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 . contents 1 history 1.1 professional services to the military 2 games 2.1 board games 2.2 computer games 3 references 4 external links history edit 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 18 october 2014 panther games in conjunction with lock n load publishing jointly announce panther games move to lock n load publishing following the split between panther games and matrix games . following the announcement it was revealed panther games through lock n load would be re releasing panther games successful 1985 board game trial of strength with a new edition . it would be the first time the board game has been re released since its initial release in 1985 . in addition it was revealed panther games new game engine command ops 2 would be released through the publisher along with all subsequent data packs for the engine . this represented a new method of content delivery for the company . 20 21 june 2015 command ops 2 goes public beta and the commander pack consisting of all five modual data packs for command ops 2 goes on sale 16 june 2015 . professional services to the military edit 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 . 22 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 . 23 in 2009 panther games became an associate member of the joint defence industry initiative rapid prototyping development and evaluation program rpde . 24 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 edit board games edit trial of strength 1985 warlords china in disarray 1916 1950 1986 shanghai trader 1986 computer games edit fire brigade 1988 alien drug lords 1991 cubit 1991 airborne assault red devils over arnhem 2002 airborne assault highway to the reich 2003 airborne assault conquest of the aegean 2006 command ops battles from the bulge 2010 command ops highway to the reich 2012 expansion to bftb command ops battles for greece 2013 expansion to bftb command ops 2 2015 command ops 2 bastogne command ops 2 foothills of the gods command ops 2 highway to the reich command ops 2 ride of the valkyries command ops 2 the cauldron references edit moby games panther games pty ltd profile . mobygames . retrieved 2013 01 10 . board game geek trial of strength . boardgamegeek . retrieved 2013 01 10 . board game geek shanghai trader . boardgamegeek . retrieved 2013 01 10 . board game geek warlords china in disarray 1916 1950 . boardgamegeek . retrieved 2013 01 10 . moby games fire brigade the battle for kiev 1943 . mobygames . retrieved 2013 01 10 . reg . no ht 13672 apple macintosh software game fire brigade the battle for kiev 1943 3 floppy disk 1989 . museum victoria . retrieved 2013 01 11 . hall of light the database of amiga games alien drug lords the chyropian connection . retrieved 2013 01 10 . hall of light the database of amiga games cubit . retrieved 2013 01 10 . thompson john 5 march 2012 . the game & the three t s travel time and trickle down . the wargamer . retrieved 2013 01 11 . perla peter p. & markowitz michael c. january 2009 wargaming strategic linkage pdf . center for naval analyses . pp. 93 94 . retrieved 2013 01 12 . peck michael 10 august 2010 battle smarts top notch ai puts command sim ahead of the pack . defencenews.com . retrieved 2013 01 14 . peck michael 21 june 2012 game review highway to the reich . defencenews.com . retrieved 2013 01 12 . sabin philip 2010 wargames in a digital age . digital humanities at king s college london . retrieved 2013 01 12 . gamespot au airborne assault red devils over arnhem . gamespot . retrieved 2013 01 11 . moby games cdv cover art for airborne assault . mobygames . retrieved 2013 01 11 . allgame airborne assault highway to the reich . allgame . retrieved 2013 01 11 . matrix games airborne assault conquest of the aegean . matrix games . retrieved 2013 01 11 . peckham matt 1 june 2010 . why pc wargame battles from the bulge costs so much . pc world . retrieved 2013 01 11 . matrix games command ops highway to the reich . matrix games . retrieved 2013 01 11 . welcome panther games . lock n load . 2014 10 18 . retrieved 2015 07 31 . breaking news panther games signs with lnlp . grogheads . 2014 10 20 . retrieved 2015 07 31 . panther games . simulationaustralia.org.au . 2012 . retrieved 2013 01 14 . calytrix teams on jdssc . calytrix technologies . 22 march 2007 . retrieved 2013 01 11 . rpde participants . rpde . retrieved 2013 01 14 . external links edit panther games official website panther games directory profile at simulation australia panther games lnl products home lock n load publishing home retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title panther games & oldid 696371362 categories companies established in 1985video game companies of australiavideo game development companiesmodeling and simulationcompanies based in canberrahidden categories use dmy dates from august 2015use australian english from august 2015all wikipedia articles written in australian english navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 22 december 2015 at 18 24 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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