Panther Games

Panther Games Pty Ltd
Proprietary company
Industry Video game industry
Interactive entertainment
Founded 1985
Founder David O'Connor
Headquarters Canberra, Australia
Key people
 David O'Connor, President
Paul Scobell, UI Developer
Products Trial of Strength
Fire Brigade
Airborne Assault: Conquest of the Aegean
Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge
Website www.panthergames.com

Panther Games Pty Ltd (Panther Games) is an Australian games developer, best known for the WWII Airborne Assault and Command Ops PC video game series. Panther Games specialises in developing operational level wargames for the PC Wargame market.

History

Panther Games was founded in 1985[1] by David O’Connor in Canberra, Australia.

In the early years Panther Games initially focused on developing and producing board games and released three titles in the mid 80’s, Trial of Strength, Shanghai Trader and Warlords.[2][3][4]

However, the company shifted their focus to developing computer games in the late 1980s with the release of their first computer wargame, Fire Brigade, in 1988 on Mac, DOS, Atari and Amiga.[5] Fire Brigade currently forms part of the historical collection of software; hardwere; trade and promotional materials that document the history of Apple Inc. and its contributions to the computer industry and society. This collection is currently housed at Museum Victoria, Melbourne.[6]

Following the success of Fire Brigade, Panther Games took a step into the mainstream games market with the releases of sci-fi adventure Alien Drug Lords and puzzle challenge game Cubit in 1991.[7][8]

In 1996 Panther Games decided to return to its wargame roots and instigated development of a new real-time computer game engine for a novel operational wargame series to be called Airborne Assault (AA).The use of a real-time engine without a hexagon grid for a wargame was novel as traditional computer wargames run on a turn-based system where there are dedicated phases for planning, movement and engagement. The AA engine (later rebranded Command Ops) allowed for planning, movement and engagement to be played in continues time and the hexagon grid was no longer needed to determine movement capabilities of units.[9] Panther Games' AA game engine and the associated AI capabilities has notably been referenced in publications by Peter Perla at Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), Michael Peck at Defence News and the Digital Humanities at King's College London.[10][11][12][13]

The first title to be produced in the series was Airborne Assault: Red Devils over Arnhem (RDOA) and was released in 2002 through wargame publisher battlefront.com.[14] However in Europe, Panther Games used a different publisher, CDV Software Entertainment AG, and the title for the game was simply Airborne Assault.[15]

The second and third instalments of the AA series were released through a new publisher, Matrix Games, with Airborne Assault: Highway to the Reich (HTTR) coming out in 2003 and Airborne Assault: Conquest of the Aegean (COTA) in 2006.[16][17]

In 2010, Panther Games rebranded their long running games series to Command Ops and released their latest title, Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge (BFTB).[18]

In 2012, the first official expansion pack Panther Games has ever released came out titled, Command Ops: Highway to the Reich. This is an expansion pack for BFTB and covers content from the original two AA games.[19]

Professional services to the military

Parallel to its commercial wargame development, Panther Games also provides professional services to the military. Simulation Australia (part of the Australian Department of innovation, Industry, Science and Research) describe Panther Games' professional services capabilities to include wargame design and development; artificial intelligence; user interface; programming; scenario development (including for JSAF); Puckstering (for JSAF) and a wide range of Analysis.[20]

In 2007, Panther Games was a team partner along with Booz Allen Hamilton, Ball Solutions, CAE and Calytrix Technology in the successful Joint Decision Support and Simulations Centre (JDSSC) project for the Australian Department of Defence.[21]

In 2009, Panther Games became an associate member of the joint Defence-Industry initiative, Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation Program (RPDE).[22]

In October 2010, Panther Games began a four month scoping study for the Australian Defence Simulation Office (ADSO) to determine the Defence requirements for a course of action analyser simulation tool.

Games

Board Games

Computer Games

References

  1. ↑ "Moby Games: Panther Games Pty Ltd profile". MobyGames. Retrieved 2013-01-10.
  2. ↑ "Board Game Geek: Trial of Strength". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2013-01-10.
  3. ↑ "Board Game Geek: Shanghai Trader". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2013-01-10.
  4. ↑ "Board Game Geek: Warlords China in Disarray 1916-1950". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2013-01-10.
  5. ↑ "Moby Games: Fire Brigade the battle for Kiev 1943". MobyGames. Retrieved 2013-01-10.
  6. ↑ Reg. No: HT 13672 "Apple Macintosh Software Game - 'Fire Brigade The Battle for Kiev 1943', 3½" Floppy Disk, 1989". Museum Victoria. Retrieved 2013-01-11.
  7. ↑ "Hall of Light - The database of Amiga Games: Alien Drug Lords: The Chyropian Connection". Retrieved 2013-01-10.
  8. ↑ "Hall of Light - The database of Amiga Games: Cubit". Retrieved 2013-01-10.
  9. ↑ Thompson, John (March 5, 2012). "THE GAME & THE THREE T’s: TRAVEL, TIME AND TRICKLE-DOWN". The Wargamer. Retrieved 2013-01-11.
  10. ↑ Perla, Peter P. & Markowitz, Michael C. (January, 2009) "Wargaming Strategic Linkage". Center for Naval Analyses. pp. 93–94. Retrieved 2013-01-12.
  11. ↑ Peck, Michael (August 10, 2010) "Battle smarts: Top-notch AI puts command sim ahead of the pack". Defencenews.com. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
  12. ↑ Peck, Michael (June 21, 2012) "Game Review: 'Highway to the Reich'". Defencenews.com. Retrieved 2013-01-12.
  13. ↑ Sabin, Philip (2010) "Wargames in a Digital Age". Digital Humanities at King's College London. Retrieved 2013-01-12.
  14. ↑ "Gamespot AU: Airborne Assault Red Devils over Arnhem". GameSpot. Retrieved 2013-01-11.
  15. ↑ "Moby Games: CDV cover art for Airborne Assault". MobyGames. Retrieved 2013-01-11.
  16. ↑ "Allgame: Airborne Assault Highway to the Reich". Allgame. Retrieved 2013-01-11.
  17. ↑ "Matrix Games: Airborne Assault Conquest of the Aegean". Matrix Games. Retrieved 2013-01-11.
  18. ↑ Peckham, Matt (June 1, 2010). "Why PC Wargame Battles From The Bulge Costs So Much". PC World. Retrieved 2013-01-11.
  19. ↑ "Matrix Games: Command Ops Highway to the Reich". Matrix Games. Retrieved 2013-01-11.
  20. ↑ "Panther Games". simulationaustralia.org.au. 2012. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
  21. ↑ "Calytrix Teams on JDSSC". Calytrix Technologies. March 22, 2007. Retrieved 2013-01-11.
  22. ↑ "RPDE Participants". RPDE. Retrieved 2013-01-14.

External links