Today’s games at BrotherCon, Sheffield UK: War of the Ring (Free Peoples get the Ring to Mordor a turn before Lorien falls), then we begin We The People (and make all manner of mistakes on our first run out). Much fun had by all (both of us).
Maurice Suckling
@writegameread.bsky.social
Writes stories, makes games, reads history. Associate Professor, Games and Experiential Media, RPI, NY. Researching narrative in games & historical simulations. Writer of stories for games. Designer of board games. https://mauricesuckling.com
Yesterday’s game - taking this prototype out for a walk - Fall of Camelot.
Read of the last month: Battle cry of Freedom. Excellent single volume on the war, covering not just the military dimension, but also politics and social history. I recommend it to those interested in the topic.
Today’s game: Game of the Generals by Sofronio H. Pasola Jr. (1970). Essentially similar to L’Attaque/Stratego, but flags (HQs) can move and if they reach the opponent’s back line and aren’t challenged that’s a win. 2 spies, who defeat everyone apart from privates also keeping things fun.
Yesterday’s read: Farmer Giles of Ham. Beautiful illustrations in this, by Pauline Baynes.
Today’s read: Smith of Wootton Major. Written 1964/5.
Today’s reading: Leaf By Niggle (by Tolkien) - it’s like reading a response to Kafka - I believe scholars generally consider it an allegory of his anxieties that he will never finish LotR:
Publication day. Thank you to @enwright.bsky.social, Iain, and Nick for making this so. I think this is a meaningful contribution to the field of historical games. My chapter is on historical rhetoric and board games, with a case study on Crisis: 1914. lnkd.in/evi5Z7Nw
Progress assembling my Fall of Camelot prototype:
Assembling a prototype for my Fall of Camelot game:
Tomorrow is the 96th birthday of René Soriano, the designer of Kerplunk & ~60 other board games he had never been credited for. I found him, & in this video he tells the story of a remarkable career ranging from dexterity games to some of the earliest Star Wars licensed games. youtu.be/dTepZ7qM24Q
GRAVITY IS FREE: the games of René Soriano
YouTube video by Hollandspiele
youtu.be
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Two other games from this semester’s historical simulations class Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - one on the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, and the other on the development of the homophole movement in the U.S. prior to Stonewall:
Today’s development: Assembling the prototype for The Reason Why, a 5 player game about allocating blame for the Charge of the Light Brigade:
Today’s development: physical prototype of my Bartleby the Scrivener game arrived:
Monday’s game in Historical Simulation: Weird An’ Mire of Letters (selected writers trying to balance inspiration, community, and finances during the Great Depression).
Today’s game in Historical Simulations (a prototype by a PhD student) on the Chinese Educational Mission (1872 to 1881), where 120 teenaged Chinese boys were taken to Hartford, CT and educated- until the Chinese government, fearful the students were losing their traditions, brought them back:
We need historians because evidence doesn’t explain itself. Context does not simply exist. It is built through research, interpretation, and critical analysis. What stories have you uncovered in the historical record? #TalkAboutHumanities 🗃️
The first two prototypes in my Historical Simulations class at @rpihass.bsky.social Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, and Scribes of Danielic Memory (some rather smart brainwork has gone into these and I’m very chuffed with what my students are showing me so far):
Today’s game: 7-player game of Elizabeth: England Aflame. The agents in the pay of Spain and Portugal took a surprise win as the Spanish Armada landed. Playing at Circle DC convention.
Today’s game: Cabinet Noir (ministerial rivalry in Napoleon’s Empire). Played with 5 players today. Everyone lost - no one backed the winning factions and everyone accused each other of not doing enough to help the Empire. C’est la vie.
A new game coming, a co-design of mine on the Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the Russo-Japanese War, being published by Fort Circle Games: www.fortcircle.com/peace-1905/
Peace 1905 – Fort Circle Games
fortcircle.com
Today’s development: The Emperor’s Choice (my design) and The Emperor’s Voice (Wes Crawford’s design) - related games on Japan’s surrender and an attempted coup August 1945. To be published by Worthington. (All prototype art is temporary.)
Today’s game: Space Cadets. Co-op turn-based real-time hybrid:
Today’s game: The Emperor’s Voice (by Wes Crawford, to be published by Worthington) the 2-player game, as one side attempts to find and smash the Emperor’s Recording and to prevent surrender from happening - the night of August 14/15 1945.
Today’s second game: looking over Wes Crawford’s The Emperor’s Voice, about the August coup in Japan.
Today’s reading: The Long White Cloud, second in Kingsley Poole’s trilogy on the Huntston family - this time we’re on the Western Front in 1917. Excellent pacing. Well written.
