I’ve decided that working on this thing without releasing it to the world is silly, and so I have finally gotten the courage (and momentum) to publish my Squishy’s Assistant application.

https://assistant.squishy.dev

What is Squishy’s Assistant?#

This is my first attempt at making some kind of digital aid for BattleTech. The goal is to avoid spending so much time digging up tables, remembering what things to count, and spend more time rolling dice and having fun.

  • For new BattleTech players, take a person from zero BattleTech to fun with only a mapsheet, dice, a mini, and the app.
  • For experienced BattleTech players, automate away the cruft, reduce mistakes, allow for faster, more fun games.
  • For both audiences, do not replace rolling dice, making decisions, or marking up sheets. These are fun! Simply reduce the administrative overhead and need to continually ask everyone if their mech jumped, is in the woods, etc.

This was inspired by my many years of teaching people the game, and having to overcome the frustration with the amount of administrative overhead involved. I sought to create a game aid that would ease a new player into the game, and still allow them to understand how and why numbers ended up they way they did, all without taking them out of the moment. I really want to preserve the human interaction of BattleTech on the tabletop.

The application is pretty rough right now, partly owing to me iterating on it so often, and partly as I am learning Flutter along the way. Please bear with me, and I hope you find it useful. :)

-Ben