A paperless paperwork tool to keep track of unit information and status for the board game, Campaign for North Africa.
Campaign for North Africa is a board game released in 1978 (over 40 years ago!) by Simulations Publications. The current IP holder is Decision Games, and the copyright protection will expire in 2073 (95 years from the date of publication, cheers Disney executives), barring (yet another) extension to US copyright duration.
Campaign for North Africa (hereafter CNA) is a game notorious for its paperwork. Meticulous record keeping is part and parcel with gameplay, requiring organisation skills alongside planning and strategy skills.
The workload involved with tracking all this paperwork has proven a significant barrier to entry for new players (alongside the difficulty in finding a printed copy). Additionally, even for existing players (and even just owners) of CNA, the paperwork slows down the gameplay significantly. For some, this is perhaps even a feature!
CNA-Assistant aims to replace the paper in CNA. In short, the software is intended to become a total replacement for the paperwork required for the game - NOT including the paper rulebook, which will remain a requirement. Similarly, the map, counters, organisational efforts, and snack and beverage logistics are not covered by CNA-Assistant.
What CNA-Assistant does aim to do is provide all the information that the players of a side would normally track on log sheets of various description. Further, all the calculations and operations which bog down play are automated by the software, allowing the user to spend less time as secretary and accountant, and more time as general and quartermaster.
In the future, CNA-Assistant will permit multiplayer connections, enabling multiple users to connect their software, sharing access to their unit information, with control over unit operations delegated from the hosting computer to other users connected remotely. Initial releases will require the use of a single computer, and thus allow for single user operation of all unit and game operations.
Unit Log Sheets are generated automatically on the fly whenever the user desires to view unit statistics. The Field Commander's Control Sheet is updated automatically, with each unit movement and combat. Stores are tracked, Ammo automatically expended on unit firing, Fuel evaporation 'boiled down' to a simple notification...
In short, the software allows the user to focus on their Logistics and Warfare, rather than fighting papercuts and splinters from broken pencils!
CNA-Assistant complies with Australian and US copyright law through Fair Go (US Fair Use) exemptions from copyright protection. CNA-Assistant is not presently ready for release to the public in any event, and currently does not make use of the implied license offered in the CNA rulebook. This may change once CNA-Assistant is ready for release, and presents digital versions of the forms supplied with the box, as well as a few new ones.
In the event that the IP holder is interested in this or related software, on the topic of software licensing or any other topic, I invite them to contact me through GitHub.
Copyright (C) 2019 Bill 'Blu3wolf' Teale
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.