Every year we try to mentor one student as part of our development process to support young adults in bringing their passion for games to work, as we set to learn and to teach through our small but influential "new generation tester" position. It is a part time program that runs a couple of hours a week with education about the video game development process and with the aim to provide valuable insights, create lasting relationships and meaningful experiences with students. An opportunity usually open for college, university or non-degree students, last year we were blown away by a young man applying as a High School Junior and this year, we have the pleasure to announce and publish the extraordinary work by Niklas.

His Story

Hello! My name is Niklas Rimbach and I am a High School Junior from the Bay Area in California. Ive been interested in the Terminal Conflict for a long time, considering good Cold War strategy is extremely rare, and I decided to attempt to play-test the game, apply and to my surprise, I was accepted onto the team as a student!
I have been working on Terminal Conflict for around a year at this point and so far, it has been fantastic for learning overall better game development skills, and has been a great experience itself. I first began playing strategy games with Sid Meiers Civilization Revolution on the iPad, and while it was fun at the time, I quickly found it very easy. Eventually, I moved onto Civilization IV and later VI on the Mac VI but now I mainly play Paradox Grand Strategy Games, which I assume most are familiar with. My personal favorite is Crusader Kings 2 and the Hearts of Iron series. For other interests, I have always been a very avid reader since a young age, normally preferring Fantasy novels, however in the past years I have enjoyed reading and writing Alternate History. I also enjoy playing DnD with a group of friends or sporty activities, like Shaolin Martial Arts, which keeps me healthy and is overall something that Ive enjoyed for over half of my life. Game development, has always been something that has interested me along with writing. Ive started and ended work on many different prototypes, a common genre being a Cold War Strategy game. It has been something Ive been interested in for quite a long time now, and in my view, nothing had really got it right for quite a long time. Games covering the Cold War were either too linear, buggy, or just not for Mac. I found Terminal Conflict, and when I saw that a testing position was open for Mac users, I applied. Now, here we are! As for my work on Terminal Conflict itself, I started off as a Tester, but more recently I have worked on something with the development team that I personally am very excited about to see released: the Korean War Chain.

Research and Design

It is a decision chain with the possibility for an alternate history and with a multitude of diverse endings. Having learned the process for development over the year, I researched and designed it, getting feedback and editing it along the way. It has become something that I am very happy to share with you and thrilled to see releasing. Im excited to continue on the game and I hope you all have brilliant days (or nights, depending on your time zone), and I hope to see you around on the Discord server (https://discord.gg/VQusSWF) sometime. For more details on the NEW Korean War content release walk-through and strategy, check out our stream hosted by Lemuel Sora and lead game designer Gellert Keresztes, for Terminal Conflict. [previewyoutube=kL43K9VQ514;full][/previewyoutube] ******************************************************

Upcoming Development

I) Development has started of an event chain built around the Contras in Latin America. II) Policies are getting rolled out with each new patch.

CHANGELOG

AI

• Various minor tweaks to improve the way the AI handles military units

GAME

• Fixed an issue where player would fail to connect to multiplayer and would cause an exception
• Fixed UI exception with selecting policy menu when in the Arctic
• Fixed issues with entering/exiting Options menu

LEADERS

• NEW Leader ability for Kim Il-sung - JUCHE(Ends Turn): Spend 2 POWER to gain 1 MILITARY and 1 PEOPLE.
• Fixed an issue where leader abilities added via Decisions were not added correctly.
• Fixed an issue where Lech Walesa was causing an error

HISTORICAL CHARACTERS

• NEW Historical character Cho Man-sik that provides a historically plausible path without Kim Il-sung for the USSR

FOCUSES

• Updated 2 Focuses with an emphasis on Korea
• Updated focuses 851 Jeju Uprising and 853 A Nation Divided, now only available in timeline 1 to 3

POLICIES

• NEW Several Policies to activate and complete for East Asia like - HARMONIZATION OF IDEAS KOREA: Set USSR INFLUENCE to 1 and declare a WAR ZONE in SOUTH KOREA.
• Fixed incorrect color tag in policy #29645

DECISIONS

• NEW 25+ decisions for the USSR and 3+ decisions for the USA

AUDIO

• Added Audio slots in the Audio Manager for top right buttons

OTHERS

• Adjusted the positioning of the buttons in the top bar to keep an even 16pxl distance