Want to Create Your Own Computer Wargames - These Books May Help?

How do you create your own Computer Wargame? Good question. Learning computer progamming is the simple and not so simple answer. But other than that there are a couple of books that I have found that walk the reader through the process. They're not particularly recent though, but if you have the patience for it and have a yearning to do it - or are disatisfied with what's currently available, then these titles might help you:

Going to War: Creating Computer Wargames Paperback – 9 Apr 2009

by Jason Darby

Learn how to create your very own wargames, games that simulate or represent military operations. This book shows readers everything they need to know to create wargames on the PC using the drag-and-drop game engine Multimedia Fusion 2. No previous game creation or programming experience is necessary and when they finish the book, readers will have all the tools they need to create their own wargames. Coverage includes the history of wargames, how to design a wargame, movement, terrain and weather effects, attack and defense, and more.

Buy it from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Designing Wargames - Introduction (Studies in Game Design Book 5) [Kindle Edition]

George Phillies 

Designing Wargames introduces the play and design of classic hex-and-counter board wargames. Written as a textbook, Designing Wargames should appeal to board and computer game designers, board game players, and designers of serious war games for historical and military study. 

Phillies opens with a discussion of the basic elements combined to create strategic games, including representation, theme, style, mechanisms, voice, shape, and content. To introduce non-players to board wargames, he describes in detail the play of four classic board wargames, namely Stalingrad, 1914, Panzerblitz, and Fall of Manjukuo. A path to designing a game, stressing the central importance of iterative development and playtesting, is advanced. Several fundamental mechanisms and their variations, including the zone of control and command and control rules, are examined in detail. A case study contrasts a half-dozen games on a single historic campaign, comparing how different designers have created radically different games that represent the same historic outcomes. A paragraph by paragraph analysis of the written rules of one game is given. Issues related to luck and technology are examined. An extensive set of homework problems, many in the form of development projects, support the material in the text. 
Phillies' lectures on the material in the text may be seen on YouTube on the GeorgePhillies channel. 


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The following title seems to be unavailable now - maybe worth trying Abebooks perhaps for second hand copy?

Engines of War: Developing Computer Wargames Paperback – 15 Nov 2007

by John Lundy (Author), Ben Sawyer (Author)

Computer wargames are one of the oldest and most popular genres of computer games available. The community of wargame players (known as Grognards) are one of the most fervent in all of gaming and include fans of both computer and pen-and-paper wargames. The object of any wargame is to achieve a series of victory conditions which can include eradicating their opponent's forces or capturing key positions on a map. Many games often recreate a specific historical event and these games are used often in history classes around the world where students can explore what might have been if the player decides to do things differently.

In Engines of War: Developing Computer Wargames, game programmer John Lundy (WWII Online) and producer Ben Sawyer (SeriousGames.org) take readers through all the intricacies of developing computer wargames. An original, flexible, open-source wargames engine and editor are provided by the authors to give programmers and designers the foundation they need to design and customize their own unique wargames. Developing wargames requires very specialized knowledge and this book really delivers. It features a number of hands-on chapters that cover designer insights, production techniques, programming code, several major map systems, ideas on how to incorporate world factors, strategic determination for AI, and path finding techniques. The book includes advanced topics including programming techniques for creating real-time wargames, and online play, and much more. Also included is a network code subsystem that allows for two player games. The network code will even allow computer versus computer play (local or remote) so that the beginning developer can validate his or her game code by watching the computer play itself.