Advance Wars - Development

Development

Advance Wars was first announced in January 2001, when Nintendo France gave new Game Boy Advance screenshots exclusively to French gaming sites, which included screenshots of this game, titled Game Boy Wars Advance. At the time, very little information was given. It was developed by Intelligent Systems, and eventually published by Nintendo. Four player mode was confirmed before E3 2001 and with it a US release date of September 10. The Japanese version, titled Game Boy Wars Advance, was originally scheduled for an October 12, 2001 release, a month after the North American version. However, due to the events of the September 11 attacks, Nintendo canceled the originally scheduled Japanese release of the game. It was eventually released in a two-in-one compilation in 2004 with its sequel, Game Boy Wars Advance 2.

Development of Advance Wars began alongside the Game Boy Advance launch titles; however, because Nintendo was so busy with them, they requested that Intelligent Systems assist in the development. Director Makoto Shimojo commented that the early stages of development often feature Intelligent Systems coming up with unique game mechanics for it, and upon presenting to Nintendo, typically being told that it was "too sophisticated" or "not balanced for a general audience". At which point, they began working on adjustments. The game was designed with the Game Boy Advance's young children audience, giving the game a "pop design", with bright colors, rounded characters, and comedy. Shimojo commented that in spite of this, the majority of purchasers were teenage boys. In order to cope with bringing a strategy game to a handheld with a younger audience, Shimojo and his team made the game featuring "waves of excitement"; he compared this to how long films will introduce calm periods in order to have good pacing. Shimojo discussed how various developers introduced elements from their favorite genres into the game. He gave examples which included a developer who was a fan of shooters designing the movement system to work in a way that allows players to control their units "down to the perfect centimetre", as well as a developer who was a fan of rhythm games adding a rhythm to how the units move. Intelligent Systems also attempted to cater to those who had a more serious interest in the weapons and the costume designs. As a result, they followed real history in developing these aspects, though making deformed versions of these weapons rather than duplications. The story and setting of the game were designed to not be gritty and serious, but to still be sophisticated.

In order to ensure that the game was balanced, the designers had to play through maps several times to ensure that they were not unbalanced. However, Shimojo commented that once he became more astute at the game, it became hard for him to judge what it would be like for a novice to play, though he comments that his goal is to ensure that the difficulty level is right enough to allow the largest number of people to play it. Afterward, his comments are sent off to other staff members so he can be sure that he got it right. From then on, the game is sent to Nintendo's debugging team, who will then provide insight on the balance to the development team, who makes adjustments accordingly. Shimojo commented that the balance checking basically went on until someone said "Stop it, stop it, we really have to launch it now". He attributes this work to why Advance Wars is so highly revered. In designing maps, he comments that it is impossible to please everyone, explaining that some people prefer maps where they start out weak and grow stronger, while others prefer to start out strong and tear through their opponent. His goal was to ensure that there were enough maps that people could say "Here we go, here’s one of my maps. This is what I was waiting for". The mechanic of unlocking maps was introduced into the game as a means of getting gamers to play the game for longer. However, in an interview discussing why the feature was removed in the future title Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, a developer commented that it prevented people who were too busy to spend the time unlocking levels, and that there were better ways to keep players interested.

Advance Wars was originally intended to remain exclusive to Japan, like the previous entries in the series, which were kept in Japan due to Nintendo feeling that consumers would not be interested in turn-based games, or in such complicated games. In order to alleviate this, the developers made the mechanics easy to understand, adding in an in depth tutorial that didn't require players to read the manual. When Nintendo's US marketing division played the game, they found it to be great, wondering why they couldn't sell it in the US. Designer Kentaro Nishimura commented that "Advance Wars' success shifted Nintendo’s attitude over western tastes." He added that if it weren't for Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, a game that he also designed, would never have been released outside of Japan.