Click the following link to the store with the current DG Vassals.
Want to Playtest? Email Doc at doccummins@decisiongames.com
- DG VASSAL Update (09 Mar 15)
We’ve been busy since the last update in October. Our Vassal page has expanded from 6 modules to over 30 modules for published games, plus two more in the works for our two largest games: Atlantic Wall and Wellington’s Victory. Chris is finally finished with the counters and is down to adding some charts to the Atlantic Wall while Nigel is redoing the counters after a belated redo of the counter artwork for the board version of Wellington’s Victory. We expect to have those finished by May.
We also have a total of 15 Vassal modules ready to play test upcoming games in all three of our magazines, plus 4 more are currently in development. We have also streamlined the process for getting involved in play testing. We added another page to the Vassal section for play test modules. You can now see the games that are available and read a brief description of each game, then register to be a play tester and list up to three games you’d like to play test. We then e-mail the module and the rules. The requirements are to play the game at least four times to completion over a 2-month period and report in weekly on your progress and your results. We are continuing to expand our play test program and conduct outside play testing before and after component printing. We’ve already found the Vassal testing to be helpful in both areas and want to continue to increase our Vassal tester pool. Click here to sign up.
Thanks,
- DG VASSAL Update (18 Oct 14)
We are seeking Vassal player volunteers to participate in our testing program. The requirements are to play the game at least three times to completion over a 4-week period and report in weekly on your progress and your results. Obviously, at this stage with map and counters printed, we are most concerned with the rules and insuring we have made them as clear and error free as possible.
We now have six Vassal modules ready for play testing upcoming games for World at War magazine, four are solo games and two are two-player: Crete, Panzers East, Patton’s Third Army and Night Fight are all solitaire games while Yamato Unleashed and Duel in the North are two-player. If you’d like to be a Vassal play tester (or a physical copy tester!), send an e-mail to Doc with the game title you are most interested in and a back-up choice along with your contact info.
We’re focusing on getting the module for Wellington’s Victory finished as soon as possible to support the ongoing play testing with our paper kits. We’re signing up play testers now so please send an e-mail to Doc with your interest in WV.
The Atlantic Wall module is in the works (apparently Chris is still working his way through the bocage of counters) – this will be added to the Vassal page when finished.
Chickamauga, Kiev, Bloody Ridge, and Hindenberg’s War were recently added to the Vassal page. We will continue adding new modules to our Vassal page as we receive them.
Thanks,
- DG VASSAL Update (29 Aug 14)
We now have three Vassal modules ready for play testing: Panzers East, Patton’s Third Army and Night Fight. These are all solitaire games. We are seeking Vassal player volunteers to participate in our testing program. The requirements are to play the game at least three times to completion over a 4-week period and report in weekly on your progress and your results. Obviously, at this stage with map and counters printed, we are most concerned with the rules and insuring we have made them as clear and error free as possible. If you’d like to be a Vassal play tester (or a physical copy tester!), send an e-mail to Doc with the game title you are most interested in and a back-up choice along with your contact info.
We’re focusing on getting the module for Wellington’s Victory finished as soon as possible. We’re signing up play testers now so please send an e-mail to Doc with your interest in WV.
The Atlantic Wall module is in the works (apparently Chris is still working his way through the bocage of counters) – this will be added to the Vassal page when finished.
Acre was added to the Vassal page. We have also been receiving additional modules for review and we will continue adding them to our Vassal page.
Thanks,
- DG VASSAL Update (04 Aug 14)
We now have three Vassal modules being reviewed and should be ready for play testing starting the week of 25 Aug. We are seeking Vassal player volunteers to participate in our testing program. The requirements are to play the game at least three times to completion over a 4-week period and report in weekly on your progress and your results. Obviously, at this stage with map and counters printed, we are most concerned with the rules and insuring we have made them as clear and error free as possible. If you’d like to be a Vassal play tester (or a physical copy tester!), send an e-mail to Doc with the game title you are most interested in and a back-up choice along with your contact info.
Atlantic Wall is still in the works (apparently Chris is working his way through the bocage of counters). We’re working on the next three DG box games: Wellington’s Victory, Alamo to Appomattox, and Campaign for North Africa – these will be announced on the What’s New page when they are ready for play testers.
We have also been receiving additional modules for review and we will be adding them to our Vassal page.
Thanks,
- DG VASSAL Update (28 Jul 14)
We now have two Vassal modules ready to enter our magazine game play test program: Patton’s Third Army and Night Fight, plus a third game (Panzers East) being created currently. All three are solitaire games. We are seeking Vassal player volunteers to participate in our testing program. The requirements are to play the game at least three times to completion over a 4-week period and report in weekly on your progress and your results. Obviously, at this stage with map and counters printed, we are most concerned with the rules and insuring we have made them as clear and error free as possible. If you’d like to be a Vassal play tester (or a physical copy tester!), send an e-mail to Doc at his e-mail below with the game title you are most interested in and a back-up choice along with your contact info.
Atlantic Wall is still in the works (apparently Chris is working his way through the bocage of counters). We’re working on the next three DG box games: Wellington’s Victory, Alamo to Appomattox, and Campaign for North Africa – these will be announced on the What’s New page when they are ready for play testers.
We have also been receiving additional modules for review and we will be adding them to our Vassal page.
Thanks,
- DG VASSAL Update (23 Jun 14)
We are adding a Vassal module page to the DG shop this week with the first six modules we have ready. Atlantic Wall is still in the works (lots of counters and charts!), but we do have Highway to the Reich as another monster game entry. We’re working on the next three DG box games: Wellington’s Victory, Alamo to Appomattox, and Campaign for North Africa – these will be announced on the What’s New page when they are ready for play testers. We also have put together our team to begin creating modules for our future magazines games. As those modules are finished, we will announce their availability on the What’s New page. We’re also open for business in terms of submitting new modules to be reviewed and added to the page. To submit a vassal module email Doc here.
Thanks,
- DG VASSAL Update (01 May 14)
Based on a proposal made to pay DG a royalty to create VASSAL modules to sell to the public, we said no due to our understanding the vast majority of VASSAL users do not want to pay for modules. We generated a series of questions based on the proposal documents aimed at clarifying whether there was any merit to pursuing a lesser version of what was proposed and posted them on the ConSim World DG topic for public discussion.
First and foremost, we appreciate the input provided on the CSW DG topic as well as the emails we received. We also observed there were as many postings on other CSW topics and on other web sites as wer posted on the DG topic in regards to this survey and the subject matter during the same period.
Second, we apologize to the non-VASSAL audience for reintroducing this topic and the response crowding out other topics for the past week. After this conclusion post, DG will not reintroduce another discussion of VASSAL on the DG topic. Further updates of what DG is doing about VASSAL will be limited to DG’s VASSAL page.
With that, here is what the DG team sees as the takeaway results of this poll and discussion.
- We believe the proposal to sell VASSAL modules and pay DG a royalty was made with little information about the VASSAL community. The vast majority of the VASSAL community wants VASSAL modules to be free of charge no matter the quality of the product or the age of the original board game. Therefore, DG will not be licensing its copyrights or artwork for the creation of VASSAL modules for sale.
- Nothing is changing in DG’s ongoing commitment to allow the creation of VASSAL modules by individual users.
- DG is expanding its free download area on the DG web site to include a VASSAL section. This section will launch in June. Once launched, modules will be accepted for review and will be regularly added to the VASSAL section.
- DG is supporting module creation with artwork and review in four areas prioritized as follows:
a) DG Playtest support: we are completing six modules, three for the existing GOSS series (Wacht, Hurtgen, and Atlantic Wall) and the next three large DG boxed games. Play testing will expand to include VASSAL modules for Wellington’s Victory, Alamo to Appomattox, and Campaign for North Africa as those modules are completed. As additional DG boxed games come into the development pipeline, we’ll be adding VASSAL modules for them.
b) S&T Press magazine game playtest support: we are building a team of module creators who can rapidly convert provided files to modules. Speed is critical given the 18 games per year schedule and the 2-4 month window for outside testing to occur between when production quality artwork is available for a VASSAL module to be created and when artwork corrections must be finished and proceed into pre-press and printing. We’re also looking into producing modules earlier in a raw version based on the design turn-in kits so VASSAL play test time can be expanded.
c) DG “monster” games: based on the previous survey results, VASSAL players are most interested in seeing modules for games that challenge space and time limitations, i.e. those that have two or more maps and/or take longer than 8 hours to play.
d) When all three above areas are fully engaged, the other titles most frequently requested will be supported with the remaining resources available. So far, the survey results are so widely scattered across all of our one map titles that few stand out. This means we’ll look at the survey results as resources are available and identify the next most requested title. We’ll pull together artwork files and announce a module creator is needed for that particular game first to our dedicated creative group and then in our What’s New page and VASSAL updates.
If you have not already, please complete the DG VASSAL survey. This helps us identify priorities for future projects and anyone interested in helping out. We again thank everyone who provided input and ideas and appreciate the espirit de corps of the historical strategy game community as demonstrated on ConSimWorld. We look forward to talking with many of you in person at CSW Expo where we expect to announce our further plans for Strategy & Tactics Press and Decision Games.
Thanks,
- DG VASSAL Update (25 Apr 14)
Based on a proposal made to us in the past few days to license our games to create VASSAL modules to sell to the public, we have initially said no due to our understanding VASSAL users do not want to pay for modules, but have posted a series of questions we discussed internally on the ConSimWorld DG topic for public discussion. In the meantime we are continuing with our plan outlined in the 24 Mar update. To wit:
Wacht and Hurtgen have been reviewed by John Rainey and Chris Chapman assures us they will be ready for the June launch. All three of us are anxiously awaiting Joe Youst to upload the final Atlantic Wall files so Chris can get working on refining the AW module. We anticipate AW will be ready in some fashion but we may be looking for some early AW purchasers to help out with reviewing the module for accuracy.
Frank and Kevin are working away on Wellington’s Victory and Alamo to Appomattox. Nigel has all the maps and the historical counter OOB for Campaign for North Africa. Joseph and Chris are still working on the alternative reinforcements so those may be added after an initial June release. Please note all three of these games are in development and play testing so the only way to get a VASSAL module of these games is to be involved in the play testing.
There are a couple other modules in the works by new modders. We’ll announce what’s in the works once we get the first six modules above released.
Chris Dickson, our full-time web developer, is hard at work managing our multiple sites. After a time consuming fix to the DG site, Chris is back to working on the new sites and pages that includes the June launch of a VASSAL download section. Our goal is to make all VASSAL modules for DG games available in one consolidated location.
If you have not already, please complete the DG VASSAL survey. This helps us identify priorities for future projects and anyone interested in helping out.
Thanks,
- DG VASSAL Update (24 Mar 14)
So where is DG at with VASSAL? Here’s a recap of events, a review of where we are at now, and where we’d like your input and participation.
What we decided: Back in 2011, DG decided to start working first on VASSAL modules in support of our monster boxed games. As we sought to utilize VASSAL in supporting the wider play test of our upcoming boxed games to improve the overall quality of these games (this was among several other actions we took that will see published results beginning with Atlantic Wall). At the same, we announced anyone could make VASSAL modules and post them as they pleased.
Recapping: the GOSS series was first up because we had Wacht and Hurtgen in print and were working on Atlantic Wall. So Chris Chapman started on these projects and we really wanted to get Atlantic Wall done in time to support playtesting. Chris did Wacht and Atlantic Wall and these went to Jeff for review. Unfortunately, Jeff worked on these reviews for several months and then passed away suddenly so the review time was lost. By then we were starting prep for printing and that took priority for Doug and Joe. Now Chris has also finished Hurtgen. As the final counter review for Atlantic Wall wrapped up those counters went back to Chris to update the module. John Rainey stepped forward to review Wacht and Hurtgen. Our intent is to have all three monster game VASSAL modules completed for the June release of the Atlantic Wall board game.
Some other projects were started and not finished however we have dropped the deadwood and are moving forward on the next three board game projects so we can integrate VASSAL module playtesting into the ongoing board version testing. Our intent here is that Wellington’s Victory (by modder Frank) and Alamo to Appomattox (by modder Kevin) will also be ready for a June launch of a VASSAL module page on the DG site. We also have modder Nigel ready to work on Campaign for North Africa as soon as the counters are updated.
Rededicating: DG is moving forward on VASSAL. To make that happen faster, DG is going to step up the support. Doc is reviewing the applications for a Project Manager and we will announce this individual along with the June launch.
We are also seeking dedicated module creators who want to create more DG modules. We’ll also need some VASSAL users to be module reviewer/proofers (i.e. you’ll need to have the board game to check the accuracy of everything so send a list of the DG games you have and would be willing to review). You can use the survey form to volunteer for these duties or email Doc directly.
Reallocating: Our in-house web developer is setting up a separate VASSAL section on the DG site by June so we will have a one stop shop to obtain DG VASSAL modules. To help focus our efforts, we have set up the survey on this page to prioritize efforts for the future.
