The Last Days in Arnhem – Free Demo Now Available on Steam

[Angiel]

The Last Days in Arnhem is a turn-based tactical wargame set during Operation Market Garden and the fighting around Arnhem in September 1944.

The free demo is now available on Steam and currently includes two playable scenarios.

The game is still in development and is being created as a solo project, so at this stage I am especially interested in feedback from experienced wargamers.

I would be very grateful for reports concerning bugs, crashes, AI behaviour, gameplay balance, movement, fire, assault, morale, interface issues, or anything else that you feel could be improved.

Free demo on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5093 ... nhem_Demo/

You can leave feedback here, on the Steam forum, or contact me directly at:

napouno@libero.it

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to try the demo and share their impressions.

Nicola G. – Apuan Wargames

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[zakblood]

Thanks, my favourite battle of all time and I own almost every version I can find on almost system there has ever been across many years, operating systems and consoles and other formats so will download and give some honest feedback from a 30 year plus game tester and 50 year game player

[Angiel]

Thank you very much for your message. Arnhem is also my favourite battle of all time and, just like you, I have been playing wargames for around fifty years.

*The Last Days in Arnhem* is still very much a **work in progress**, and the demo represents only one stage of the project. For this reason, player feedback is extremely important to me. I would like to continue improving the simulation, balance, AI, and the various game mechanics, also based on the observations of those who play it.

I am developing the game entirely on my own, so naturally I have to work within the limits of what I can realistically achieve.

I will therefore be very glad to read your impressions once you have tried the demo, especially given your long experience with wargames.

In addition to this forum or the Steam forum, you can also contact me directly at napouno@libero.it

[zakblood]

Thanks pm sent

[zakblood]

My first try at the battle was bob smiths Arnhem on the spectrum, a long long time ago, if it gets even close to that version as for me nothing played so far played as well I'd be very happy indeed and anywhere close or just another version as made my year ty

[zakblood]

feedback sent via steam demo, feedback is from 2 hours in and only on UI and maps and controls, as for me that's the area's id be working on atm and get set in stone before anything related to combat or movement, the keyboard for the map, markers on the maps for map orientation of at least a North, but for me i'd give all 4 tbh and VP, terrain information one what a given bit of ground does etc, fence, wall, house tree, as mud and fields impact movement or not? does a tree alter the line of sight and stop a bullet?

what are the civilians on the battlefield doing there? as if they just stand there and don't move, then there eye candy that's not needed imo, same with cows noises, bells or anything lese unseen but heard only or at least give the user a toggle to turn on or off, same as music, while some love a good battle song while playing, most i know of turn it off and couldn't careless if it was Vera Lynn or Marlene Dietrich or even scissor sisters in the background.

eye candy only works as eye candy if it works, eg moves, can be destroyed or adds to the sense of scale, battle or relevance of a given area, battle place needs windmills only if in a given area, cows noises if only in the distance, add in gun fire etc etc, won't go on as im not meant to be on a pulpit, as im sure you know what i mean.

[Angiel]

feedback sent via steam demo, feedback is from 2 hours in and only on UI and maps and controls, as for me that's the area's id be working on atm and get set in stone before anything related to combat or movement, the keyboard for the map, markers on the maps for map orientation of at least a North, but for me i'd give all 4 tbh and VP, terrain information one what a given bit of ground does etc, fence, wall, house tree, as mud and fields impact movement or not? does a tree alter the line of sight and stop a bullet?

what are the civilians on the battlefield doing there? as if they just stand there and don't move, then there eye candy that's not needed imo, same with cows noises, bells or anything lese unseen but heard only or at least give the user a toggle to turn on or off, same as music, while some love a good battle song while playing, most i know of turn it off and couldn't careless if it was Vera Lynn or Marlene Dietrich or even scissor sisters in the background.

eye candy only works as eye candy if it works, eg moves, can be destroyed or adds to the sense of scale, battle or relevance of a given area, battle place needs windmills only if in a given area, cows noises if only in the distance, add in gun fire etc etc, won't go on as im not meant to be on a pulpit, as im sure you know what i mean.

Thank you, this point also deserves some explanation.

The civilians present on the battlefield do not have any tactical or gameplay function. They actually use **images of the game’s developer and of several people who have contributed to or taken part in testing during development**.

They are therefore intended as a small **personal acknowledgement / Easter egg**, rather than as part of the actual simulation.

For this reason, **they will only appear in the two initial demo scenarios** and are not intended to be a general feature of all the scenarios in the full game.

Their presence is deliberately symbolic and limited to these first scenarios.

As for the other atmospheric elements, such as ambient sounds, bells, animals or music, I agree with the general principle that they should contribute to the atmosphere without becoming annoying or confusing for the player. I will therefore consider adding options to adjust or disable some of these elements during development.

[Angiel]

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Just to clarify where the manual is located: the English game manual can be opened directly from the main menu using the ‘Game Rules - EN’ button shown in the screenshot.

[zakblood]

pressed both buttons, neither worked for me in game, but will look in the install folder and check from there thanks for the reply.

opened in the game folder Game_Instructions_v4_EN, a pdf file which worked fine for me, but not in game as like i said, neither buttons worked, now read and understand more, but tbh most id figured out by play testing anyway, so maybe consider another route of opening the manual, maybe my setup as game played windowed on my rig, which isn't an issue, but res will be as barebones means no options for screen size setup in game atm.

thanks for the demo

[Angiel]

Thank you, this is very useful: you have actually found a real bug.

I have checked it and can confirm that the two “Game Rules - IT” and “Game Rules - EN” buttons in the main menu are currently not working correctly, while the PDF files in the installation folder open normally.

So the problem is not with the manuals themselves, but with the buttons that are supposed to open them. I will fix this in the next version.

As for the game running in windowed mode, that is perfectly fine and not a problem. I will still keep your comment about smaller resolutions and smaller monitors in mind.

[Angiel]

The Last Days in Arnhem – Demo Update

A small update for The Last Days in Arnhem demo is now live on Steam.

Thanks to the feedback received from players, I have fixed a couple of issues and added a small improvement to the controls:

Fixed the Game Rules buttons in the main menu: both the English and Italian PDF manuals now open correctly.
Added WASD controls for moving the camera/map, in addition to the existing controls.
Increased the default game window size for better visibility.

The update is already live on Steam and should be downloaded automatically.

Thanks again to everyone who has tried the demo and reported problems. Feedback is extremely useful while development continues.

[zakblood]

14 lines of this in the player log file in the latest version

GarbageCollector disposing of GraphicsBuffer. Please use GraphicsBuffer.Release() or .Dispose() to manually release the buffer.

with the last line reading,

Internal: There are remaining Allocations on the JobTempAlloc. This is a leak, and will impact performance
To Debug, run app with -diag-job-temp-memory-leak-validation cmd line argument. This will output the callstacks of the leaked allocations.

map keys work better imo, windows size now works on 4k from the fresh install, and remembers the size on each load, but selecting the units alters the map rotation on each and ever selection, which is a pain if you wish to move the map to go straight for the objective, then have to move it to the right direction after each unit has moved, as each time you pick a new unit for it's turn, the game auto turns the map as well, this was in the last demo and still is in this one, not something i like and will guess others won't either, design choice it maybe, but a toggle but so you can have it on or off would be better, then again only in my opinion maybe.