I have a love hate relationship with Vassal. I enjoy all the mods that it has and appreciate being able to play games at home without all the setup. However, I hate the map zoom features that are clunky and the map movement with scroll bars. The entire user interface just seems out dated and clunky. However, I have decided that if I can learn to create my own vassal modules, then maybe I'll better appreciate the interface and not struggle so much to play games.
I have chosen to make a module of the Old School Tactical game East Front. As of the time of this posting, the actual game hasn't come out yet. I figure this will let me start playing while I wait for the game. I also get to learn how to program a module into Vassal. I started by watching the Joel Toppen tutorial lessons on Youtube. They were really great in explaining the basics and I have found a few things I would like to learn next.
One thing I really enjoyed was setting up the scenario card as a map. This lets me save counters to the scenario, and when you load the scenario, all the playing pieces needed are right there and you don't have to sort through the counter boxed to find all your pieces.
Here is the problem I have with that. Once I save the scenario, it remembers which side I'm playing and saves the game in that state. When editing the module and using the save game to remember where the pieces are, new games don't let you pick a side to play. I copied the idea from the Band of Brothers module. However, in his module, when starting a game with the pieces saved to the scenario map, you can still pick a side when starting a new module.
I'm also thinking of resizing the markers that fit on the units. Just make them small enough that you can see a good portion of the unit that is being covered. That way, when I scan the map, I can see what units are on the board without having to hover over every stack to see what is in there.
Overall, creating a module is fun, requires some trial and error, but I'm happy with the results. I'll be posting videos for a learning session of the game at the Youtube Bad Kompany page so I can fully put my module to test. I'm sure as I play the game I'll find things I will want to add. In fact, if you know how to program Vassal, maybe you can explain how to set up a global button to clear away certain pieces at the end of a turn.
I have chosen to make a module of the Old School Tactical game East Front. As of the time of this posting, the actual game hasn't come out yet. I figure this will let me start playing while I wait for the game. I also get to learn how to program a module into Vassal. I started by watching the Joel Toppen tutorial lessons on Youtube. They were really great in explaining the basics and I have found a few things I would like to learn next.
One thing I really enjoyed was setting up the scenario card as a map. This lets me save counters to the scenario, and when you load the scenario, all the playing pieces needed are right there and you don't have to sort through the counter boxed to find all your pieces.
Here is the problem I have with that. Once I save the scenario, it remembers which side I'm playing and saves the game in that state. When editing the module and using the save game to remember where the pieces are, new games don't let you pick a side to play. I copied the idea from the Band of Brothers module. However, in his module, when starting a game with the pieces saved to the scenario map, you can still pick a side when starting a new module.
I'm also thinking of resizing the markers that fit on the units. Just make them small enough that you can see a good portion of the unit that is being covered. That way, when I scan the map, I can see what units are on the board without having to hover over every stack to see what is in there.
Overall, creating a module is fun, requires some trial and error, but I'm happy with the results. I'll be posting videos for a learning session of the game at the Youtube Bad Kompany page so I can fully put my module to test. I'm sure as I play the game I'll find things I will want to add. In fact, if you know how to program Vassal, maybe you can explain how to set up a global button to clear away certain pieces at the end of a turn.
Comments
From your point of view, what do you prefer Vassal o zum tzu? Which is more complete and which is the best for creating board games?