Gaming the Cold War

 Board Games  No Responses »
Feb 252012
 

This past weekend I played my first game of Twilight Struggle. This GMT Games published board game has a large cadre of fans among the board gaming community. On boardgamegeek.com it is the top rated board game, war game, and strategy game with a stunning 8.32/10 score.

Recently, I had the opportunity to stop by my favorite Canadian game store, J & J Cards & Collectibles in Waterloo Ontario. You will not find a more well stocked brick and mortar store anywhere. I love going in and browsing for an interesting title, one which I may have had my eye on for a while. When I find one it sort of feels like I’m the hunter bringing home a kill from a long hunting expidition. Lucky for me, I spotted several copies of Twilight Struggle Deluxe Edition on the self. With all of the gusto of a cold war arms supplier eyeing a shoulder launched anti-air missile, I eagerly snapped up a copy.

I have at the time of this writing only played the game once and I feel several plays must be completed to give me the full sense of opening, mid-game, and end-game strategies. But I think I have enough of the feel to see several very positive elements to the game that give me a hint as to why so many players think so highly of Twilight Struggle. I found that the fluidity of play was well maintained from turn to turn. The allocation of operations points for player actions on the board from the cards in hand provide a good source for the fuel of conflict. The selection of a card from your hand to play as a single “headline” event for the turn gives players a challenge to prioritize their hand of cards against the current situation on the board. There are scoring cards within the card sets, one for each early, mid, and late war eras, that when played force a scoring round for a given geographic area on the world map. For example, Middle East scoring will score for the players based on the situation on the map at that moment. Knowing when to play a scoring card is a key element to your overall performance in the game.

I played this game with my fourteen year-old daughter. Something that may not immediately be obvious to us older gamers are the rich lessons in history afforded by Twilight Struggle. My daughter does not have the sense of fear or the feeling of potential confrontation that existed for those growing up and living during that period of our history. Growing up in South Florida, I was very aware of the cold war; our neighbors had built fallout shelters during the Cuban missile crisis and nearby Air Force and Naval Air Stations attested to our readiness for conflict. The cards of the game represent historical events, people, policies, and places. Often she would ask me questions about a particular card and what happened around the situation depicted on it. The designers even include a reference in the back of the rulebook that gives more historical detail on cards included in the game. I would even recommend Twilight Struggle as teaching tool for advanced classes in modern history.

Well blended features and mechanics that flow together typically indicate a high quality design. Twilight Struggle achieves both. I am sure that Twilight Struggle will achieve a special place on my own family game shelf and will be a contest that is revisited fondly for many years to come.

Global Game Jam: Miami – 2012

 Conventions  No Responses »
Feb 052012
 

Thanks to the folks at Game Developers Guild, we had a real, live, in-person Global Game Jam take place from January 27-29. The first day (Friday) was all about registration, kickoff presentations and forming the teams that would have less than two days to complete their game concepts. The speakers were strong – all with local ties to South Florida: Derek Smart from Quest Online and 3000AD, Miguel Oubiña from Nuclei 3D and Mark Bradshaw from Stratogon Entertainment. Derek and Mark use a lot of remote workers (i.e. “inexpensive”) but Miguel is recruiting local students to intern with his studio. There were some constant themes coming from the presenters: being successful is tough, the work is volatile, use – and legitimately pay for – a prominent off-the-shelf game engine such Unity or Unreal, and be prepared to sleep under your desk a lot.

As we all sat around discussing skills and needs, I offered to provide QA or Music help to any of the teams who requested it. The first day ended with the artists and devs being shown to their computers and me heading for home, but not after I left my email address so anyone could contact me to take me up on my offer to help.

Not sure whether anyone would call upon my talents, I ended up getting requests for the “Midgard Serpent” Viking game, the futuristic, virtual “Voxel Slayer” game, and the urban “Gang Warz” game. Each required different styles and I had to dig out some old sample CD-ROMs to bring the right sounds into the loops and effects for each of them.

For Midgard Serpent I initially provided a sound loop to play while the Viking ship was sailing, as well as am appropriately aggressive battle song titled “for Thor!” The team made additional requests for sound effects such as lightning bolts and injury sounds, which I fulfilled with a combination of public domain sound effects and sounds of my own concoction.

The Voxel Slayer team was less ambitious, asking only for a single song loop, which I titled “Mad Voxel.” This was a synth-driven dance type tune with retro game sounds thrown in.

Finally, the Gang Warz folks needed a music loop and some effects to play when attacking, winning, or when a gang member dies. The loop got an urban treatment and the effects were short and to the point. Here’s a link to download and install their game on your PC:

Overall, the experience was fun, but it was work at the same time – especially when all three teams had overlapping requests that I had to triage and deliver on as quickly as possible. Definitely something I would do again!

Gang Warz

Making Game Miniature Movement Easy

 Board Games  No Responses »
Jan 132012
 

Those of you who follow BattlePlay on twitter know that one game we return to often is BattleLore. Richard Borg’s Command and Colors is a great system for combat abstraction; players get the feel of large scale battles without the complexity of typical war game simulations. Two of the costs of entry to wargaming has always been the time involved in game setup and piece logistics. By piece logistics I am referring to the time invested in moving pieces about the board, straightening them when they become misaligned, and the general activities around keeping the gaming battlefield organized. These piece logistics are inherent in both counter and miniature wargaming.

BattleLore utilizes miniatures to represent troop units; four miniatures for infantry units and three larger miniatures for mounted units. During our games, whenever units are moved about the board, it is a certainty that the individual miniatures become misaligned, often ending up in other hexes and other orientations from the desired. At times I’ve noticed players becoming visibly frustrated while the unit they are moving becomes a pile of figures lying in and around the target hex. Well, I decided something had to be done about this. The money and time invested in BattleLore made it more imperative to improve the enjoyment of the game while reducing the annoyance of piece logistics.

Enter the magnetic base. After evaluating several prototypes I came upon a combination of inexpensive and easily accessible magnets for use as both the unit bases and the figure bases. ProMAG brand magnetic business card sized magnets with adhesive backs make an excellent source for a unit base. They can easily be cut to size for either the four figure infantry bases or the three figure mounted bases. Leave the adhesive strip intact for a smooth gliding bottom. The top you can paint to match whatever board color you will be using the base on or whatever color strikes your fancy. For the BattleLore boards I used FolkArt Grass Green daubed on using a foam brush.

For the figure bases I used the ProMAG 0.5” strip magnets again cut to size. squarers for the infantry bases and a bit longer of a rectangle for the mounted units. The magnets on the unit bases will snap to the unit base with enough strength to keep the figure on the base but not enough such that removing the unit to record losses is difficult. I find that slight pressure on one figure will slide the entire unit around the board easily. I bought the magnets I needed for a base game of BattleLore and a few expansions from Blick Art Supply for a reasonable cost.

This system could be used for any miniature game that suffers from burdensome piece logistics. Give it a try and let us know in the comments what new applications you find. Given the creativity of board gamers I expect to see improvements and configurations I haven’t thought of!

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