The Vassal Engine is a

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...

for building and playing online adaptations of

board games A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

tabletop games Tabletop games or tabletops are games that are normally played on a Table (furniture), table or other flat surface, such as board games, card games, dice games, miniature wargames, Tabletop role-playing game, tabletop role-playing games, or ti ...

and

card games A card game is any game that uses playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, whether the cards are of a traditional design or specifically created for the game (proprietary). Countless card games exist, including famil ...

. It allows users to play in real time over a live Internet connection, and also by email ( PbeM). It runs on all platforms, and is free,

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

software. For example, there is a Star Wars Miniatures module, where players can play with up to three others in a digital replica of the table-top game. It is written in

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

and the source code is available from

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

under the

LGPL The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

open source license Open-source licenses are software licenses that allow content to be used, modified, and shared. They facilitate free and open-source software (FOSS) development. Intellectual property (IP) laws restrict the modification and sharing of creative ...

History

Vassal began as an application for playing '' Advanced Squad Leader''. This program was named VASL, an acronym for "Virtual Advanced Squad Leader." In 2022, this was expanded into a generic board game engine now called Vassal, with VASL being changed into just one out of many modules for Vassal.

Available modules

Vassal modules exist for over 1000 games.

Copyright and licensing

In September 2008,

Games Workshop Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are ''Warhammer (game), Warhammer'' and ''Warhammer 40,000''. Founded in 1975 by John Peake ...

issued a cease-and-desist order regarding the Vassal module for Warhammer 40K to Tim Davis, its maintainer at that time. The module is still played. Games Workshop has also issued a cease-and-desist order regarding '' Space Hulk''.

Similar projects

Similar engines for making board games include ZunTzu and Boardgame.io.

References

External links

Official Vassal website

GitHub page for the engine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vassal Engine 2002 software Free software programmed in Java (programming language)