For some time now there have been fierce Tank Battles tournaments occurring in our studios. Guided by my courage alone I decided to brave the fearsome mass of excited developers to ask one of them some questions about this game.

Sara: Why did you decide to make Tank Battles?

Developer: Here at Gameloft, we wanted to revisit an older but very popular gameplay style for consumers.

Sara: And what is Tank Battles exactly?

Developer: Tank Battles features World War II tanks that face off against each other in hopes to blow the other to smithereens. You can play against the AI or co-op with a friend in Campaign Mode to overcome 50 maze and paint ball-like levels. There’s also a fun multi-player option also allows two to four people to challenge each other in Death Match modes or Capture the Flag mode.

Sara: Seems like a lot of fun :)

Developer: Nothing beats blasting through walls with rockets, scorching enemies with flame throwers and carefully calculating the trajectory of bullets to win battles.  The controls are simple: the left stick moves your tank and the L2 and R2 buttons are used for firing. The aiming guide is highlighted when you hold down the L1 button and comes in extremely handy when you’re trying to stealthily eliminate enemies on the field. To reduce the waiting time when a player dies, we added a new feature: Gun Turrets! When you’ve lost all your lives, you still can play and help your partner win the game.

Sara: What an enthusiasm, are you a fan?

Developer: Totally! As soon as an early version of Tank Battles was installed on our PS3 test kit, it quickly became the most popular attraction in the Gameloft Studio. Everyone who passed by was drawn to the game’s colorful graphics and intuitive gameplay. During a recent office gathering, Tank Battles was main party attraction. Crowds gathered and stood in line to watch folks challenge each other and have the chance to play themselves.

Sara: And when will we have the opportunity to try it ourselves?

Developer:  It’s already available on PSN at $9.99. You’ll like it, Tank Battles captures all the youthful fun you can imagine.

Sara: Can you tell us more about Tank Battles development?

Developer: We initially started off by drafting a few futuristic concept styles (human vs. alien invasion).

We considered using a 2D background, but quickly found that it did not provide the effect we wanted, so we added a real terrain.

We tried a lot of different ideas like creating a child-like environment that featured tanks made from cardboard, rivers and lakes made from pipes and obstacles from toys left behind.

But truth is none of those styles matched what we wanted to create for audiences. So we decided to take a different approach and create a semi-realistic graphical style with cartoonish tanks.

We then fined tuned it even more and decided to remove the cartoony aspects to provide more realism with the graphics.

We finally liked the look and feel of the terrain but were still uncertain about tanks. We thought that realistic tanks inspired from the WWII era would be a nicer touch. So we began drafting a few concepts.

Ultimately, all the graphic aspects tied in well together and gave us a foundation for what we wanted to bring to the PS3.

The time when you could only guess what iPhone games were coming out from Gameloft is coming to an end! Now you can be among the first to see much-anticipated previews of the most exciting games! From now on, every month, our beloved Josh will present you with sneak peeks at all the upcoming games with exclusive videos, trailers, walkthroughs, features, interviews and more!

The first episode is now available with all our November iPhone games! You can watch this video podcast on the blog by clicking on the Podcast button and on iTunes, where you’ll be able to subscribe to our channel to be informed every time a new episode is released :)

Follow Josh behind the scenes and discover what’s coming soon to your iPhone!

Gameloft LIVE is a feature available on some of our iPhone and iPod touch games allowing you to find people to play with, make friends, chat, send messages, compare your trophies, earn Gameloft points and much more!

Gameloft LIVE is currently available in 6 of our games:

• UNO
• Brain Challenge 2
• Real Soccer 2010
• Blades of Fury
• Dungeon Hunter
• Asphalt 5

But a lot of other games featuring Gameloft LIVE are coming your way, including Castle Frenzy, Skater Nation and N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance!

Follow me and I’ll show you all you can do with Gameloft LIVE!

First, launch one of the game featuring Gameloft LIVE and tap on the Gameloft LIVE icon in the main menu.

If you don’t have an account yet tap on « Create Account » and get started!

In the main menu you can see all the Gameloft Points you have earned so far, the more points you have the more stars you’ll get. Aim to be a 5 stars player!

Trophy: To earn points you have to win trophies (or achievements) in the game. By tapping the « Trophy » icon you can see your trophies details.

You can win up to 2000 points per game. There are various achievements, from « Win a fight » to « Finish the game without dying », some of them are really hard to get and will give you more points!

Profile: In the profile menu you can select your country and modify your Username, password or e-mail. You can also select an avatar or upload one of your own picture.

Chat: In the chat menu you can… chat. Entering in the Chat menu will automatically open a new chat room where you can invite friends by tapping the « + » button. You can gather here to decide which game you wanna play next, establish a strategy for your next match or discuss anything you want.

Message: By tapping the « Message » icon you’ll enter your Message Box. From here you can check your messages and send new messages to your friends. If someone asks you to be his friends you’ll receive an invitation in this Message Box.

Friends: The friends menu displays your list of friends. If you want to add a new friend, tap on the « + » icon and type your friend’s username. You can also add people from a game, for example if you’re playing UNO online and want to become friend with one of your adversary just tap the « + » icon next to his name.

By tapping on one of your friend you’ll open his profile.

In his profile you can see if your friend is online, and if he is playing a game. If you want to play with him just tap on the “Invite To Play” button (this will invite him to play the game you’re currently in). If he has the game he’ll receive a push notification inviting him.

If he hasn’t got the game he’ll automatically receive a message notifying him that you want to play with him.

From this menu you can also invite him to chat, send him a message or compare your trophies.

When tapping the “Compare Games” icon you’ll see an overall view of both of your scores and trophies. If you want to see the details tap the icon of a particular game.

Now you can see which trophies you have in common or not.

If you want to get some more friends don’t hesitate to visit our dedicated forum post and give your username!

Meanwhile you can still add me to see if you’re better than me ;)

My Gameloft LIVE username: Sara

See you there!