Harpoon

Origins

Larry Bond first created Harpoon in 1980 as a paper-based miniatures game. Bond was a serving officer in the U.S. Navy at the time.

Book Research

Author Tom Clancy used the paper version of Harpoon while writing The Hunt for Red October, published in 1984. Clancy later teamed up with Larry Bond writing Red Storm Rising, published in 1986. The game was used to model many of the naval battles depicted in the book.

Programming Details

The Harpoon software engine contained over 115,000 lines of code, with most written in the C programming language and the remainder in Assembly. The original program was 426K and supported (through separate graphics files) CGA, Tandy, and EGA video formats. After 30-months of development, and at the cost of over $300,000, the computer game was released for IBM PCs on December 17, 1989.

Macintosh Version

When launched a year later, the Macintosh version worked with System 6.0.2 or above and used monochrome graphics; however, a 16-color Macintosh version was available as a $15 upgrade.

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
• September 1990 (Issue #74) – Wargame of the Year
• March 1992 (Issue #92) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
• November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #40 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list