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Combat Tanks

Publication date: September, 1994
Publisher: Red Herring

My close friend and college roommate Randy Weems and I always loved the old Atari 2600 Combat game, so we decided to create our own souped up version of it for Windows. This was back in the Windows 3.1 days (1994) when no one thought it was possible to develop games solely for Windows. But we pursued it anyway, and ended up creating Combat Tanks, the first action game for Windows 3.1. Combat Tanks had a pretty successful run as a shareware game through the company Randy and I formed, Red Herring Software. Eventually we found a publisher who took on the game and published it for us. The game ended up selling over 30,000 copies through mass-market retailers. No one got rich off of it, but it was pretty neat to see our little idea materialize and find its way onto the shelves of large stores. Years later, I've seen people remark that the game is the "best ever ten-minute game for Windows." The original full retail version of the game is available for free download below.

My friend Randy was killed in a car wreck in 2001. He taught me virtually all I know about game programming, and he continues to live on in my work to this day.

Combat Tanks

Comments

Sat, 06/07/2008 - 6:01am — Pontus Lundström (not verified)

Many thanks!

I was so amazed when I found this. After over a half of a decade of searching.. THANK YOU FOR PUBLISHING THIS!

I remember - as if it had happened yesterday - me about in the age of ten and my uncle playing the demo version of this game on an old 486 Toshiba laptop somewhere around the year 2000.

I even remember we once tried what happens when the score exceeds 100 000 points. I built "a fortress" out of the walls so the chopper couldn't hit me. Then i repeatedly whacked the "fire"-button and my uncle cleared the "shareware version"-notification with enter every time a bullet hit the chopper. At least we had o lot of fun.. : D

We were annoyed (or was it me alone? :D) when we were able to find hardly any reference to this game in the WWW. We would have liked to buy the game but it wasn't possible for us.

Then I grew up and computers developed as well. 32-bit OS' came and games went into 3D. But once again when I found CoolBasic language and started programming myself I remembered this game and planned to do a kind of remake of it. I wasn't very skilled that time so it never completed. The project has been frozen a few years but I still think of it sometimes. You can even find a reference to you game on my deprecated website Unfortunately it's all finnish :P

Maybe I'll do the same for your Combat Tanks that you did for Atari's Combat. For sure, I'll dedicate my game to you if I some day finish it. Time will show..

Once again: thanks a lot!

Regards, Pontus

P.S. Contact me if you're interested in my project..