Tom Thornsen (Prussia) and Bob Demaio (French) attempt to re-enact the Battle of Mars-la-Tour with the Full Battle Scenario “A Day of Battle”.
Monthly Archives: June 2017
Three Presidents for the Price of One: A Look Inside the New Version of Mr. President (Pt 1)
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As many of you have read in my most recent monthly customer updates, I’ve been back working on the new version of Mr. President weekly, and sometimes daily, over the past couple of months. The updated, streamlined design is falling into place, and we’re a little over a month away from handing the game off to Mike Bertucelli for final development and testing. In this article and those that follow, I want to give you a sense of how it feels to play the current version of Mr. President. With the able assistance of my son Luke and daughter Rachel, whose most recent plays of the game have netted two auto-losses, we’ll take you along with us as we begin a new administration. I hope you enjoy the article! – Gene
Solitaire Play of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea – Greeks vs Persians: An AAR (Part 2)
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To see Part 1 of the Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea: Greeks vs Persians AAR, follow this link.
Red Storm – Solitaire Development
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One of the aspects making the Downtown series great is its intense fog-of-war. The combination of dummy flights, hidden AAA/SAMs, generic flights, and unconfirmed bombing results add up to a lot of uncertainty for both players in most scenarios, a situation that is both realistic and fun, since neither player knows the full picture.
As cool as the system is, the extensive fog-of-war adds a lot of rules, an issue for some players with limited time, while also making the game less appealing as a solo experience. To address both issues, early in the development of Red Storm, Gene gave me the task of working in some solo rules. I examined as many different solo systems I could find, while also reviewing some draft solo rules that Lee Brimmicombe-Wood and Antonio Peña worked on for Downtown but never published formally. After that research and some tinkering with various options, I settled on a “two tier” system of solo rules for Red Storm.
Solitaire Play of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea – Greeks vs Persians: An AAR (Part 1)
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Introduction by Fred Schachter, Game Developer: There’s material within GMT’s site for Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS); which could be read as background, but this piece is being placed here in hopes it will engender a bit more “back & forth” with readers as follow-up to Chris’ last InsideGMT article (Parts 1, 2, and 3) concerning his experience with ACIS’ The God Kings of Egypt solitaire scenario. You are encouraged to contact the ACIS Team with any and all comments and questions.
Please note this is an After Action Report of one of many ACIS Solitaire Scenarios being play tested. Some are finished and some still in need of various degrees of development and play-balance “tweaking”.
Of course we’re also play testing the “live” versions of the game and having a blast doing so.
So with no further ado, here’s ACIS Co-Designer Chris Vorder Bruegge’s report of his experiences fending off the mighty Persian Empire with his plucky and stalwart Greeks. Ah, after reading this I’m planning another viewing of “300”.
Solitaire Play of The God-King of Egypt (Part 3)
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Tank Tales #4: Building a Solitaire Bot for a Fast Action Card Game
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As recently announced, Tank Duel: Enemy in the Crosshairs has a full Solitaire play system included. I have been working closely with Designer Mike Bertucelli to develop this system, and I’m excited to share a little bit more information about the design and how the Solitaire “Bot” works.