Category: Interviews

03/6/15

GrogHeads Interviews Tom Russell of Yaah! Magazine

Flying Pig Games is launching their new quarterly gaming magazine, Yaah! Magazine.  Their editor, Tom Russell, took some time out of his busy schedule to chat with us about the launch of the magazine, and what to expect from the next few issues.

click to enlarge images; images courtesy of Tom Russell

Sum up Yaah! Magazine for us in 5 words. Go!

That’s really hard. “Full-color quarterly print gaming magazine” gets across what it’s about, but not how it’s about it, if you know what I mean. But we’ll go with that.

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OK, so more details – fill in these blanks for us:
If you love _____, you’re going to love Yaah! Magazine, but if _____ isn’t your cup of tea, you probably want to read something else.

If you love games about conflict, you’re gonna love Yaah! If games about conflict aren’t your cup of tea, then I’m not sure why you’re reading this interview. In all seriousness– I can’t imagine someone with a wargaming background not loving the magazine, but admittedly this is really a recurring problem I have. I get so excited about what I’m working on, and who I’m working with, and how much I’m digging it that I can’t fathom why someone else wouldn’t dig it. It’s like that bit from one of Woody Allen’s films, I can’t quite recall which one, in which they ask his character (who is a filmmaker) who he sees as the target demographic. And he says, “This will appeal to adults, teenagers, young adults, and kids, adolescents, toddlers, I imagine. Newborns.”

I guess looking at it slightly more seriously, the focus of the magazine is pretty broad in some respects, as we’re looking at conflict-based hobby gaming. So it’s not, strictly speaking, a wargaming magazine, in the sense of historical wargames, though wargames are a big part of it. We’re also going to cover fantasy and science fiction gaming, horror, really anything with combat or other forms of direct conflict. So I guess there are people who would turn their nose up at it for that reason, because they’d really want something focused squarely on historical wargames. But really, I think there’s enough “real wargame”-related content in the magazine that it will appeal to those people, and they might look at some of the other stuff and say, “Oh, that looks neat; maybe I’ll try that.”

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02/11/15

GrogHeads Interviews Harold Buchanan (GMTs Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection)

Brant Guillory, 11 February 2015

Harold Buchanan gives us the low-down on the next COIN game from GMT, and turns the tables on our interviewer!

We had a chance to chat with Harold Buchanan, Designer of GMTs Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection. This one takes the COIN system to the American Revolution. This is Harold’s first game, but he is well supported by series creator Volko Ruhnke and series developer Mike Bertucelli. Örjan Ariander is designing the ‘bots’ that control the factions not represented by a player in the game. Harold is also an expert on the period and has a degree in Finance and Game Theory from MIT. He resides in San Diego, California where he lives with his wife of 22 years and has 3 kids in college, so he needs all the help we can give him with pre-orders.

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Playtesting!

 

GrogHeads: Do we really need another American Revolution Game?

Harold Buchanan: Are you kidding me? Absolutely! I love 1776 and played it a lot in my youth. I love the Area Status Chart and how British pieces in a Region reduce reinforcements to the Patriots! A game ahead of its time in incorporating regional politics. Then came We the People/Washington’s War with its breakthrough card driven mechanics. I enjoyed it as an elegantly playable innovation and really enjoyed timing the game end through the use of the “War Ends” cards. Plenty of room exists for new and different approaches in it.

Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection looks at the same war as so many other games have but from a different angle: it identifies the four factions critical to the conflict and plays off how they interacted politically, economically and militarily. The game is driven by a detailed set of historical events cards on the topic. Grab three friends and give the conflict a look from a new perspective. It may change the way you think about the American War of Independence.

Given the Patriots won the Super Bowl I am considering adding another card to the mix—the Pete Carroll event card. If you are the Seahawks and you are winning the game during a Winter Quarters Round you must first roll a die: 1-5 you do something stupid and the Patriots win and 6 you actually get to win.

More playtesting.
More playtesting.

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02/7/15

GrogHeads Interviews Joel Billings of 2By3 Games

Boggit, 7 February 2015

Joel Billings of 2By3 Games talks to Boggit about War in the West and game design in general

As always, click images to enlarge

GrogHeads:  Joel, thank you for agreeing to talk to Grogheads about your recent work. War in the West is your latest release and shows some interesting innovations in the development of 2By3 games.

Tell us about yourself. How did you get into wargame design?

Joel Billings:  I started SSI in 1979 when I had just graduated from college. I was a long time player of historical wargames and had tinkered with various game rules and created miniature campaigns. I started SSI because I thought computers were a natural evolution for wargames which would allow for better fog of war and an AI opponent.

War in the West ships with 10 scenarios, including 3 full campaigns, and two introductory scenarios.
War in the West ships with 10 scenarios, including 3 full campaigns, and two introductory scenarios.

GH: Your recent products of War in the East and War in the West are massive in scope and detail, which might be potentially off-putting to all but the most hardcore gamers. Tell us about the design decisions in making such apparently challenging games.

JB: The first decision was whether to go with an IGOUGO system or a plot and execution system. Gary had used the later in his previous Eastern Front games. We decided to go with the IGOUGO because we thought it would attract more players as it could be made to be a very addictive game where you want to keep making one more move, one more combat. This is especially true in 1941 Russia. Of course we wanted the extreme detail that people expect from Gary, and that comes from the database.

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01/21/15

GrogHeads Interviews Mark Walker of Flying Pig Games

Interview by Brant Guillory, 21 January 2014

Mark Walker has launched his latest venture, Flying Pig Games.  He graciously took a few hours out of his recent weekend to give us the lowdown on the new company and some of its upcoming games, as well as some lessons learned.

Of all the names you could’ve concocted, why “Flying Pig” games?

MHW: Well, Lock ‘n Load was taken. 😉 Seriously, there are a couple of reasons. I didn’t want a name that screamed “WAR GAME.” Especially not “SERIOUS WAR GAME COMPANY!” Don’t get me wrong, I love war games, I’m pretty sure they are my favorite genre, but there is so much else that I enjoy, and that other people enjoy. I want FPG to have the latitude to publish a diversity of games. To not be limited by our name. Given that thought, I tried to think up names. It came down to Howling Moon Games (a knock off of a famous Sam Bush song) and FPG. I already had the shoulder tat, so FPG it was. Oh yeah, and a flying pig is sort of the age old symbol meaning anything’s possible. And the motto? “Ipsum Sine Timore, Consector!” Loosely translated, it means “Screw it, just do it!”

Who else are you bringing along on this aerial-porcine adventure with you?  What other designers are you bringing on to the Flying Pig ship that we should know about?  Are they just freelancing for you, or are they committed to Flying Pig long term?

MHW: Some I can name, some I can’t. I can tell you that will have signed Shayne Logan, Tom Russel, and Brian Train. Armageddon is a co-design with a soon-to-be-announced designer and myself. We are in negotiations with another company to do a co-release that will incorporate the universe of Armageddon War and their game system. The goal is to release six boxed games and four issues of Yaah! in year one. But as many gamers have seen, it’s easy to put out snappy press releases and spiffy show and tells. Getting boxes into gamers’ hands is much more difficult. Continue reading →

11/26/14

GrogHeads Interviews OTS on FlashPoint Campaigns

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The guys from On Target Simulations swing by GrogHeads and chat with us about the latest developments in the FlashPoint Campaigns series.

Brant Guillory, 26 November 2014

What’s the biggest difference that players are going to see with the new FlashPoint Campaigns release?

Without a doubt it will be all the brand new maps.  We had a forum member named William who was doing a brilliant job creating new map art and so we just sort of recruited him and added him to the OTS team.  We went back and forth a few times on colours and elevation treatments and then he created new renderings of all the maps.  This seems to be the first thing people are noticing and the consensus is that they are a distinct step up.  Cap’n Darwin (creator of the original map art glyphs) and Mad Russian (who then assembled them into the maps we distributed) manned up admirably and got behind the change.  I still hear a bit of a quiver in the Captain’s voice when we Skype about it though…

Other changes include a number of tweaks and improvements to the combat model.  Artillery fire is more effective now and that is pretty noticeable.   The What’s New document runs to 12 pages with the various changes we made.

Best of all, we have a whole new campaign (Wolves) to play thanks to Mad Russian plus a new standalone “Eyes, Ears and Teeth” scenario which we believe will be a new classic.  It’s small, fun and intense like A Time to Dance.

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