YAAH! Magazine #2 will have two (no, three) of my games
February 17, 2015 4 Comments
Shortly the second issue of YAAH! magazine will hit the bricks. This magazine is one of the new products from Flying Pig Games, a new company run by Mark H. Walker – who used to run Lock n Load games, which published my Poland 1939 game Summer Lightning.
http://www.flyingpiggames.com/yaah–magazine.html
This issue will feature two three small abstract games by me, Army of Shadows (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/173564/army-shadows) and Uprising (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/173563/uprising) and Guerrilla Checkers ( http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/71035/guerrilla-checkers) .
The first two games come from 2011-12, back when I started on the CTFP-ECCO project for the Naval Postgraduate School (https://brtrain.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/game-design-related-posts-2011/ and https://brtrain.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/link-to-presentation-script-and-slides/). We wanted a simple game on a situation that highlighted the essential mismatches between the antagonists in an insurgency: low information vs. high information, and low power vs. high power. So these two games are two quite different takes on the same idea.
Army of Shadows was implemented for the CTFP-ECCO website under another name (sorry, general public can’t access the game part of the site) and I made a few copies of Uprising to give away at conventions and conferences. But Mark and Tom Russell, the editor, asked me if I would contribute something, and I was happy to comply. They are quite small in physical size: map the size of a single page, 40 or 45 counters per game, and they play quickly. However, because they rely on asymmetry of information they can’t be played solitaire.
No samples of game art to show right now, but I will post them when I see them.
Working on these abstract games was quite different: I have done only these and Guerrilla Checkers (I don’t really count Paranoid Delusions as an abstract).
Also, a short article by me on the lineage of these games, and the think-value of abstract strategy games, along the lines of my presentation at King’s College London at Connections 2013.
(And no, I don’t know the provenance of the magazine’s title: Battle Cry has been used too much in the past I guess. And yes, I thought of Howard Dean too when I heard it, I know that does date me!)
About brtrain
We are glad to have you on board, Brian!
Thanks Mark!
This is something to look forward to. When is the magazine out?
Issue #1 hasn’t come out just yet, so I would say look for #2 in a couple of months. I know Tom Russell (editor) is still finishing up all the bits, and Mark has been dropping lots of hints about what will be in issue #2 – loads and loads of scenarios for different games, for example. (can’t recall which ones right now though)