Convoy

The Battle of the Atlantic, 1941-43. One player commands the escorts of a transatlantic convoy, and the other directs the U-boats hunting it. Neither can see the whole battle. Each side only knows what its own sensors report: hydrophone bearings, ASDIC fixes, and sightings from lookouts and periscopes. So the two players have very different pictures of the same fight.

This is my entry for Slow-mo Gamejam 2, where the theme is Squad Goals. Working out what is where, and then doing something about it, takes several vessels working together. It’s also my first attempt at both a real-time strategy game and a deliberately asymmetric two-player design, so I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

Very early days

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This is a work in progress, and more of a sensor toy than a game so far. There are no weapons yet and no way to win or lose, and you can’t give your ships new orders. Online two-player is the goal, but the networking comes later. For now, a CPU commander can run either side.

What’s in so far:

• Separate views: each side has its own chart, built only from what it has detected. Watching CPU v CPU shows both charts side by side.
• Sensors with real limits: a hydrophone has a blind arc astern, lookouts can only spot a periscope that’s raised, and a corvette’s ASDIC ping tells the submarine where the ping came from.
• Uncertain tracks: repeated contacts build an estimate of position and course, drawn as an ellipse that grows and fades unless new contacts sharpen it. Ships sailing close together can be hard to tell apart, which is exactly what I want.
• Captains: each captain follows standing orders and asks permission before going beyond them. That’s what the Y and N keys are for.
• Time warp: pause, and speed up or slow down with the - and + buttons.

How to try it

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Choose New Match, then Change Scenario to pick one, then choose which side to command or Watch CPU v CPU.

• Sensor Trial is the one to watch: a U-boat keeps pace beside an escorted merchant, so every sensor has something to report.
• Captain Trial shows the captains asking permission. Answer them with Y or N.
• First Contact is the start of the real game: one corvette, one freighter, one U-boat, and each side trying to find the other.

The typeface is X Typewriter by GGBotNet.