Vassal brings board games to all.
Writing by Tim on Thursday, 27 of March , 2008 at 11:24 pm
When I was young my dad tried to teach me these extremely complex historic hex-grid style war games. They recreated famous battles of various wars: Trenton and Princeton of the Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, The Battle of the Bulge, even Hastings and Agincourt. It was a little much for a kid of my age to learn, but nonetheless I successfully compounded my dorkiness by getting my first Dungeons And Dragons set in 5th grade. Since that time board games, and more specifically war games, have gone the way of the Dodo. They exist in dummied-down form, the notable company Avalon Hill still producing the World War II themed Axis And Allies series as a miniatures game. But the classic, complex hex-grid games I remember my dad playing are few and far between. It’s kind of a tragic loss, really.
These games live on through Vassal. It is a free program that simply acts as a client. Players open the program, load a game module, start a server and play. On Vassal’s homepage alone there are dozens of unique modules, some based after actual Avalon Hill et al other game company games, and some home-brewed stuff. There are even modules for the fantasy board game Hero Quest and Warhammer 40,000.
Admittedly the program is not user friendly. Unlike conventional computer games, it doesn’t do much for you. So, like the board games of yore, it relies on the players’ ability to trust and abide by the rules. The interface isn’t exactly clear on what each button does, and you, as a player, need a backing in whatever game you are playing in order to understand what to do. It does, however, come with some cool built in die rollers, and most of the games come with scans of the rule book and all of the associated tables and charts needed to play. I’m still learning how to use it myself, but I find there is a game called Poor Bloody Infantry that I like quite a bit.
So check out Vassal if you’ve got some time on your hands and want something a little different than what today’s standard online game market has to offer.
Category: gaming
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Comment by Shannon
Made Thursday, 27 of March , 2008 at 11:38 pm
I can’t wait for you to install it on my computer! I’m looking foward to playing!
I think we may have scrabbled eachother out anyway : )
Comment by sharpster
Made Friday, 28 of March , 2008 at 8:24 am
I was just listening to the giantbomb.com podcast the other day and they mentioned something about this. They were talking about why xbox live doesn’t have more boardgames.
