u/FalseDinner335

Hey everyone,

First off, a huge thanks to the folks in the previous threads for the great philosophical discussions about the game's design. Also, a massive shoutout to the community member who provided a full French translation for the project. Thanks to them, the game is now fully playable in three languages: English, French, and Turkish. Having it available in Debord's native tongue feels like a huge milestone for this adaptation!

I just pushed the v0.1.5-alpha update, and it’s a massive structural shift.

Up until now, the combat in the alpha was basically a placeholder—you clicked an enemy to attack, kind of like a modern turn-based game. But Debord’s original 1978 rules aren't about "action"; they're about geometric pressure and logistics.

With this update, I’ve finally implemented the canonical combat system:

• No more manual attacks: Combat is now completely automatic and resolved simultaneously at the end of your turn. You spend your 5 moves positioning your network, and then the math takes over.
• The Math: Replaced the generic ratio system with Debord’s strict, deterministic formula. If your attack is exactly +1 over their defense, they are forced to retreat. If it's +2 or more, they are instantly destroyed. No dice, no RNG.
• Combined Assaults & Flanking: Attack power is now summed from all friendly units in range. You actually have to flank and concentrate your forces to break enemy lines.
• Line of Sight: Added Bresenham line algorithms, so mountains actually block fire now.

"I just want to test it out without a friend" I heard this a lot, so I added a quick "Solo Test" button in the lobby. There is no AI yet (writing an AI for a deterministic game based on network lines is a nightmare I am saving for later), but it randomly deploys a dummy enemy army so you can test out the mechanics, flanking, and forced retreats by yourself.

The game now properly tracks Arsenals and triggers victory conditions as well.

You can grab the Windows, Linux (both .zip and .deb), and Android (.apk) builds directly from the repo. I'd love to hear if the "snowball effect" of the combat feels as brutally realistic as Debord intended!

Links: https://github.com/oguzkarayemis/a-game-of-war/releases/tag/v0.1.5-alpha

Thanks for following the progress!

Hey everyone,

For a while now, I've been working on a digital adaptation of Le Jeu de la Guerre (A Game of War), the tabletop Kriegspiel designed by French Marxist theorist Guy Debord and Alice Becker-Ho.

I tried to stay strictly faithful to their original rulebook and the cold, mathematical aesthetic they envisioned. If you are familiar with the original, you know it's not a game of chance. There is no RNG and there are no dice. It’s a pure deterministic strategy game that focuses heavily on protecting your lines of communication (supply networks) while trying to sever the enemy's.

I just published the first playable alpha (v0.1.2) built with Godot 4.

Here is how it currently works:

• P2P Multiplayer (WebRTC): There are no centralized servers to log into. You just click "Host", get a 4-character room code, and send it to your friend to join.
• Blind Deployment: As per the original rules, both players deploy their armies on their half of the board simultaneously. You don't see the enemy formation until both players click "ready" and the battle actually begins.
• Aesthetic: Instead of realistic toy soldiers, I went with a brutalist/industrial 3D style (silver vs. brass metallic blocks with military symbols). I think this fits Debord’s approach to the geometry of war much better.
• Cross-platform: I’ve compiled the current alpha for Linux, Windows, and Android.

The Repo & Helping Out:

The entire project is completely open-source (GPLv3). You can grab the playable builds or check out the source code here:https://github.com/oguzkarayemis/a-game-of-war

Since it's an alpha release, there might still be some rough edges. I'm mainly looking for people to play a few rounds and see how the P2P connection holds up.

Also, I built a CSV-based localization system into the game. It currently supports English and Turkish, but if anyone wants to help translate it into French (which feels almost mandatory for a Situationist project!), German, Spanish, or any other language, your pull requests would be highly appreciated. Any Godot devs who want to contribute or tweak things are also more than welcome to jump in.

Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!