Category: Interviews

06/18/13

Interview: Cthulhu Wars Creator Sandy Petersen

Few things simultaneously strike as much terror in the hearts of sane men and glee in the minds of sci-fi fantasy fans as great Cthulhu, sleeping in his underwater tomb of R’lyeh. Similarly, few things strike as much glee in the hearts and minds of wargame and boardgame fans as lavishly detailed, large scale, and high-quality miniatures tromping across a map. Well, Sandy Peterson, design director and front man of Green Eye Games has a project that intends merge the terror and fanatic reverence of the Old Ones with the hardcore world of table top miniatures. This project, Cthulhu Wars, has just recently been added to Kickstarter and is poised to be a huge success. I’ve tracked down Sandy Petersen in his eldritch lair and, communicating through dark magiks, was able to ask him a few questions.

GermanySandyPetersenCthulhuWarsInterviewJune192013Notes

Son of Montfort, Senior Boardgaming Editor for GrogHeads (GH): Thanks, Sandy for agreeing to talk with us about your exciting new project. Many fans will instantly recognize your name as the author of the original Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. But you have been absent from the world of tabletops and pen & paper for quite some time. Could you tell us a little about the pedigree of you and your team and why you decided to return to your “Great Old” roots with a game set in the Cthulhu Mythos?

Sandy Petersen (SP): Well, I will be frank. I had decided that I would have to return to the digital gaming world, take a salary, and henceforth work for other people, on their projects.  Cthulhu Wars was going to be my swan song – my last-ever venture into Cthulhu for tabletop gaming. I got together with Rob Atkins and Rich Luong, as partners and artists to put this together. Our plan was to create a fun little game that would become a cash cow to give us all an income stream on the side. I had already accepted a job offer to begin working making iPhone games for a foreign-based firm.
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05/31/13

Mayviation Interview With Matthew Caffrey, AFRL

Brant Guillory, 31 May 2013

COL(R) Matt Caffrey works at the Air Force Research Labs wargaming office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.  He is also the organizer behind the Connections conference that brings together military wargaming practitioners, academics, and industry professionals to advance the art, science, and application of wargaming.

Splash-PMWSome opening comments from Mr Caffrey:
Before I answer your specific questions I need to make two disclaimers:
First, the views expressed in these responses are those of the author (myself) and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
Second, I am not so pretentious to believe I know of all US defense Wargaming.  Growing up in New York City I heard the expression, “only the dead know Brookline.”  That is, that borough was (and is) so big and so diverse that no living individual could know all of it.  No one living individual can know all of defense wargaming. The Joint Staff and each Service use wargaming for a host of applications.  Though I a student of wargaming and have worked in defense wargaming as a primary or additional duty since 1983 I would be surprised if some wargame somewhere is an exception to my below generalizations.  I do not know what I do not know.
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08/29/12

GrogHeads Interviews Designers of A Distant Plain

Building on the COIN series for GMT, designers Brian Train and Volko Ruhnke have teamed up for a hard look at Afghanistan with their upcoming multi-player counterinsurgency game, on pre-order now with GMT Games. ~

Brant Guillory, 29 August 2012

GH: OK, now you’ve both got already stellar reputations as game designers tackling tough conflicts, so how did this collaboration come about? Were you getting together specifically to work on an Afghanistan game, or were you a collaboration in search of an interesting topic?

BT: “Stellar”? Well, I might have been in the designing end of things for longer than Volko, but in terms of name recognition and overall sales, I’m still a white dwarf. Volko has scored three big hits in a row with Wilderness War, Labyrinth, and now Andean Abyss. I had helped in a playtest of Andean Abyss in 2011 and was very impressed by Volko’s COIN system. So when he contacted me with the proposal that we work together, I jumped at it.

VR: Thanks Brant! I’d say more the latter. I knew much of Brian’s work. His Algeria design had been a key influence on my own COIN Series system, so I figured that we could produce something harmonious together. I felt that Brian’s work deserved even wider distribution and suggested to him that he ought to do a design for my publisher, GMT Games, in light of GMT’s stellar production values and marketing reach. I added to that the suggestion that he ought to do an insurgency game with me, and make it part of the COIN Series—he could choose the setting. He agreed and chose modern Afghanistan. adpThat topic had not been on my list, but naturally I jumped at the chance to work with him!

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