Le Jeu de la Guerre

Source code on GitHub. Play online multiplayer mode on FreeBoardGames. 

A WEB implementation of Guy Debord's A Game of War (Le Jeu de la Guerre). Powered by boardgame.io. The graphic is based on svg+emoji, with Pico8's Palette.

About the Game

Here are some materials about the game and its history.

• BGG page
• On Class Wargames
• Kriegspiel

Pieces and Strongholds

Why emoji? there is nothing more appropriate than emoji to illustrate the Spectacle: we are habiting from symbols to symbols that are produced by L'Autre. The big tech companies decide the meanings and the representations of those symbols, whether 🔫 is a handgun or a harmless toy.

• Units
  • 💂 Infantry
  • 🏇 Cavalry
  • 🎉 Artillery
  • 🚀 Swift Artillery
  • 🚩 Relay
  • 🚚 Swift Relay
• Strongholds
  • 🎪 Arsenal
  • 🏰 Fortress
  • 🛣️ Mountain Pass
  • ⛰️ Mountain
• Battle related symbols
  • ⚔️ Attack
  • 🛡️ Defense
  • 🎯 Combat Range
  • 🐴 Move Speed
  • ⚡ Cavalry Charge
  • 🏃‍♂️ Retreat
  • 💀 Captured
  • 😅 Out of Supply
  • 💥 Battle

Rules

You can also refer to the more detailed rules here.

Overall

This game is a simulation of the battle in the Napoleonic Wars. Two armies with a limited amount of units fight on a 25⨉20 board. The game ends by occupying(thus destroying) the enemy's all 🎪Arsenals.

Each player can move up to 5 units and attack 1 enemy per turn. The 🐴speed affects the unit's movement range in one turn.

The two main features are combat and supply settings

Notice "adjacent" in this game means all 8 direction

Combat

There is no randomness in combat, and combat does not depend on single units. The game stress arranging and cooperating units to achieve high combat factors(i.e. ⚔️Attack and 🛡️Defense), which decide the combat.

Every unit radiates its factor in 米 shape within its 🎯combat range. You can see the units that provide ⚔️Atk and 🛡️Def. The total values are the combat factor at that point. Some strongholds 🏰Fortress and 🛣️Mountain Pass can provide extra defense if they are occupied by 💂Infantry or 🎉🚀Artillery.

To attack an enemy you need to have a higher ⚔️Atk than its 🛡️Def at that point, and if just higher than 1, the enemy has to 🏃‍♂️retreat this unit; otherwise, it will be 💀captured.

⚡Cavalry Charge

Units usually provide higher 🛡️Def than ⚔️Atk, so to break through the enemy's defense, you can use ⚡cavalry charge.

Just let 🏇cavalry be adjacent to the enemy's unit to toggle ⚡charge, and other 🏇cavalries in the direction line also count. When 🏇cavalry is in ⚡charge, its ⚔️Atk becomes 7, so totally you can get up to 28 ⚔️Atk through ⚡charge.

There are also some restrictions about the ⚡charge, such as one can not charge towards the unit in 🏰Fortress or 🛣️Mountain Pass.

Supply

Units highly rely on supply, the unit 😅out of supply can not move nor provide combat factors. Notice that supply could be cut by the enemy.

The supply originally emitted by 🎪Arsenal, also in 米 shape with unlimited range, except be blocked by enemy's units or ⛰️Mountain. The 🚩🚚relay units can redirect supply lines, and they even can move when they are 😅out of supply.

To be in supply, units must be on supply lines or adjacent to units that are in supply.

Edit Mode

Currently, the game provides a default opening. But you can customize your own with the editor mode.

You can Save and Load your game with the FEN-like notation. Merge game can add units to the board, which is useful for players to apply their deploy plans.

The Other Implementation

There is another digital implementation: Kriegspiel, made by Alex Galloway. There are an interview and a playthrough by Fred Serval. Unfortunately, it's only available on Mac and IOS, which inspires me to make a WEB version.