Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — Tom Russell

Supply Lines of the American Revolution: The Northern Theater, 1775-1777: the only thing longer than its title is the time I've spent working on it. I started working on the game about seven years ago. As a result, the story behind the game, its genesis, and its evolution is something I remember only hazily, like the words to Greensleeves, or what I had for breakfast this morning. But here goes. So, seven years ago, I had exactly zero published games to my name. At that time, I was mostly playing and designing Euro-style games. I had dipped my toe into...

At this point, I've written the rules for over twenty-five published games that I've designed. I've also rewritten, with Mary's help, the rules for about a half-dozen other games by other designers. So, at this point, writing rules is second nature to me; it's easy-peasy. It didn't always used to be that way, of course, but like I said, I've done this something like thirty-plus times, and after the first dozen games or so, I simply had to get better at it. The other thing is that over time I became much more confident in writing the rules my own...

Military history is not only the story of greatness, of inspired leadership, of singular genius, and masterful campaigns, but also of folly, failure, and disaster. There are plenty of moments throughout history where you just have to wonder, "what the heck were they thinking?" A new & correct map of the trading part of the West Indies : including the seat of war between Gr. Britain and Spain : likewise the British Empire in America, with the French and Spanish settlements adjacent thereto : adorn'd with prospects of ye most considerable towns, ports, harbours &c. therein contained from the latest & best observations...

When Mary and I evaluate a game, one of the first things we look at is the Sequence of Play. Perhaps the most important part of understanding a game is understanding what a player does on their turn. It doesn't mean that we're looking for anything really ornate, or fancy, or different for the sake of being different - we have published, and will continue to publish, games that stick to "Player 1 Move, Player 1 Combat, Player 2 Move, Player 2 Combat" - but it does mean that we're trying to get a sense of how that turn is...

One of the reasons why I started designing box covers for my games was to have more control over the process. There had been a couple of instances in the past where the publisher had saddled my game with an ugly cover or a terrible name or both. One particularly egregious example never made it to market - I guess thankfully in retrospect. I'm not going to pretend like that's the worst thing that ever happened to somebody, or that even the worst thing that ever happened to a designer, but it was still an experience I wanted to avoid....