SALSA! The SASL Assistant Beta Version 0.9 Please write me with comments

SALSA Design Notes
Or Why I can't resist a public soapbox

Version 0.9
December 1997

I dislike the recent trend in games, especially the movement toward computer games. It is true each medium has its own advantages and disadvantages so therefore games must find their particular medium. ASL, in specific, and many wargames, in general, do not fit an electronic mold. Would ASL be a better game if it were electronic? Would it achieve the success it has if it had been an arcade game only. Rhetorical questions both of them, but the answers are 'no' in either case. What I started playing ASL for cannot be programmed. It is social, it is visual; I like the way counters look and I look actually pushing them around. In many ways, the game is the thing. That is, the artwork, the mapboards even the sheer thickness of the rules that is the attraction. It is a game I play at my pace and my involvement.

We need not look further than Close Combat to see what the market will bear or how it perceives its audience. Think what you will of the game, but it is a Generation X answer to what we like. If Close Combat is the answer, then apparently we are asking the wrong question. A fine game in its own, it misses the point of ASL and provides none of the features we expect. Even the old V for Victory games miss the wargame point. It had everything a grognard would wish for: hexes, square units and lots of numbers on the counters, for examples. But the spirit of the game was missing. It needed that spirit to make the game a killer app; one addicting to play; but it never did. It did not even survive the finicky marketplace for long. They had to product new games and do so quickly to satisfy the changing and, apparently, easy bored, audience of the arcade gamers. This is so different than ASL players expect.

I have always liked computers to assist my play - not become it. The ancient Avalon Hill computer game, Squad Leader, was among the earliest attempts. It came with an actual board (map 2) and counters. The computer application regulated movement by having the player enter each unit as it moved. It handled all the mundane features such as combat and LOS. Suffering from an absolutely horrendous interface, it was easy to see why this approach to games become so unpopular. But its demise might be unnecessary. The lure of the graphical interface and increase potential of the new computers certainly is compelling and are features I do not oppose. However, I like ASL as a board game. A computer game might have other advantages but it will not be ASL as I know it.

I attempted a game assistant before this, based the solitaire Carrier Strike. Like SASL, there was plenty of die rolling that detracted from the enjoyment of the game. I was absolutely resolved to make an assistant that performed the Japanese's (the solitaire player) options and only those options. However I succumbed to the creeping featursim of the graphical interface and ended up adding an on screen map, movement and Fog Of War. In other words, a complete deviation of what I intended. It was a fun little game in it own right and given more time, I might release it. But it was not what I wanted.

It was not until the following year did I try again but with SASL. No doubt there are lot of die rolls for the game. Many can be, and should be, automated. However the biggest attraction for making an assistant is that I could not ever hope to automate ASL. This would force me to get what I wanted or I will have nothing useable at all. I think this what I developed. I have found I can play games three times fast and get a much greater return of enjoyment from the games by eliminating long strings of pre-determined die roll sequences and reducing the irksome chart referencing.

This assistant had to meet some design requirements. Since it aided play, the computer and game had to be next to each other. As a result, the screens fit a PowerBook. My original idea placed the assistant on my Newton; that would be the most convenient option. In that form, only the most important die roll sequences had been used since screen real estate and memory is very restrictive. The Newton version might still appear. Second, it had to be truly time saving. The window formats are almost a consistently changing arrangement. As testing evolved, it would be apparent another arrangement of the buttons, for example, would make the game even easier. Expect the layout to keep changing. And third, it had to present useful information. While sounding obvious, determining this proved difficult. At which point does the player have enough to play the game? The first version had what I considered the absolute minimum needed to functional.

Even so, I still found myself looking up charts constantly. As the game continues development, no doubt new feature will be added. Lastly, it can not do too much for the play. Again, the idea was to have a game assistant, not a game master. By design, it does not resolve attacks for the player. This is one aspect I enjoy doing, rolling the attacks themselves. They are fun part of the game, and quite frankly, too important to be left to a computer. It displays the attack priorities as a time-saving device. Likewise it displays the movement options and I even go one step further and will display the RAS direction or the first REH direction. I make every effort to allow the players to use their own die rolling and SALSA! merely display the results. This is demonstrated the most in the Actions window where the players may choose the die roll themselves. I never trust computer die rolls anyhow. In addition, most die rolls are displayed on the screen as a way to double check the results.

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