List of Games I have designed - 1990 to now

 This is a list of games I have designed and run, mostly at Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG), with a few run at the Holborn Group, and about 3 run online with groups of friends.

• Live and Let Live
• WW1 Trench Warfare collaborative game. All players are on one side trying to live and fight against an automated German foe that reacts to your aggression or passivity in a Tit for Tat way
  
  
• Sound of the Guns
• WW1 Trench Warfare. The Control plays chords on a piano and teaches the players - who play soldiers in a simulated trench - upturned tables and chairs - how listen and react to types of shell. No sides. Just surviving.
  
  
• Seize Warsaw, 1939
• The German first attempt to take Warsaw in 1939 with a Panzer Division. Control ran the Polish side using static defences with some reserves to be moved in reaction to German assaults.
  
  
• We are All at C
• A Naval Wargame, where the players are on the same side and the enemy moved by a script. I did this mostly because only one side has any interesting decisions.
  
  
• A Little Bit of Bread and No Cheese
• All the players are peasant farmers, some have temporary official roles in the feudal system. They are all trying to farm and survive. The enemy is probably the weather, not helped by the demands their Lord.
  
  
• Kill Chain
• All players are US servicemen attempting to support an anti-terrorist sweep in Afghanistan, in the 2000s

• War of the Roses games
  
  
• Shameless and Impudent Lords - 1 and 2 
• Both of my only two Megagames have been conflict games, with a conflict between two major factions and a lot of neutral Lords being persuaded who to back. 
  
  
• Against the Nature of Gentleness
• Similar to the above, but a large club game, less players, and all players were either Yorkists or Lancastrians. No neutrals.
  
  
• After the Battle of Towton, 1461
• I ran this Online and it was a committee game for the winning Yorkist team about how to "win" the Towton victory.
  
  
• Certeyne Ceducious Persones, 1469
• The Robin of Redesdale Rebellion. All players were either Yorkist, or Lancastrians, though some players were being deceptive about their roles and loyalties. 
  
  
• Aaland, 1918
• A game that includes all the sides involved in the attempt to control the Aaland Island during the Finnish Civil War / Russian Revolutionary Wars. Mostly about communication issues. 
  

• Shameless, Impudent and Indebted Lords – 1450
• A committee game where the players are all trying to make the government work and get rid of the debt, but they are attempting to improve their power base in court so they can eventually outlaw the other side. Civil conflict that might lead to violence.

• Viperous Worm: Gaming popular opinion, 1450
• All the players are in civil conflict that might lead to violence. They are trying to influence the "political narrative" to improve their popular support and to validate their "need" to move to violence.
   
• Rain of Drones - 1 and 2
• Both sides are represented in the game. Some players were Drug Cartels smuggling over the USA land border. The USA side were two federal agencies and there was a Mexican government side. There was conflict between all sides.
  
  
• The Battle of Midtskogen, 1940
  
• Two sides were represented but at different times. The Norwegian player setup their static defence and the German player then attacked it with Control implementing the Norwegian reactions according to the plan.

Computer Game

• Hill 70 – An Interactive Fiction Game
• A computer game - format: Chose Your Own Adventure. The player attempts to organise a counter attack at the Battle of Loos, 1915.
  

More thoughts on Collaborative and Cooperative Games

I have been thinking more about my concept of Cooperative games - see Colony post.

This is a bit of a confession and a personal revelation. Many of my games are not traditional wargame with two or more sides duking it out. Most of my games involve a team of players working together.

I suppose this shouldn't be such a surprise. I wrote earlier about how I don't like competitive traditional wargames And think what the revelation is is that I have never really thought about the format and collaborative games and what design techniques should be used.

Here is a list of games I have produced.

McGonigal, Jane - "Reality is broken"

A full chapter - "13: Collaboration Superpowers" is devoted to discussing collaboration and cooperation in online gaming.

Collaboration has three distinct elements

1. Cooperating - players act together toward a common or shared goal
   
   
2. Coordinating - players organise and synchronise effort and resources
   
   
3. Cocreating - the players work together to create a novel or new outcome.
   

A game in of itself is a cooperative act - sometimes called the golden or magic circle of gaming. Players agree to play a game and be restricted in their actions by the rules of the game so that a game can be played.

Discussion

None of the above really covers my concept of a collaborative game. 

I think McGonigal is not wrong in what she writes - the first two points are simplistic and not controversial. She develops the chapter mostly so that she can talk about her theme of games changing reality and how gamers cooperate to create a new reality. She emphasises cocreation as this method gamers have a superpower.

I am struggling to find a phrase to cover what I want - games that reflect the internal struggle of groups of people to achieve a goal, or even to agree on what the goal should be. Intra-player games? 

 

Colony - a cooperative game of corporate exploitation

Idea

A boardgame for 4 - 8 players that is a cooperative game, though each player can "win" by making the highest personal profit.

Scenario

The players work for a corporation that is building a colony - most likely on a distant planet - and they are working together to create a viable colony. There will be opportunities to sabotage other employees work, there will be temptations to "pocket" some payments. However, all lose if the Colony does not achieve its targets. It will be possible for players to having different goals; so there might be more ways to win than just "money".

Inspiration

• The most excellent campaign of Colony 51, in Jim Wallman's "The Universe".
  
  
• Boardgames
• The Settlers of Catan
• Terraforming Mars
  
  
• Books
• The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, a 2019 book by William Dalrymple

What's the new idea

I want to design a cooperative game that reflects the dilemma of maximising private gain and yet still achieve corporate success. 

All the boardgames above are zero sum games - one player wins by achieving the most points. This is not what I think happens in the world. This could get philosophical. But I regard most human activities as being collaborative - trading, running a company, playing a game, organising a picnic etc. Some might take a leading role. Some might contribute to only part of the enterprise. But together we make something.

I want a game to reflect the politics (with a small p) that are at play - the inter-personal politics - that all of us encounter in our daily lives and work - as we strive to achieve some goal.