“Before Guadalcanal, the enemy advanced at his pleasure—after Guadalcanal, he retreated at ours.” – Adm. William F. (Bull) Halsey, USN
By Patrick S. Baker
In 1982, Strategic Simulations, Inc (SSI) released Guadalcanal Campaign (GC). The game is the first game developed by famed game designer, Gary Grigsby. GC is also considered the first commercially released “monster wargame” for personal computers.
In 1982, Grigsby was a civil servant working for the Department of Defense (DoD). He had long had an interest in strategy and wargame, buying and playing board games from companies like Avalon Hill, Victory Games, and Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI).
In 1979, Grisby bought a TRS-80 to “take the combat systems off of these really complicated … wargames and put them on the computer.” Eventually, Grigsby was trying to develop and program full games using BASIC. But he had no idea how to contact the two main PC game developers of the time, SSI and Avalon Hill, to get his games produced and marketed.