Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — game design
DESIGNING NATO AIR COMMANDER (by Brad Smith)
NATO Air Commander is a love letter to 1980s Cold War Gone Hot games like NATO: The Next War in Europe (VG, 1983), The Third World War series (GDW, 1984), and Red Storm Rising (TSR, 1989). In all of those games, you basically control the progress of a ground war in Central Europe between the Warsaw Pact and NATO. I suppose my attraction to this era and type of game comes from my youth. My earliest memories are of Ronald Reagan. I can remember how much the idea of a big war in Europe seemed like an inevitability rather than...
ODDS AND ENDS (by Tom Russell)
I have used an odds-based CRT in two of my wargame designs, and the second one only counts if you consider Napgammon a wargame. The eternal and interminable question of what is a real wargame very much aside, one might wonder why that is: do I dislike odds-based CRTs or something? Well, no; I actually rather like them. I've played and enjoyed a number of games that trot out this oldest and warhorsiest of old warhorses. Heck, Mary and I have published such games. So, no, I've got no beef with comparing the strength of the attacker to that of...
ABSOLUTELY ACES (by Tom Russell)
Today I'm going to talk about this year's freebie holiday game, Absolutely Aces. You might be wondering why the heck I'm talking about a game that won't be out for two whole months - usually the blog-thing about the holiday sale freebie game goes up just before the holiday sale. And the short version is that we just got our proof copy in the mail from the card printer, so I've been playing it a lot, and because I've been playing it a lot, I've been thinking about it a lot - and we need a blog-thing for Friday and...
ORBATS (by Tom Russell)
I've been designing wargames for a while now. Back in my salad days - during which time I was actually a lot more carnivorous than I am today in my non-salad days - I was a little obsessed with obtaining an accurate order of battle, and more than a little terrified that I was going to botch it. I assumed that I would make some seemingly small mistake - a misplaced regiment here, an imagined brigade there - and that my design's ability to function as a simulation would be fatally compromised. This panic was only helped along by the...
SO LONG, BEER GEORGE (by Tom Russell)
One of the projects I've got in my hamper is my multiplayer negotiation game on the Peace of Westphalia. The short version is that these various political entities are trying to disentangle themselves from a costly and ruinous war, but they're trying to do so in a way that's advantageous to them - and so, as the negotiations drag on for months and years, they are still campaigning, angling for a decisive battle or a territorial gain that will strengthen their bargaining position (and, when they've suffered a loss, dragging their feet diplomatically in hopes they'll be able to reverse...