ESTAFETTE

ESTAFETTE is a battlefield command game drawn as a staff map of a Napoleonic river line. You are the marshal on the western hill. The bridge and the mill ford must hold until nightfall.

You never steer your brigades. Select one, point at the map, and an aide-de-camp gallops out with the written order. It takes effect when the rider arrives, and the brigade keeps its last instruction until a new rider reaches it. You have four aides; while they are out, you can give no other order. Riders sent into a firefight can be shot, and the order dies with them.

The fighting runs on its own rules: musketry, artillery, morale, and facing. A brigade struck through its flank breaks quickly, cavalry bounces off a formed front but ruins wavering troops, and guns must limber before they move. So the game is played ahead of the clock: you send orders to where the fight will be, not where it is, and a countermand races the rider who carried the first order. Win an action and the campaign continues into a heavier one, with your losses only partly made good.

Built as a single HTML file: canvas map, WebAudio sound, no external assets. The balance was tuned with scripted commanders in a headless browser; a passive general loses both crossings, and massed reserves beat a thin cordon.