Imagine a
simpler time, before personal computers, smart cell phones,
e-readers, tablets, electronic games with state-of-the-art graphics,
and even the internet became ubiquitous elements of our society. It
was during this time, the mid-1980s, that West End Games capitalized
on the niche popularity of Alfred Leonardi’s innovative
Lost
Worlds and
Ace of Aces “combat picture book games.” In
1988 West End released the
Lightsaber Dueling Pack, enabling
players to fight a battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker
(like the one at the climax of Return of the Jedi); in 1989 the
company published the
Starfighter Battle Book: X-wing vs. TIE
Interceptor, putting players in the cockpits of those ships for a
head-to-head dogfight. They represent innovative game formats of
their time that have since passed from practicality and popularity.
Leonardi
first developed the “combat picture book game”
while teaching history and channeled his extensive research into a
World War I aerial dogfight game, Ace of Aces, published by Nova Game
Designs in 1980; it went on to win the Charles Roberts/Origins Gamers
Choice Award in 1981 and was later inducted into the Adventure Gaming
Hall of Fame. He adapted the format to fantasy melee combat in the
Lost Worlds series, released by Nova Game Designs beginning in
1983; the series saw publication by other companies. It received the
Charles Roberts/Origins Award for Best Fantasy Boardgame of 1983.
As a young gamer in the mid-1980s I’d seen advertisements for
both gamebook series in
Dragon Magazine, but hadn’t seen
them in my local hobby store. They remained on the edge of my gaming
radar until the spring of 1985, when I attended my first game
convention,
Pointcon VIII, at the West Point Military Academy within
driving distance of my hometown. Alfred Leonardi was one of the
gaming guests there (along with Lou Zocchi) and he took the time to
answer questions about his games for a starry eyed game-designer
wannabe high school kid. I later wrote a very basic report about the
encounter in my gaming fanzine at the time (nothing worth reprinting
from that execrable early foray into publishing). Leonardi fueled my
enthusiasm for his games and I bought two
Lost Worlds books,
Hill Troll with Club and
Dwarf in Chainmail with Two-handed
Ax. They saw limited play in their time, as I stayed busy writing
material for and running various roleplaying games (as well as taking
care of schoolwork). I later managed to acquire more
Lost Worlds
booklets as well as some
Ace of Aces sets, though I’ve
rarely found the time or opponents to play them.)
Both kinds of books – aerial dogfight and one-on-one melee –
worked on a similar principle. Each book represented the player’s
view of the opponent, with a separate insert sheet describing the
moves a player might take. Players secretly chose a move from their
sheet (sometimes limited by the outcome of earlier turns), traded
reference numbers related to the move, cross-referenced that number
in their book, and gave their opponent a page number illustrating the
result. Such results could incur damage or other conditions limiting
future attack choices. Some might consider the system complicated
with the exchange of various numbers, cross-referencing, and then
further exchanges of page numbers, but at the time both
Ace of
Aces and
Lost Worlds found popularity in their visual
representation of combat action.
I didn’t join West End Games until 1993 and I never heard (nor
thought to ask about) the management decision and corporate
communication to work with Leonardi on adapting his systems to a
starfighter dogfight and lightsaber battle. At some point I received
copies of both games, more as a novelty for an appreciative fan than
as actual
Star Wars reference material. I’ve kept them and
the other
Lost Worlds/Ace of Aces books as nostalgic reminders
of game innovations before the Internet Age. West
End’s enthusiastic production manager, Rich Hawran, gushed whenever
the topic of these books arose. They
were the perfect game to take along on travels; you could pull them
out waiting for your flight at the airport and play with a friend,
passing the time with a graphic representation of iconic
Star
Wars
battles.
Alas,
they released into a world already veering away from paper games
toward electronic games, especially for this kind of head-to-head,
visually based action. LucasArts released the first of its computer
flight combat games,
X-Wing, in 1993 (which won the Origins
Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game); a steady
stream of subsequent releases continued throughout the 1990s. Even
the resurgent interest in the
Star
Wars
franchise at the time couldn’t give West
End’s “combat
picture book games”
a degree of popularity approaching that of the company’s
Star
Wars Roleplaying Game.
They became curious relics of a bygone age, before average citizens
carried everyday devices that could place voice and video calls, play
music and movies, immerse users in graphic video games, and carry out
innumerable important, mundane, and frivolous functions through
“apps”...all with greater computing power than the entire
electronic infrastructure that sent humans to the moon.
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