Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — game design

TIME DISTORTION IN WARGAMES (by Tom Russell)

Mary Russell

Comments 1 Tags game design

TIME DISTORTION IN WARGAMES (by Tom Russell)

The scale of my Shields & Swords II titles has always been somewhat fungible. Hexes don't represent a specific, consistent distance from one title to another. The units do not represent a set number of men (especially as, for some battles, nailing this down with any certainty is next to impossible, given the exaggerations common in the source material). And each turn does not represent a given, defined period of time. There are some folks for whom this kind of thing is a supreme abrogation of a wargame designer's solemn duty to ensure the unity of, and historical accuracy within,...


ADVENTURES IN VIDEO GAMES (by Tom Russell)

Mary Russell

Tags game design, video games

ADVENTURES IN VIDEO GAMES (by Tom Russell)

Before I made board games, I made video games. And long before I lived, breathed, and ate board games (and there's less fiber in that diet than you'd expect), I lived, breathed, and ate video games. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with video games. I was also obsessed with books, and with the Bible, and I'm not sure if all of those obsessions were necessarily healthy. Whenever I wasn't reading a fantasy novel, or reflecting on how I was a sinning sinner who had committed unforgiveable transgressions (I was maybe six or seven), I was playing video...


FORESTS AND TREES (by Tom Russell)

Mary Russell

Tags board games, game design, Tom Russell, wargame

FORESTS AND TREES (by Tom Russell)

ears ago, when I had delusions of being a euro-game designer, I designed a game about monks in the dark ages copying the masterworks of antiquity. There was something like nine different actions a player could take, which were all somewhat related to one another. The crux of the game is that each player started with an identical set of action tiles, which they added to as they bought and placed new tiles, increasing the actions that were available to them (and, eventually, to other players). And so the rules for the game began by explaining the components and the...


RESEARCH AND SCALE (by Tom Russell)

Mary Russell

Tags game design

RESEARCH AND SCALE (by Tom Russell)

As any designer or publisher will tell you, game design is a lot of "playtest, playtest, playtest". But when designing wargames especially, it's also a lot of "research, research, research". If designing a wargame is about modeling the historical factors that influenced the course of a battle, campaign, or conflict, then determining those factors is a crucial part of the process. Not to mention, of course, finding the right map and coming up with a reasonably accurate order of battle.  When I first started designing wargames, I had a paralyzing fear of getting something wrong. Someone who really knew their...


REINFORCEMENTS (by Tom Russell)

REINFORCEMENTS (by Tom Russell)

Blucher at Waterloo, the French at Inkerman, the Eagles at the Black Gate: nothing turns the tide quite so dramatically as the timely arrival of reinforcements. There are some battles (and, depending on the decisiveness of the battle, some wars) that would have went very differently if said reinforcements arrived later, or sooner, or not at all. But reinforcements can pose a problem when it comes time to simulate those battles with cardboard squares and a paper map. If, for example, so-and-so arrived at such-and-such a time, which in game terms corresponds to Turn 6, then I know and you...