Hutsell Computer War Games
| Industry | Video game development and publishing |
|---|---|
| Founder | W. R. Hutsell |
| Headquarters | Kingston , United States |
| Products | VGA Civil War Strategy Game, EGA Civil War Battleset, Wars of Napoleon, World War II In Western Europe |
Hutsell Computer War Games represents a collection of MS-DOS computer wargames created by W. R. Hutsell, initially released as shareware. The lineup features titles such as VGA Civil War Strategy Game, EGA Civil War Battleset, Wars of Napoleon, and World War II In Western Europe. Since 2017, these games have been distributed as free software.
History
The original distribution method for Hutsell’s games was through a BBS, where they were offered at no cost. However, due to growing interest, Hutsell began selling physical disk copies.
His earliest known work appears to be an ASCII rendition of EGA Civil War Battleset, a tactical-level game. Subsequently, he developed the strategic title VGA Civil War Strategy. The game World War II In Western Europe utilized the tactical engine from Civil War Strategy, whereas Wars of Napoleon integrated both strategic and tactical engines derived from his previous creations.
W. R. Hutsell resided in Kingston, Kentucky; his present whereabouts are not publicly documented.
Ownership of the distribution rights was eventually passed to David Mackey, who initially marketed the games commercially before making them freely accessible on their current platform.
In 2017, Hutsell entrusted Mackey with the source code for VGA Civil War Strategy Game. Mackey then adapted it for contemporary operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux) by employing SDL and other open-source technologies, transitioning the codebase from QuickBASIC to QB64. This source code is publicly hosted on GitHub under an MIT license.