RSW

I happily stumbled across this website a few days ago. I was telling my kids about my happy memories of playing PBM games when I was a kid, and did some google searching to see if there was anything out there like what I remembered. I never actually played Starweb (it was one of the more pricey PBM games, and I couldn't afford it on my meager allowance), but I played many similar games (Imperial Space Command was my favorite). This is definitely the kind of thing I was looking for. It doesn't seem like RSW is advertised or reviewed anywhere, so I feel fortunate that I came across it.

I was enthused to see the "Core" offering; seems like an ideal introduction to the genre. I'm already playing in a private Core game with my kids, and they're enjoying it; we're hoping to invite their friends to join in on our next game. The client and server seem pretty solid. I'm surprised it's not at version 1.0 yet.

But now I'm curious. What's the story behind RSW? What does "RSW" stand for? Who developed it? Why? Is there a way to donate to the developers?

Hi, and welcome! I hope you and your kids continue to enjoy the game. Please let me know if you experience anything frustrating or confusing.

A 1.0 release number is kind of subjective. It's been asymptotically approaching 1.0, but it hasn't yet reached a point where I consider the game "finished" enough to label it 1.0. It's getting closer, though. (And, of course, even at that magic point, it won't be "finished" in the sense that development will stop; it probably won't even slow down.)

I'm the sole developer and administrator of RSW (though players have contributed various ideas and some code). I developed the game in my spare time. It started a couple of years ago, when I was--like you--getting all misty-eyed about the old PBM games I used to play, and I decided to write a simple Python program to manage a PBM game, so I could introduce the concept to my friends. My first pass took me a couple of weekends, and was a workable email-only game server, but for some reason I didn't stop there and just kept building on to it--I added the web server later, and then eventually, the client. It's become kind of a weekend hobby for me to maintain it and continue to develop it.

RSW doesn't really stand for anything. It used to, once, but the original acronym no longer applies. I figure that RSW is still as good a name as any, though, and I've let the name remain--so players are free to make up their own definitions. My favorite suggestion from a player so far is "Rose Strategic Wargaming", so maybe I'll let that be the official definition. (Rose is my own last name.)

I appreciate the thought of donations, but I'll have to decline--I'd like RSW to continue to be free to all, with no strings attached, and no guilt for those who are unable to contribute financially. Instead, maybe you could contribute by spreading the word. Since it is a free game that generates no income, it doesn't have a lot of advertising budget--but the more people we have signing up for RSW games, the more fun it is for all of us. A game like RSW depends on having lots of interesting people to play it with.

David

Thanks for making this free. I'll start spreading the word...

How long has it taken you to develop the program?

Looking through my cvs logs, it looks like my first entry was Oct. 17, 2005. So, it's been almost three years so far. I have no idea how many man-hours that represents.

David