Category: Interviews

04/27/16

GrogHeads Interviews Volko Ruhnke
about GMT’s COIN Series

The “father” (and now grandfather!) of the COIN series stops by for a chat ~

Brant Guillory, 27 April 2016

Volko Ruhnke is rapidly becoming one of the most-recognized strategy game designers in the US, as his COIN series is taking over the world.  He’s visited with us before, in discussing A Distant Plain before its release a few years ago.    He comes back for a more broad-based look at the COIN series as we ramp up for several COIN events this summer at Origins.

Volko Ruhnke:  Hello GrogHeads! 

Int-VR-AAGrogHeads:  Hey there!  Did you have any idea the COIN series was going to take off like it did when you first designed Andean Abyss?  When you were working on AA, were you designing with the intent of a “system” or was it just a one-off that you were able to expand?

VR: I did not have any idea that the series would take off in the sense of popularity, as my main objective was to bring at least a few wargamers and other boardgamers into some then rather little-gamed topics regarding modern insurgency and counterinsurgency.

I did from the start envision a system and a series, and that plan was part of Andean Abyss’s appeal to Gene Billingsley from my first phone call with him to pitch the project.   I can document that claim, as the original printing of Andean Abyss says “COIN Series, Volume I” right on the cover, and the ad copy played up that aspect.

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04/9/16

GrogHeads Interviews Dr Ezra Sidran

The master of artificial intelligence returns to hobby gaming after a sojourn into the professional gaming world ~

Jim Owczarski, 09 April 2016

I write about wargames because I love them and want to share them with others.  One of the added benefits is being able to meet some of the people who made the games that stole away entire years of my life as I imagined myself Alexander, Grant, or, most frequently, Berthier.  I’m very pleased to have now added Dr. D. Ezra Sidran, designer of the seminal Universal Military Simulator and Universal Military Simulator II.

He’s recently returned to commercial wargame production after a while away — some of the reasons for which he goes into in this interview — to begin work on a new game based on the classic Kriegsspiel.  Titled General Staff, it promises to take a typically Sidranian (neologism for “awfully damned different”) look at digital wargaming along with a level of A.I. that I myself had once described as chimerical.

He was kind enough to answer my questions, even those which were likely of interest only to myself, and along the way talk about his games old and new, digital wargames in the neolithic era (the 1980s), and what he’s been up to since companies like Firebird, Rainbird, and even Microprose closed their doors.

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12/12/15

GrogHeads Interviews Richard Bodley Scott of Pike & Shot

Richard Bodley Scott talks to Grogheads ~

Interview by Boggit, 12 December 2015

Click images to enlarge

Richard, thank you for talking to Grogheads about yourself and your work. Pike and Shot Campaigns is your latest release, but you are no newcomer to either computer or tabletop wargames.

  1. Tell us about yourself. How did you get into wargaming, and why are you passionate about it?

When I was a kid, my father took us to see all sorts of ancient and medieval monuments in Britain and on holiday abroad. When I discovered in 1971 that there was such a thing as ancient wargaming, I never looked back. I have been playing table-top ancient and medieval figure games for 44 years, and Pike and Shot on and off for 25.

The original Pike and Shot has seen massive expansion and improvement with Pike and Shot Campaigns.
The original Pike and Shot has seen massive expansion and improvement with Pike and Shot Campaigns.

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08/8/15

Grogheads interviews Romain Soulié of Nyx Studios

Boggit has a chat with Romain Soulié, the brains behind Legions of Steel

Interview by Boggit, 8 August 2015

GH: Romain, thank you for agreeing to talk to Grogheads about Legions of Steel. 

Dark and eerie corridors – ideal fighting conditions for my Commandos ;-)
Dark and eerie corridors – ideal fighting conditions for my Commandos 😉

GH:  Romain, tell us about yourself. When did you become interested in gaming, and why did you decide to design and produce Legions of Steel?

I have a very classical gaming education, which means for somebody of my generation boardgames, wargames, roleplaying games and video games during my teenage years. I have been lucky enough to work in big companies like EA and Ubisoft before Studio Nyx was founded. Legions of Steel is the first game developed from the ground up by our young studio. The key moment was my encounter with Clark Browning, the designer of the miniature board game from the 90s. We just played his game, I loved it, and we quickly started to talk about a digital adaptation.

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05/2/15

GrogHeads Interviews Ron Dockal of Schwerpunkt Games

An Interview with Boggit, 2 May 2015

Click images to enlarge

Ron, thank you for agreeing to talk to Grogheads about World War 2 in Europe, and Middle East War. World War 2 in Europe is your latest game and has a lot of new features not found in earlier Schwerpunkt games like Anglo-German War, or Russo-German War.

The opening screen surrounded by key leaders of the war.
The opening screen surrounded by key leaders of the war.

GrogHeads:  Ron, tell us about yourself. What started your interest in gaming, and why did you decide to become a wargame developer?

Ron Dockal: I grew up in Houston, Texas in an area called the Heights. I had a group of friends who played Avalon Hill Wargames together. Spent many a lazy summer day doing this. Our group still gets together and our wives have become friends. I started building boardgames using white poster board at ten years old. I still have my first “attempt” at a boardgame called World War II Europe from 1963! During high school and college, I played these games once in a while and read history books about WWII. I became an electrical engineer, getting an MSEE in 1976 with a minor in programming. I met my wife on the job in 1987 and we married in 1991. She was a graphics expert in the aerospace business. Joining these things together set me on a path to start Schwerpunkt in 1995 with my wife.

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