iPad Hornet Leader: hornet leader

iPad Hornet Leader Prototype
in a flash of inspiration, one sunday morning i downloaded images of phantom leader and/or hornet leader from the BoardGameGeek site and cut them to managable size , like 64x64 pixels for the counter graphics and 768x768 pixels for the mainboard (tactical display).

* The main playing area, the Tactical Board image, scanned from the original board and cleaned with Paint.Net

ECM Pod Counter

MK-84 Weapon Counter

F/A-18C Counter

F-35 Lightning II

Bandit Counter

SA-2 SAM

SA-10 SAM

SU-24 Fencer

then i fired up my Macbook Air 11 (2011) and run XCode4 with the excellent SPARROW FRAMEWORK to load up the images and put them all on display with touch event handling the counter movements.. (more on Sparrow Framework later)

basically its all just a simple exercise extending the sparrow's own Scaffold sample. I load up the images as SPTexture because each image will be used more than once and if i load the images in each iteration of SPImage then i waste memory.

Since this is just a prototype i dont use the SPTextureAtlas that consolidate all images into a single large bitmap (must be in power-of-two size like 512x512,1024x512,2048x2048,128x128). The task of combining all images in your apps into single bitmap is handled thru a third-party apps called TexturePacker. its a free apps if you use its essential features , however to use the advanced features you must get the license for a small fee.

get texturepacker here : http://www.texturepacker.com/

Pseudo Code:

SPTexture*enemy1 = [SPTexture TextureWithContentsOfFile:@"SA-2.png"];
..
NSArray *enemyArray = [NSArray ArrayWithObjects:enemy1, enemy2, .... , nil];

then i add event listener to the stage (self) to catch the touch movement on the counters. except for the display board / tactical board, everything is movable.

off course this is far from a playable game yet the thought of playing hornet leader on an iPAD anywhere without bringing the big box is tempting.. so i began to list down requirement to finish this apps. A fully functional game need some mundane stuff that people only gloss over but its important and sometimes waste too much development time.. so here's the list of what stuff must be done in coming weeks :

Game Menu System including Campaign Selection, Options , Credits , Helps
Campaign Setup and Initial Pilot Selection Screen
Campaign Tracking and Scoring
Pilot XP and Stress administration
Tactical Board Display complete with user interface for movement, attack and defense
Target card selection
Event card resolution

Im looking for a faithful conversion so that people who is familiar with hornet leader boardgame wont have much trouble adjusting to the iPad version. That means no animation / fancy sound effect except on the menus. However this brings another problem, that is limiting my Apps to people who understand boardgame/wargame term/lingo. A faithful Hornet Leader iPad conversion means ordinary people will have a high learning curve when they buy this game..

I post some stuff about this on the BoardGameGeek forum and get a mild response. I dont think lots of people are interested in this game .. and even then i still need the permission of game publisher to upload this apps on AppsStore. So if i want to publish this i need their permission and if i fail to get their permission then i just use this apps for my own consumption

Below is the Photos of my white iPad with Hornet leader running on it, my Macbook Air's XCode still showing the source code for this prototype

i use Hornet Leader tactical board and Phantom Leader counters and mission cards/aircraft pilot cards to test if iPAD's screen size is big enough / feasible enough for boardgame conversion , notably the air leader series..

the counter size and tactical display size is ok, still visible and managsble, although i have to change the touchscreen behaviour so the counters are not coverer by fingers when we move them

There's no AI yet , no mission cards, no event cards, no campaign tracking .. just tactical board and counters on it =D

a fully optimized Hornet Leader application for iPad is fun =D

DVG Hornet Leader Carrier Ops unboxing
This is my hornet leader unboxing shot , taken straight after the package came to my house.. I'm using a NIKON D90 DSLR and a 50mm f/1.2 AI Manual Lens, so pardon if the depth-of-field is so small since all this shot was taken at night with only overhead lighting..

BOX SHOOT
This is the pristine box shoot, still in its shrink-wrap , with my friend posing here as the model / presenter =D

Side/Angled View
This is the box laid on the table with its shrink-wrap removed but not opened yet, it was shown being inspected by my friend =D .. as a reminder, the HORNET LEADER box is not as light as it seems, it is heavier compared to the same sized boardgame boxes.. must be those Iron Bombs inside ..

All components Displayed on table
Note the high quality components, from the mounted and sturdy gameboard to the glossy material used in most of the printed material. Check out the reflection caused by the glossy material finish =D .. TOP QUALITY

Hornet leader Tactical Display closeup
This is the mounted gameboard that you will be using for resolving your battles. note the game sequence help on the right (sadly not fully in the photo). Great design and Great durability.

Hornet leader Airplanes and Enemies Counter
Angled shot of the Aircraft and Enemy (red) counters. There are 2 high quality counters that come with HL:CAO.

Hornet leader Rulebook and Weapons Counter
Angled shot of the Rulebook with its glossy paper and the thick and high quality weapons counter.

Hornet leader Pilot and Event Card
All cards that come with the game , still shrinkwrapped

Hornet leader Campaign Sheet
This is the heart of Hornet leader, 8 campaign map each can be played in short/medium/long mode. and there also 2 bonus campaign on the DVG website (LYBIA 2011 and EYGPT 2015) that can be freely downloaded and printed.

Hornet leader Player Aid closeup
This is the 2nd most important stuff , the 1st is the manual.. you can laminate this thick paper aid and put it on your gaming table for instant help.

Hornet leader Pilot Cards stack and event & mission cards
as you can see the leftmost stack is the pilot cards, with rubberband to group them by Aircraft Type, the middle stack is the mission card with rubber band to group them from mission number 1-30 and 31-60, the right stack is the event cards that you draw 3 times during each mission thats your inbound phase then your overtarget phase and lastly the homebound phase

Hornet leader Counters in a box
This is all the counters of HL:CAO separated into groups of different ordnance and aircraft and token types. as it turned out, its not enough to separate Air to Air weapons in one group, to speed up Arming you should separate them into AIM7+AIM9 and AIM120+AIM54, ditto with all the ground ordnance. Organizing these counters will help speed up your setup time and minimize the frustration of looking for the right counters. i recommend you buy the DVG's counter tray as it is very cheap, come with stack of 5 counter trays.. or you can just get random plastic box and label them yourself..

Hornet Leader Aircraft Cards showing F18C, F18E, F18F ,A6 , A7 , F14 , F35, AV8, EC2 , E6B
This is sample pilot cards that showed every available aircraft flyable in hornet leader. not every aircraft is flyable in every mission, you have to check the aircraft availability date and campaign restriction, such as only the US Marines can use HARRIER AV8 for their small deck assault carriers (along with additional US MARINE rules for the campaign)

Hornet Event and Target Cards
These are sample shot of cards that you will be using for your target draw and the event draw. You can draw more than 1 target and choose which one you want to attack, but there is also special rules to indicate that a target card cannot be avoided like for example a SCRAMBLE mission to defend your carrier must be performed immediately and failure of mission means instant DISMAL performance.

Target Cards from ISRAEL DEFENSE 2001 Campaign
You have to take only the card that got its number listed on the campaign map as your target deck, so it took a bit to sort out which target in which campaign. i recommend you download the reference doc in the FILES section of BGG to get complete target listing for each campaign, sorted from 1 to 60 =D

My take on this game ?

Great components, Great solitaire combat system , Can be played Cooperative style too with 1 player controlling half of the strike group. but TEAMWORK is a must and target assignment should be decided before flying , so a cooperative gameplay can be harder if there is lack of teamwork lol

As for organizing the counter, i recommend that all counter be organized in separate and labeled tray. an ordinary plastic tray with dividers works well, but you can order cheap 5 tray counter holder in DVG website or any other boardgame store..

Sample Tray Organization / Labelling