Enemy Coast Ahead: The Doolittle Raid uses the game format to explore the first raid on the Japanese home islands by the United States during World War Two. It is a solitaire game challenging the player to conduct a successful mission where the criteria for success is not purely military. The player must organize, equip, and train a squadron of B-25 medium "Mitchell" bombers to attack a distant and rather dangerous target. The game not only covers the raid from launch to landing, it extends the story on both ends. Threatened from the air and from the sea, the player must do his utmost to strike the Japanese capital, avenging the attack on Pearl Harbor, and then land his aircraft safely. If the raid goes poorly it may boost Japanese morale and deflate the mood in the United States. Getting the B-25s close enough to launch is vital, as is the recovery of aircraft and crewmen, but above all, the player’s main dilemma will be secrecy. The risk is great. Failure could mean the loss of an entire squadron, or worse, the sinking of a precious aircraft carrier. Will the Doolittle Raid add to the dismal news of Pearl Harbor, Guam, Wake Island, and Bataan, or will it signal the turning of the tide?
Enemy Coast Ahead: The Doolittle Raid remains an enigmatic and contradictory episode of World War Two, defying easy interpretation even to this day. Was it a victory or a debacle? Was it a minor footnote in the annals of that war or a significant military event? Was it a desperate bid to avenge the attack on Pearl Harbor, or, a harbinger signaling death and horror soon to visit Japanese cities from the sky?
Narrative Sequence. Much like chapters in a story, the game is organized in 6 narrative segments, chronologically arranged. Each poses its own set of challenges and prompts decisions that establish the environment and conditions of subsequent chapters: Planning - Naval - Flight - Over Targets - Recovery - Debriefing.
Historical Scenarios. Besides play of the full narrative, the game offers a number of historical dissections, each a scenario focusing on a fragment of the raid. They are also a handy way to learn the game, since each scenario uses only part of the rules. For example, Scenario One covers Doolittle’s flight over Tokyo, using only the 8.5x11 Target Map and the Attack Segment. An alternative scenario looks at a night raid by that flight, as Doolittle originally planned it. After playing one or two small scenarios using only the Attack segment’s rules, a larger scenario can be played adding the Flight segment. Graduate next to an even larger scenario that starts with the Naval segment. In this way a player can learn the game in program fashion, little by little, studying the history of the raid by playing it as he learns.
