Games in Magazines

 “Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.”

— Marcus Aurelius

On a recent trip to the local used book store I found several issues of Game Fix magazine, a slim wargaming periodical published in the mid 1990s. Every cover sported a banner declaring “Complete Game Included!” And indeed every issue contained a wargame, many hex-and-chit-style games, but some including card sheets to cut apart. Nothing huge like the old Avalon Hill bookcase games, but satisfying morsels on a variety of historical topics. They reminded me both of the much-lamented heyday of gaming magazines in the late 20th century as well as the early practice of including scenarios and games in those publications. Both trends have since disappeared in the electronic onslaught of the 21st century’s Internet Age — with a deluge of similar material currently available for free online, if you know where to find it — but my wistful nostalgia still pines for those days...and celebrates when I find artifacts of that lost gaming culture.

Game Fix perpetuated the practice of including games in magazines started by James F. Dunnigan when he took over publishing Strategy & Tactics magazine, through his company Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI). I did not discover these until much later in my adventure gaming hobby journey, having started with roleplaying games and immersing myself in wargames years later. But I loved the idea of supplemental game material, or entire games, in periodicals. The pillar of roleplaying game magazines, TSR’s Dragon, later published scenarios for its various game lines in the center pages of many issues (though not all); it also occasionally featured entire games with cardstock boards and counters. I carefully extracted them all from the saddle-stitched center of each issue and mounted the counters and boards on cardboard. I played each one at least once; some we played quite a lot in our after-school neighborhood game group, notably File 13 and King of the Tabletop. These in-magazine games I discovered in my youth inspired me to create many simple board games of my own (all of which proved terrible); developing these and releasing my own (horribly amateurish) game fanzine helped encourage me to pursue a dubious career in writing and game design.

Game Fix published nine issues in the mid-1990s before a company called One Small Step purchased it and rebranded the magazine as Competitive Edge, producing another four issues with games. (One Small Step still exists and offers a host of games and magazines.) Each issue ran about 28 pages, not including game materials like card sheets and half-inch, die-cut counters. Rules and map-boards for the games ran in the magazine’s center pages, so one could extract them from the saddle-stitched publication by carefully bending and re-bending the staples (much like the scenarios and games published in Dragon magazine). Game Fix came on thick, full-color stock for both the game and articles. Besides one piece adding context to the game subject, most other articles included editorials, industry news, letters, and other pieces on historical conflicts. The cover price of $6.95 in the mid-1990s would run about $14.25 today, 30 years later (when it would still be a good deal for a slim wargaming magazine with a complete game inside). Gamers interested in these artifacts of gaming long-past can find PDF issues to purchase on Wargame Vault (for about the same price as I paid for a “used” print edition).

Teeny tiny half-inch chits seem
too tiny for my fumbling fingers.

The four issues of Game Fix I now own have games that engage my interest in history, specifically ancient battles and World War II (I vaguely recall passing up others with themes that didn’t enthrall me). I’m tempted to scan the components for reproduction in lieu of destroying the originals...and with an intent to print them at double size if manageable, as the tiny half-inch chits prove far too small for my upper-middle-aged and pudgy short fingers to efficiently manipulate. I also realize my appetite for classic hex-and-chit board wargames is waning as my interests give way to more streamlined gameplay or more original, intuitive rules employing larger counters, blocks, miniatures, and cards. That said, a compact historical wargame for $3.95 (what I paid per issue at my regional used bookstore) remains hard to pass up given the high price point of today’s wargame releases. I’m looking forward to reading each issue and immersing myself in the games.

I have in the past lamented the death of game magazines given their role promoting and inspiring the adventure gaming hobby in the pre-Internet Age of the late 20th century. I’ve even pondered the idea of creating a kids history magazine featuring a game; read that post to the end and you’ll find a link to my ancient Egyptian-themed solo game, Lord of the Two Lands. Both accept the regrettable passing of print magazines and any games they included. They’re reminiscent of a time when periodicals served as the primary means of communication among hobbyists. Such periodicals offered curated content centered on specific topics which could expose readers to new ideas in a given field.

The functions magazines served have transitioned to the internet. whether articles or entire games, reviews or news, groundbreaking trends and practices. Free content abounds: places like forums to interact with others; features and news supporting our gaming habits; and free games to print and play. You just have to know where to look. And hope you can find it again. And hope it hasn’t since disappeared as things do on the ephemeral internet.

Some in-magazine games have found a second life as standalone tabletop games. Decision Games acquired Strategy & Tactics and still releases issues containing games (as well as other periodicals with games). The company also produces some folio and mini-folio wargames worthy of inclusion in a magazine, some of which I’ve purchased and played over the years. Most fall under the traditional chit-and-hex format, though a few of the more recent solitaire games use an area movement system while still relying on counters.

Dinosaurs like me must evolve to accept magazines and all their tantalizing tidbits aren’t making a comeback...no matter how much or how hard I wish for it. Although I enjoy free online games when I find them, even the print-and-play variety (despite all the crafting work they entail at my end), I am slowly adapting to the growing accommodations we must accept in the Internet Age as it careens exponentially and rather chaotically into the impersonal digital future. I rejoice when I find artifacts of tabletop games remaining in used bookstores or secondary markets, even when such forms — like in-magazine games — have long become extinct. I must learn to find similar information and experiences among the ever-changing, ephemeral offerings across the internet’s media landscape.

“Set your course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

— Omar N. Bradley