Another Point of Singularity

Bob Jones, the guy behind the PIQUET rules company, is working on a new project that will somehow involve using Ipods with wargaming. As near as I can tell at this juncture, the new initiative, Battage, will rely heavily on the concept of playing sound effects back over the Ipod.

From the Battage Yahoogroup:

This group is for discussing the latest miniatures wargame design by Bob Jones, Battage. Discussions of the Battage rules, their technology, game design and play questions will be foremost, but military history, general wargame theory, technology issues as applied to wargaming, and hobby news will also be encouraged

Apparently there is a commercial ruleset that will be selling as of 9/1/05, the website is here: http://www.battipod.com/

A very intriguing concept, the use of handheld devices in wargaming. I'm not sure what utility an Ipod brings to the fray, but I have my own ideas.

I've often thought there has to be a way to make handheld technology work with wargaming, at least the miniatures kind. Just about every PALM PILOT from the PALM III onward can handle IR Data Beaming back and forth. This is a fairly obvious means of secure command and control (C2) in real time. Virtually any multiplayer miniature wargame (and even mulitplayer boardgames!) with a tiered command system or orders subsystem might benefit from real time interface. I think naval games where multiple players are running squadrons of ships would be an easy fit for an approach like IR-enable C2 using handheld devices.

(Research point: check out the going price for a Palm III on Ebay these days)

See the illustration:



Assume Players A & B are on the same side and C & D are on the same side.

In a hypothetical "wired" miniatures game, the easiest example of secure command and control I can think of would be for a game to have an order-writing segment at the start of the turn. The players bring up a notepad application in PALM OS, and type out a memo (probably with the keyboard, as nobody, but nobody, is that proficient in Graffiti, the handwriting recognition protocol for Palms). The order language could be a shorthand distributed on a card to both sides (and different for each side to represent language differences). Shorthand would be, for example (FIL= "Follow In Line, close") (F@= "Fire at...") or (TRF= "Transfering Flag to ...") and so on.

In the example above, the referee calls "ORDERS! YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES!" and clicks a stop watch. Assuming A is the "High Admiral" for his side, he brings up NOTEPAD in Palm (it comes with the OS), types out a quick message: "ammo sitrep, B?" B replies: "2ndaries are almost used up. Mains good, 5+ more turns at least" A Replies: "Turn SSE and attack C from the flank" B: "Roger" Meanwhile, C & D only see two guys scribbling in their palm pilots. C Scribbles: I bet you anything B is following A en echelon. Let's get them between us and pound them. D: "Tally HO!"

There were no words spoken in our scenario, and we already know that C & D have been hoodwinked by good C2 on the part of A & B.

If you want to retain a level of trust, there are now desktop apps for recording beamed messages on a PC, and that could serve as a repository of orders.

You could make up all kinds of fun little bits about trying to intercept IR beams and such (fortunes of war, good intell, etc.).

I may give this a try someday.

On to podcasting.

Bob Jones is also getting involved in a podcast initiative with HMGS:

The HMGS East Podcast will be the first example of a major wargame society using the new technologies to advance and inform the hobby. Twice a month I will produce the HMGS Podcast and post it to their website, as well as make it available to the major aggregators for world wide distribution.

It shall consist of a completely produced podcast (think radio program) that incorporates interviews with major wargame designers, figure manufacturers, historians, painting and model terrain experts, as well as interviews with members of the board to inform the membership and the wider community of wargamers about what is happening with the conventions and the issues that affect the hobby.

In addition, Cold Wars and Historicon can have same day coverage of what's happening, interviews at the show, and even recordings of some of the sessions (edited).

The program can also include overseas interviews with notables such as Don Featherstone, Bryan Ansell, or any of a number of well known gamers in N.Z. and Australia via Skype (a VoIP service).

Previews of films, recent historical book reviews, magazine articles of note, are all items that will populate the program.

Running time of each "episode" will vary from as little as 10 minutes in slow periods to over an hour during the convention season. This guarantees that only content of interest will be in the program, as we only have to do what merits inclusion.

Battage will have a 1 minute break to advertise its products, and Magweb, a new allied computer/tech firm.

The program will be professionally produced with bumpers, opening music and announce, and high quality audio. It can be enjoyed at the computer for those that do not have, as yet, an MP3 player (iPod). All proper tags and RSS script will be done by me.

The first episode is slated for the first week in October and will promote the Fall In! Convention. I will coordinate with Jame Mattes and Walt O'Hara on program planning and content.

I look forward to working on this.

Speaking of podcasting, Tom and Joe at DICETOWER asked me to record a five minute bit on WBC for them, which I will try to knock it out tonight.