AI Behavior
New Video! It’s been a while, but I think this is a fun one. I go over some of the tricks I used to make the enemy AI behave in a bunch of ways that reflect history but also allow for reacting to the human player.
An Idea
During the pandemic, I went deeper down the rabbit-hole of board games. I’ve always been into the hobby and had really started playing wargames in the past few years. It was something I tried to do as a kid but never got into (read: couldn’t find anyone to play with). So I started playing even […]
Building a Wargame Hex Grid
This is going to document some of the first steps I took in planning and creating my digital hex-and-counter wargame. I’ll share some decisions I made and why I made them, touching on technology and design choices. If you haven’t read them already, check out my posts about the use of hexes in Part 1 […]
Counter Movement
Long time since my last post, but it’s because I’ve been going full throttle with the development. Fixin’ bugs and takin’ names! Last time I discussed how I went about building a dynamic wargame hex grid with counters. To get this feeling like a game, the next thing we need to do is make those […]
Design Diary – August 2022
Hi there! It’s been an interesting time since my last update in coding my hex-and-counter game, Arete: The Battles of Alexander the Great. I visited Gettysburg for the first time and, apart from being impressive and impactful for its history as you’d expect, it’s a fantastic town to hang out and spend some time in. […]
Design Diary – December 2023
Hello and happy holiday season, everyone! I figured I could sneak one blog post in 2023 and pretend I’ve been keeping up with it all along. It’s been my one area of neglect on this digital board game journey, but I’ve been busily working on Arete: The Battles of Alexander the Great since the last […]
Design Diary – March 2022
Well, it looks like the weather’s finally warming up for us in the Northeast US. You know what that means. That’s right, more sitting behind a monitor designing and coding, yeah! Thought this would be a good time to document some recent progress as I’m in the weeds now and the changes aren’t as big […]
First Test Running the Game on iPad
This is the first attempt running the game on an iPad Pro as a native app. Not purely native as the game itself isn’t coded with Swift, but in a Swift container and building a real app. This was a tough way to discover that Safari on iOS doesn’t support CSS filters on SVG elements […]
Generative AI in Wargames
Oh boy. This topic’s been brewing for the past year and it’s really started to heat up in the board game world and now, as expected, in wargaming. It’s the issue of the ethics of wargame publishers using generative AI in their games. George Pearson, who’s been wargaming since 1968, recently posted in The Board […]
Hex-and-Counter Game Progress, January 2022
Walkthrough of the game after around 8-9 months of designing and programming. Still under construction with a long way to go, but it’s a full game and – dare I say – fun to play.
Hexes Part 1: A Brief History
Let’s go over a brief history of hexes in wargames and then I’ll delve into practical application and how I’ll apply it in my design in a follow-up post. Much of this is common knowledge among wargamers, and this is by no means meant to be an extensive history. Instead this is meant to serve […]
Hexes Part 2: In Practice
In part 1 of this two-part post, I gave a brief overview of the history of hexes in tabletop wargames. Now I want to share my initial findings in planning my own digital hex board game and some unique hex geometric characteristics. I think you’ll also see why, to a developer, hexes require a bit […]
Introducing Arete’s New Scenario: The Siege of Tyre
Hi everyone, I’ve been quiet but busy since releasing Arete: The Battles of Alexander the Great on iOS and Android. In the early stages after release, I was fixing bugs which were mostly hiding in the online games area. Thankfully most of them were minor and there weren’t many so I was quickly able to […]
Saving and Loading the Game
Well all my Find/Replace work paid off and this is exciting. Save and Load work and allow for the all-important “Resume Game” option. Here’s a vid going from a new game to a saved one.Note this also shows a sneak peek at the set-up for The Battle of Chaeronea.
Scenario Switching
I’ve added the ability to switch scenarios. This also begins the UI work outside of the main game area. Here I’m going from Chaeronea to Granicus (still under construction) and back.
Wargaming’s Greatest Hits: A List of War and Anti-War Songs
A couple of days ago, Ardwulf’s Lair had a stream where the topic was music for wargaming. A great topic, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it so I’ve put together my list of favorites just to get them in one place. Unsurprisingly they’re mostly Cold War and some anti-war protest tunes. […]