Stratego (the computer game)


This is the condensed version of a very long story.

When I was growing up in the late 60's / early 70's, I really enjoyed playing the board game Stratego. The problem was that I could never find anyone who wanted to play when I did. Then in 1987, I wrote a computer version of Stratego for the Macintosh. It allowed a person to play against the computer. At the time I wrote it, I was much more interested in developing the user interface and creating a nifty Macintosh program than I was in writing a heavy-duty Stratego opponent. The game didn't play particularly well, but it did play, it looked cool, and writing it was fun. Programming was my hobby, not my profession, and I wanted other people to enjoy what I had made. So I did something that was to change my entire life: I uploaded it as freeware to a local bulletin board.

Not long afterward, I was made aware of legal actions by game companies against programmers who had written "unauthorized" computer versions of board games such as Monopoly and Risk. The board game companies were starting to realize that they could make money by coming out with their own software. At that point, I figured it was the end of the story. I removed my Stratego game from the BBS. Of course, by that time it had proliferated to other Macintosh boards, and was virtually everywhere.

Then I received a phone call, out of the blue, from someone with connections in the computer game industry. He had seen my Stratego game and wanted to pursue developing it as an authorized commercial product. This was an unexpected turn of events, and a possibility that I had never considered before. The Macintosh was a religious cause, and "going commercial" with a freeware program was considered very bad form, at least among my circle of fellow Mac addicts. But since the option to release an updated freeware version no longer existed, I thought "why not?"

And so I found myself writing a whole new version of Stratego for commercial release, and learning a whole lot about AI algorithms for computer opponents. I spent much of 1989 sitting in my room in front of my computer. What I ultimately learned is that Stratego is a harder game than chess for computers to play well. (There's a lengthy paper waiting to be written, which I'll get to someday.) My previous career in architecture was all but over now; a new career as a software developer had begun.

The officially licensed version of Stratego was released by Accolade in 1990, after a port to the PC platform was finished. It got great reviews in all the 'zines, and MacWorld selected it as Strategy Game of the Year. The game was on the market for about 2 years. After its license expired, Accolade decided to stop publishing it. For a while, copies would show up in the bargain bins at Egghead and other computer stores. Then it faded away and was gone.

But it wasn't forgotten. You see, I had put my home address in that old freeware Stratego game that was still floating around on BBS systems and in CD-ROM shareware collections. I was getting a ton of mail, more than I could answer, although I tried to respond to everyone. Increasingly, the letters became identical:

"I like your game. It's too easy to beat the computer.
Send me a new version. Send me any software that's free."

 Unfortunately, it wasn't legally possible for me to distribute the software, and I was overwhelmed. In 1991 I moved to the San Francisco Bay area, and my mailing address changed. If you wrote to me and never got a reply, I apologize. If you are going to write to me and ask me to send you a copy of Stratego, I apologize: I can't.

Such is the story of my involvement with Stratego. There is a cool multiplayer Web-based Stratego game at the University of Michigan which you might want to check out if you're looking for an opponent. Also, be sure to visit the ISK Stratego Pages for more links and information.

In 1997, MacTech magazine sponsored a Programmer's Challenge to write a Stratego game. Source code for the winning entry, written by Peter Lewis, is available for downloading from the MacTech FTP server.
(3/8/99) Hasbro Interactive is now publishing a new version of Stratego (for Windows only), which should be available at your local software store.
(5/3/99) Metaforge, an online game company founded by the guys who developed multiplayer Web-based Stratego at UMich, now sponsors online Stratego tournaments.
(6/24/99) Matthew Hershberger's Stratega is a new 2-player Internet version of Stratego for the Mac OS.
(7/17/00) Ed Collins has a new Stratego site with lots of information, including a pictorial history of the Milton Bradley board game.



Ken McLeod

Samantha Mulder: "Is it too late for a game of Stratego?"
Fox Mulder: "It's 22 years too late."
-- The X Files, "Colony" (season 2, episode 16)

Last updated Monday, July 17, 2000 by KCM
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