Wargamer:  Don, you’ve been at the helm of computer Harpoon for a while now. Any general thoughts about the voyage?

Don Gilman (DG):  Well, as you go forward you should always review what you’ve learned in the past.  However, with the advent of the Internet in the middle of the voyage it really feels like we’ve switched ships during this voyage.    I wish we were in a financial situation to do a “File:New” and start work on Harpoon 5, but we are faced with the irony of a niche product in a market filled with distracting products and platforms.  Our topic doesn’t accurately lend itself to fancy “Xbox” style 3D due to the physical scale of modern air/naval combat.   There are a few displays that would benefit from 3D and working with the good folks at Analytics Graphics Inc (AGI) and their awesome Satellite Tool Kit (STK) we are starting to prototype those displays in the H3 MilSim version of ANW.  From there we intend to transfer the lessons learned to Harpoon 5 when we finally get the chance to act on that potential.

Tony Eischens (ALE): Harpoon is a lifestyle, an addiction that cannot be kicked.  Harpoon has given me great friends who have supported me through real-life events as well as virtual battles.  Harpoon has also given me great experience applicable to my professional life.  Being introduced to structured programming via a chief scientist at HP can’t be a bad way to go and working with a team spread around the world provides endless learning opportunity.  In the end I’m amazed that this 20-year-old game survives and that I can have every bit as much fun, and more, playing today that I did when I first played at the neighbor’s house in 1991.

WG:  What have you done with Harpoon over the years that really makes you proud?

DG: Finally placing it with professional military customers and repeatedly receiving notes from folks who say that earlier editions of the game influenced their careers.  These notes are from people across the globe, not just here in the USA.

ALE: My Harpoon experience has been all about the people.  The relationships formed are what make me proud.  If it must be game capabilities there are highlights for me, the ongoing process of implementing complete state tracking for multiple sides (starting with Neutrals & Unknowns and leading to multiplayer) and the implementation of the four land-unit types for HCE (three of them being mobile land unit types) stand out.     

WG: Harpoon – Ultimate Edition includes a massive list of features, bonuses, etc. Is there anything you’d like to highlight in particular for Harpooners?

DG:  Aside from the new features that Matrix has promoted, we have continued to clean up the code base, which means both defects and continuing to close the gap between the Bond/Carlson simulation and our code.  By providing legacy versions of the sim, folks who are more concerned with gaming get to stay where they are comfortable, and for those who care more about an accurate simulation – they get what they want. 

ALE: HC aficionados will appreciate the continued bug fixing.  They’ll be totally blown away by the ability to play so many iterations of the game from over-the-years.

WG: Is the Ultimate Edition a good time for newcomers to the series to jump in? Do you have anything to say to naval warfare fans that are just now getting a look at the Harpoon series?

DG: HCE certainly has a lower learning curve than ANW, so the HUE bundle gives them a great opportunity to jump onboard as all the concepts and many of the play actions are similar between the products.  Given that we are now bundling ALL of the editors, there really is no limit to how far a new user can go with this bundle.

ALE: HC today is the most stable it has ever been.  I recall my first decade of Harpoon being a continuous series of saves and loads.  Today I most often play an entire scenario without a crash but to be sure I still save often.  This stability and the community availability to answer questions make it a great time for newcomers to pick up Harpoon.

WG: The community for Harpoon has, of course, been strong and vibrant for years and years. Any thoughts or messages for them?

DG: The new features and updated databases will provide some new avenues for creative game design and play.  With the participation of some recently published e-book authors we see lots of opportunity for folks who have been on the sidelines to participate.  Coupled with the ability for a database author to protect their work, we think we’ve taken a big step forward in supporting database creation.

ALE: The HC development team derives much of its motivation and vigor from the community participation at Harpgamer.com and the Matrix Games forums.  From day one we’ve encouraged the feedback of the community.  For the game to continue thriving, the team needs to even more effectively grow from within the community.  Current participation levels suffice for fixing bugs but more is needed to continue pushing the game forward.  That said, the active community is larger than ever and new scenarios from WWII to the near future continue to be published by a variety of authors around the world!

WG: Care to spill the beans on any plans for the future?

DG: Sure, our iteration plan includes ANW v3.11 which will have some features specific to H3 MilSim (the professional military product) as well as another iteration of the boarding actions, some fine tuning of special weapons and sensors behavior, and possibly some new visual tools.   ANW V3.12 is targeted to have the first iteration of the new UAV (unmanned vehicles) implemented an d we are evaluating reworking how satellites are modeled.

ALE: As noted above, much of what happens with HC can be directly correlated to community participation.  We’ll certainly continue to hunt and remedy bugs and logic issues including improving upon the scenarios included with the game, a project undertaken very bravely by a community member from Poland.  For programmers, the data export interface continues to grow and provide opportunity to create add-ins.  There are a number of larger long-term projects underway from modernizing the scenario editor, to UI improvements, to potential multiplayer re-implementation.  The game is very much alive!

WG: Finally, I’m sure no one goes on a journey like this alone! Anyone you’d like to thank?

DG: My wife, she knows she married the game and the man, Rusty Sharp, Anthony Eischens, Fletcher Comstock, Brad Leyte, Dale Hillier, Darren Buckley, Darrel Dearing, Jesse Spears, Gordon Walton, Mike Price (formerly ADOD), Dan Redmond (Northrop Grumman), David Oliver (ADOD) and Robert Carpenter (ADOD).  And as odd as it seems, yes, even Ragnar Emsoy, and Mike Mykytin (and crew).  After twenty years there are others like the original members of both the HCE and H2 teams – but we kept all of the names in the credits of the current versions so their contribution is memorialized .

ALE: Scott Boles, Larry Gertner, Don Thomas, Victor Finberg, Pawel Kurek, Mike Cowguill, T. E. Ponta, Terry Courtney