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REVOLUTION IN HAND THE
POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SMALLEST COMPUTERS ON BOARD WARGAMING
I am writing this with two of the most important technological
developments to ever benefit the wargaming community. No, neither is the work of Crayola. One is familiar; the personal computer. Our old friend just
turned twenty, and has been a boon to wargamers everwhere. That starts with a wealth of games of every
persuasion, then moves on to the foundations of boardgames. Today, every board wargame is designed and
produced with computers, as even the
most technophobic designer needs a word processor to write rules. The other is a little less
familiar to many people, yet is coming on strong as a ubiquitous tool of
business. Call it personal digital
assistant, PDA, palmtop, or handheld.
Mine is a Hewlett Packard Jornada 548 Pocket PC, though most others
that I see are from Palm. Regardless of operation system
or origin, these smallest members of the personal computer family carry the
potential to spawn another electronic revolution amid board wargaming. There is no telling when electronics first
encountered a board wargame. The
pocket calculator is a natural companion though, from the time of its
introduction in the seventies. The
most obvious use is to help calculate combat odds, though wargamers with any
experience at all tend to do this so instinctively that they can figure the
odds much faster than their fingers can do the walking on a keypad. However, there are cases when a calculator
can come in handy, such as adding up the strength of large attacking forces,
or dealing with complicated strength and die roll modifiers. In my own experience, the Europa
series (GDW/GRD) presents the greatest need for electronic assistance,
especially when trying to calculate armored support. In fact, I cannot imagine playing a Europa
game without having a calculator at hand. When desktop computers appeared, it was
inevitable that gamers would try to use them for similar purposes. Game assistance programs [GAP’s] appeared
early; the Advanced Squad Leader GAP from Avalon Hill, developed for
the Apple II, is one excellent example. Yet GAP’s never really caught on with the
gaming public at large, and though they arrived early, commercially-produced
GAP’s proved to be relative rarities among game software as a whole. Personally, I see two reasons for the
extinction of this evolutionary line.
From the gamer’s perspective, the people who did see a need for a GAP
probably found it difficult to integrate play space with the space for the
computer. At the very least, going
from the map to the computer calls for turning one’s back as well as one’s
attention. Notebook PC’s might have
served better, but lack the market penetration of the desktop models, and
remain too pricey for most wargamers. The situation appears to have been
different from the viewpoint of the publishers. They found that they could make fortunes,
or at least more money than otherwise, by developing complete computer
games. GAP software was, necessarily,
squeezed out of the competition for resources. I strongly believe that the advent of the
PDA can bring in a new era for game assistance programs. Their appeal begins with size; a handheld
is no more obtrusive than a pocket calculator. But in that package is real computing
power. It is not on a par with a state
of the art Pentium 4 desktop machine, though the best handhelds are more
powerful than anything produced in the first fifteen years of the twenty-year
revolution. Likewise, there is a place for GAP’s,
accessible next to the game map.
Gamers remain as capable as ever of calculating odds and most
modifiers in their heads, but some “high wristage” game systems requiring
multiple die rolls to resolve a single combat or other event are candidates
for GAP help. For example, The Gamers’
Civil War, Brigade Series, Napoleonic Brigade Series, and Tactical
Combat Series use so many die rolls that players are urged to roll a
handful at once, then divine the end result, rather than roll them in
sequence. A well-developed GAP for a
PDA could do the same with a few clicks of the stylus. Software can also provide quick answers
to the viability of game missions.
This can be as simple as a database of cities and air bases, by which
a user can check to see if his bombers can reach a target, without counting hexes
in the view of his opponent. Slightly
more ambitious programs might calculate the odds of success of combat
operations not resolved on the basis of strength ratios. In my own design Britain Stands Alone
(GMT), a German player could check the probabilities of inflicting one, two,
or no hits at all on the target of air strike on a British installation,
depending on the number and types of air units allocated. As a game designer, I have always avoided
record-keeping in my designs, seeing that paperwork is too often work. Some boardgames need it however,
particularly air and naval titles, that call for detailed treatments of
damage, as well as simultaneous movement and combat. Instead of using record sheets, players
could use electronic templates on their handheld computers. Just the freedom from having to write out
log sheets for each ship or plane before the game would be a benefit. More sophisticated programs could alert
players to illegal moves, use of destroyed or damaged weapons, and other causes
of embarrassment. There is another role for PDA’s in play
by e-mail games. The most popular game
assistance programs today facilitate this kind of gaming: Aide de Camp and
Aide de Camp II (HPS Simulations), and the free program Cyberbox. Palm or Pocket PC ports of these or similar
software package could free the PBEM gamer from his home PC, enabling him to
plan his moves where he wishes, or at work when his boss is not looking, then
send his moves over the Internet when he docks his PDA with his PC, and
synchronizes the files between them. The Aide de Camp products are rare cases
of truly successful commercial GAP’s.
In my opinion, Cyberbox represents the most probable future of
boardgame assistance software, in which creative and skilled amateurs craft
freeware and shareware for the enjoyment of their fellow gamers. To date, the Palm OS and Windows CE (on
which the Pocket PC is based) are relative backwaters for software
developers. PDA programs are greatly
outnumbered by those written for DOS and the various flavors of Windows, and
Linux for that matter. Furthermore,
there are few books written on the subject to help aspiring programmers; I
dare anyone to go to the computer books section of a Borders or Barnes &
Noble to find more than one book on Windows CE software development. This situation is sure to change however,
as PDA’s become increasingly pervasive.
Where there is a computer platform there is a need for software, and
that need increases in proportion to the quantity of computers in use. The corollary is that enterprising and
creative individuals always step forward to provide that software, and
further, others provide the support needed to produce that software. Built it, and they will come. Furthermore, gaming has always been a
driving force in home computing. This
occurs in several ways. First, games
are entertainment, and people will buy computers for entertainment
purposes. Second, they push the
envelop of the platform technology more than business applications ever
have. It is doubtful that
high-resolution color video graphics, high-quality stereo sound, and
multimedia as a whole ever would have come to the computer were it not for
games; business and productivity software, such as word processors and
spreadsheets, have no real need for any of that. But games do, and along with consumers who
want hardware that gives them the best and most technically sophisticated
entertainment possible. There is a future for games on PDA’s, and
in fact there are growing numbers available for both the Palm OS and Windows
CE. On the other hand, real wargames
are not yet among them, and if players really want good arcade games in a
small package, they are best advised to put their money into a Gameboy for
now. Software for handheld computers will
increase in quantity and sophistication just as that for the larger machines
has for many years longer. If history
is any guide, games of many sorts will be in the vanguard. Owing to the small size of the displays,
historical military simulations are unlikely to be as suitable for PDA as
software of other genres, but some are sure to appear. Though stand-alone wargames as currently
defined are not ideal candidates for handheld platforms, assistance programs
for board wargames are well-suited for a niche market. The possibilities of the PDA, the demands of the consumer, and the
creativity of the software developer all combine to make GAP’s both
inevitable and effective, more effective than ever before.
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