Tag Archives: One Small Step
The First Four Steps: Designer’s Notes For The New Line Of OSS Folio Games
Brian Train, 22 April 2015
Game Theorist and Designer Brian Train joins us for a look inside the design of his new folio games with One Small Step games.
Ed Note: We’ve already reviewed Shining Path here at GrogHeads.
At the beginning of 2015, One Small Step Games began to publish a series of new “folio games,” small format wargames on a variety of subjects at a reasonable price. At least eight will be released during this year: four by me, two Civil War titles by Richard Dengel (Lone Jack, Middle Creek) that use the Rebel Yell! tactical system, and two strategic World War Two games by Gary Graber (Battle of the Atlantic, Fall of Berlin).
The four titles by me are all modern-era, from 1956 Budapest to 2010 Afghanistan. Most of the game designs (I’ve published (30+ and counting) are post World War Two: for me, this is an area full of ungamed topics, grimy and nasty irregular wars which inform and shape the world we live in today. I was always interested in guerilla war/ irregular war/ low-intensity conflict, whatever it was being called at the time. I’ve been designing for about 25 years, and near the beginning of my career I was one of a very few people “ploughing in the COINfield”, as it were (I’m happy to say I have more company now).
GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #68

Wargames, skipper! Off the starboard bow!
Trenton 1776 (Worthington Games)
$14,000 of $2500 goal, ends 21 April 2015
The Worthington Gang is back with another battle from the American War of Independence, and this time it’s Washington’s iconic river-crossing-to-surprise-the-drunk-Hessians-on-Christmas campaign. And let’s face it, the Battle of Trenton was pretty much the high-water-mark for the historical “good things that have happened in New Jersey” list. It’s part of a series that Worthington kicked off with New York 1776, and expect more to come. So march on over to their Kickstarter campaign and fire off your pledge to snag one while they’re hot.