Now I want to play the game!
Hi all-
Just thought I would show you what my current project is. A game designer contacted me after I had expressed interest in a game he was designing and asked if I would like to redo his beta-test map. I said sure! I have included his original map and my redo (which I also renamed). The game will be solo, printed on a 11x17 page, use cardboard counters to move around with and will have the player trying his best to keep Maggies forces as far away from Stanley as he can. The counters will move along three different tracks and as well there is an air element to the game with lots of Harriers and Mirages and of course Super Etandards armed with exocet missiles. I can't really say any more about the game because the rules are still mostly in the designers head.
I have a number of minor changes to make to the map like adding in a line between the boxes so it is clear which way you advance and retreat, and more detail on the turn track. So far I like how its turning out, if I do say so myself.
Now I want to play the game!
This game was put on hold by the designer until at least the end of January.
What's this "keep calm and beat Argentina"? I'm argentinean and I found it a little offensive.
Cheers.
Yeah, the designers original title stank. But you notice i got him to change it!
The whole thing seems like a good way to anger both Argentinians and British. The whole Falklands thing is one of those complicated, politically charged, hundreds of years old disputes with no easy answers where expressing any opinion whatsoever is going to provoke a significant portion of the people involved.
Well, if by "the whole thing" you mean making a game on the Falklands War, I would have to disagree. This isnt about picking sides, nor is it about politics. Its not an opinion. Its simple historical facts. This is about historical events, and how to better understand their inter-relationships through a game. Now, not everyone would want to play a game on such a topic, and I completely understand that. I have a good friend who I regularly play board wargames with, but he wont play any games dealing with post WWII conflicts. And that's OK. Personally, I find the topic fascinating, and working and playing a game like this only makes me want to read up on it to understand it better.
Sorry, I didn't mean that the idea of a Falklands based game in general is bad but rather the tone that I get from both game boards. Whether it's intentional or not, they both feel like they are trying to be provocative. The first in particular gives a sense of being provocative in a vague way that could be interpreted either as a trivialization of Argentina, or as casting the British as arrogant warmongers. The second comes across as casting the whole thing as being purely on Margret Thatcher. I may not particularly like Thatcher but that's a rather biased and partisan way of casting it which I find rather grating. That it's a single player game where the player is always the British may be taken badly by some Argentinians.
Of course all that may not be the intent of the author but if an at least somewhat neutral outsider (I'm a Canadian who hadn't ever turned 1 at the time of the war) can read that out of it it might present a problem. If the intent IS to be provocative, I'll stand by my statement that it seems like a bad idea, although the author does have every right to do so.
Last edited by Hai-Etlik; 01-14-2015 at 11:20 PM.
Oh I see. Well, let me say that both titles were not deliberately being provocative. And although I have not seen the rules, I am 99% sure in the game you play the Argentinians. Its based on a game system where you defend a central point against multiple threats moving down the lines. Its called The States of Siege system. Anyhoo, I dont think the intended audience of wargamers would be at all offended by the Thatchers War title. Having a persons name in the title is actually fairly common in wargames. There is Lincoln's War, Hitler's War, and Stalin's War, to name just three games off the top of my head.