thread and development diary. I'm here for conversation and feedback.

[PurpleCow]

Very interested in this game. The graphics look incredible. I would personally love to see a remake of a Fleet Command game. Command Modern Air Naval Operations doesn't have any graphics which really detracts from the immersion.

This is where Dangerous Waters hit the sweet spot. The game was not "dumbed down", rather the graphics added to the immersion and made it feel like you were really there observing the action. Your game looks to be right on that same track. Well done.

[Tnih_n]

Hello AzureSkies ! I have a small question. What will this game be like ? Simulator-oriented like Dangerous Water or Real time strategy like Fleet command cause from screenshot i've seen so far, this look kinda like Dangerous Water