Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — 1776
STRONG SOMEWHERE, WEAK SOMEWHERE (by Tom Russell)
A partial section of a rough prototype map Designers, stop me if you've heard this one before: you create a new game after lots of immersive research. You have a solid set of mechanics that have been designed specifically to represent that historical conflict. You make up a rough map (in my case, using Photoshop) and a set of counters (in my case, scrawling on some sticker paper), and you sit down at the table to give it a spin. You don't expect everything to work - almost nothing ever does the first time around - but you're hoping that...