A Playful Learning Exercise: Kashmir Crisis

The International Conference on Games and Learning Alliance (GALA) is underway, and one of the papers being presented is on a digital port of my free game Kashmir Crisis.

It was written by Hans-Wolfgang Loidl, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and his student Charlie Murray who created the digital version of the game. I contributed a couple of paragraphs (and the original game design, of course).

Abstract
This paper summarises the development and evaluation of a digital board game on the “Kashmir Crisis” in 2019. It is based on a card-driven board-game design of one of the authors, with the concept of “games as journalism” as one underlying design principle. As such, this is a serious game with the aim of providing information on the context of recent political events in Kashmir. In this paper we focus on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a multi-platform, digital instance of this game. The evaluation results of using the game show significantly increased engagement and slightly better learning effectiveness, compared to a control group using standard learning techniques.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-92182-8_1

Because it’s Springer, you have to buy it I guess, in PDF for $29.95 or eBook for $54.99. Unless you are associated with an institution that has a subscription, in which case it’s free. In either case, the original game is free and I can answer any questions you have about the physical game, also for free.

Analog Print and Play version of the game is available here: Free Games!

Cite this paper as:
Murray C., Loidl HW., Train B. (2021) A Playful Learning Exercise: Kashmir Crisis. In: de Rosa F., Marfisi Schottman I., Baalsrud Hauge J., Bellotti F., Dondio P., Romero M. (eds) Games and Learning Alliance. GALA 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13134. Springer, Cham.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92182-8_1

A Distant Plain: 4th printing in the offing!

GMT Games has recently announced a new P500 for a FOURTH printing of A Distant Plain!

This 4th printing is identical to the 3rd printing, and incorporates all known errata. 

You can get your copy at the P500 price of just $56.00 here: 

https://www.gmtgames.com/p-961-a-distant-plain-4th-printing.aspx

No telling how long it will take for enough orders to accumulate for them to pull the trigger, but I will say I am very pleased to see this. 

Hollandays Big Sale: buy buy buy!

It’s that time of year again!

Hollandspiele is having its big sale: for two weeks (November 15-28) you can get substantial savings on all of their titles. Everything is $5 off, and if your order total before shipping is at least $100, you’ll get an additional 10% off (deducted automatically at checkout, no codes needed)!

Order two or more complete games and you get a free copy of this year’s mini-card-game, Republic of Virtue (for two players, about surviving the Reign of Terror).

Europeans are reminded to order from Second Chance Games in the UK, Hollandspiele simply cannot make it work from their end without suspending laws of time, space and thermodynamics.  https://www.secondchancegames.com/index.php/component/virtuemart/manufacturer/hollandspiele/

My Hollandspiele titles:

• No. 1 The Scheldt Campaign $45 => $40
• No. 9 Ukrainian Crisis and Little War $45 => $40
• No. 43 District Commander Maracas $50 => $45
• No. 47 District Commander Binh Dinh $50 => $45
• No. 54 District Commander Kandahar $50 => $45
• No. 60 District Commander Zone Nord Oranais $50 => $45

Go there now!

https://hollandspiele.com/pages/hollandays-sale

Updated: Quads That Never Were

Back in 2003 I wrote a piece for Simulacrum magazine on SPI Quadrigames that were proposed but never published. Today was a rainy day and I went through my collection of MOVES magazine to comb the Feedback sections for more Quads That Never Were, to add to the piece.

I found 47 in all!

Here is a link to the updated article. I hope you find it interesting!

NEVERQDS 2021

Melodica Men

Okay, I guess this has been around for a while but it’s new to me!

Who says we have to be serious around here alla time…..

More on the Urban Warfare Planners Course

(photo: Modern War Institute website)

A couple of weeks ago I posted a news item on the first ever Urban Warfare Planners Course, run by the staff of the 40th Infantry Division in California. News you can use

The Urban Warfare Project at the US Military Academy, Modern Warfare Institute has posted a very good podcast where they interviewed BG Robert Wooldridge, deputy commanding general for support about this first course – how it came about, what it is intended to do, and where they want it to go. Normally I do not have the time or patience to listen to podcasts but I did this one. You should too!

https://mwi.usma.edu/the-us-armys-first-urban-warfare-planners-course/

Podcast includes just a few tantalizing details of the tabletop exercise they ran, facilitated by LTC Luke Gygax (yes, the son of That Gygax, he serves in the California National Guard) on the adventures of a multinational task force engaging in combat operations in a dense urban area against a peer enemy. Factions included US forces, Allied forces, Civilians, the Enemy, and a Criminal element. Dice were rolled and chaos ensued!

This is inspiring me to return to work on an idea I had a while ago, the Scaleable Urban Combat Kriegsspiel… I had thought about the District Commander system could be useful as a manual system the Army could use for tabletop exercises, and it quite likely is, but perhaps I could work out something even easier to get into than District Commander Maracas. I easily forget how far these manual games lie outside “ordinary” people’s experience and frame of reference.

[ETA: A later post about their thoughts on offering the course, and what they plan to do next: https://mwi.usma.edu/what-we-learned-creating-the-armys-first-urban-planners-course]

SDHistCon: Chat with Harold Buchanan, 0900 13 November

[EDITED TO ADD: here is the video of our very pleasant chat!]

Once or twice a year Harold Buchanan holds the San Diego Historical Games Convention or “SDHistCon”. The last while it has been an online event perforce, and so is this one, coming up next weekend.

Early next Saturday morning Harold and I will spend a pleasant (it’s always pleasant) hour or so chatting about whatever comes into our heads, gamewise. If you would like to listen in, it is $10 to get a badge for the Convention but all the convention events are free!

https://tabletop.events/conventions/sdhist-con-2021

Dates and times

Thu, Nov 11 2021, 8:00am – 10:00pm

Fri, Nov 12 2021, 6:00am – 10:00pm

Sat, Nov 13 2021, 6:00am – 10:00pm

Sun, Nov 14 2021, 6:00am – 10:00pm

Time zone: America/Los_Angeles (UTC -08:00)

There are dozens of events – panels, interviews, demonstrations of games and seminars. All free (but you have to reserve a ticket). Some of the notable ones that caught my interest include:

• 0900 Fri 12 November: Harold Buchanan interviews Phil Sabin
• 1800 Fri 12 November: Designer chat on John Company with Cole and Drew Wehrle
• 0900 Sat 13 November: Harold Buchanan interviews me
• 1100 Sat 13 November: Panel introducing the finalists of the Zenobia Awards
• 1300 Sat 13 November: Panel on “History as Tourism in Modern Strategy Games” panel with Liz Davidson of Beyond Solitaire
• 1700 Sat 13 November: “Inside GMT” night with company principals and designers
• plus demos of various upcoming games I’m especially interested in (Cross-Bronx Expressway, In the Shadows, Order and Opportunity, The British Way, and various Zenobia Award finalists) throughout the weekend.

Hope you will join us!

Livestream: discussion on Civilian Victimization (Wargame Ethics #1)

At 2000 GMT Sunday November 7, Fred Serval will host a discussion between him, myself, Javier Romero, John Poniske and Tomislav Cipcic (sorry, I don’t know how to get the characters to show up!) on the topic of civilian victimization in wargames, and how it shows up or more often is merely elided. Habitues of this blog probably recognize all these names and the very good games they have designed that include this aspect of warfare.

Loose list of topics we will discuss:

– Introduction: presenting participants, why the topic is important, what is the panel’s objective
– Part 1: why should wargames represent civilian victimization? Forms of victimization, the risk of whitewashing history, limits of the ludic medium etc.
– Part 2 : how to depict those effects? The role of the player, the effect on the game’s dynamics, choices beyond pure strategy & player experience etc.
– Conclusion : final thoughts and opinion on future topics.

Hope you can join us, or have a listen after the fact!

Foucault in the Woodland, by Daniel Thurot

Over at the insanely clever (or cleverly insane) Space-Biff! blog of Daniel Thurot, he writes ably on Foucault’s take on power and biopolitics as it is expressed in Cole Wehrle’s game Root. Cole Wehrle wrote about Foucault’s ideas in this regard in his Root designer diaries as well, this is a good expansion on that.

It’s just… oh, go and read it!

https://spacebiff.com/2021/11/04/foucault-in-the-woodland-1

This is part 1 of a series of 3. What he has written so far in summarizing Foucault resonates with the underpinning ideas in some of my games on irregular conflict… this is unconscious on my part since my Poli Sci education did not involve reading him, but still, DINGGGG, and I present my current favourite Fouquote where he flips Clausewitz’s dictum about war being a continuation of politics by other means:

“It may be that war as strategy is a continuation of politics. But it must not be forgotten that ‘politics’ has been conceived as a continuation, if not exactly and directly of war, at least of the military model as a fundamental means of preventing civil disorder. Politics, as a technique of internal peace and order, sought to implement the mechanism of the perfect army …. It is strategy that makes it possible to understand warfare as a way of conducting politics between states; it is tactics that makes it possible to understand the army as a principle for maintaining the absence of warfare in civil society.”

(Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1986): 168)

And here is Part 2:

https://spacebiff.com/2021/12/02/foucault-in-the-woodland-2/

And here is Part 3, when it pops up:

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