Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — Reign of Witches

I began working on this year's holiday freebie game just before last year's sale. I was reasonably pleased with that year's game, The Toledo War, and wanted to do something roughly in the same vein: a short card game about an obscure conflict that was mostly bloodless bluster and posturing. I settled on the Quasi-War as my topic almost immediately, and I already had a wonderful title for it: Obnoxious and Disliked. This of course was how John Adams was described in 1776, a stage musical for which I had a tremendous amount of affection, so much so that I...

I had a problem: my chaotic little freebie game that I designed to end suddenly was ending suddenly. That probably requires some explanation. As you probably know, every year I do a small promotional game that we give away during our end-of-year Hollandays Sale. This year's game is Reign of Witches, which views the Quasi War (1798-1800) through the lens of factional politics within the Federalist Party, cast as a struggle between President John Adams and Alexander Hamilton. Neither side is really "controlling" events, but rather reacting to events that are outside their control, and seeking to capitalize on them....