Historical Games

 “Your library is your paradise.”

— Erasmus

French Regency style chess pieces
and box, early 20th century.

I have among my collection several historical games; not games with historical themes, but actual games played throughout history. My library also includes a small section with books about historical games. These foundational basics of ludic entertainment, some surviving for millennia, often remained a luxury of the privileged classes, though over time many have become more accessible to the general populace to occupy and divert their occasional leisure time. Some artifacts in my collection have particular personal significance, others I’ve acquired years later as I explored my interest in this branch of gaming sometimes overlooked by the 21st century adventure gaming hobby. They’re telling artifacts from a time when games remained accessible pastimes and not niche-market products in a capitalistic society.

Multiple Cardplay Choices

 “Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.”

— Robert Louis Stevenson

I’m thankful my son and I have found the time and motivation recently to (sometimes) resume our Thursday after-dinner “game night.” I’ll admit I occasionally cajole him into a weekend afternoon game (when I’m not outside engaged in the Sisyphean task of yard work on numerous fronts) in an effort to disengage him from his electronic devices. My task becomes easier when I have a menu of games to suggest, titles we’ve played before he particularly enjoys. Lately most of our favorite games rely on card mechanics; they’re not all card games per se, but board games where cards determine how one can manipulate the pieces and conditions on the board. More often than not this pleasantly complicates the decisions players face. Do I use a card for its stated effect — usually something bending the rules to my advantage — or do I spend it to take some kind of “standard” action? This kind of cardplay dilemma expands the decision space an extra level without adding too much complexity in learning the game.

Releasing Skirmish Kids

 “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.”

– Carl Jung

At long last I finally released my latest game project this week. Skirmish Kids is a wargame with a low figure count, small play surface (compared to most miniature wargames), and basic core rules to which one can add a host of options to give the game more tactical depth. It includes a host of notes for using it for historical scenarios as well as a few more fantastic genres. You can find it in full-color PDF at both my Itch.io and Wargame Vault online storefronts and in print in black-and-white at Lulu and, a first for me, places like Amazon. Skirmish Kids is the culmination of a long interest in this kind of wargaming and years of tinkering to present rules and options at a level kids and newcomers to the hobby can understand and embrace.

Solo Scene: Pacific War 1942

 “The enemy of our games was always Japan, and the courses were so thorough that after the start of World War II, nothing that happened in the Pacific was strange or unexpected.”

— Admiral Chester W. Nimitz

I love solitaire games of all kinds across the adventure gaming hobby. I enjoy exploring World War II history through wargames. And I’ve admired many games Worthington Publishing has released over the years, notably Tarawa 1943, Hidden Strike American Revolution, Chancellorsville 1863, and the Holdfast series of block games. So when I heard Worthington launched a Kickstarter for another series of three “travel” solitaire wargames, I figured I’d revisit one from the previous campaign. Pacific War 1942 demonstrates the compact innovations of this format that engage players in a satisfying wargame experience.

Estimates & Intentions

I enjoy reading scholarly works about the adventure gaming hobby; they help me take a step back and look at things from different perspectives. My most recent reading in this vein includes Jon Peterson’s The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity (2020) and John M. Lillard’s Playing War: Wargaming and U.S. Navy Preparations for World War II (2016). They might seem to cover very different subjects, but, upon reflection, I’ve found some of their core gaming themes quite sound and relatable to my own experiences. Both demonstrate games as interplay between participants assessing the immediate situation and making decisions to change that situation in their favor. I sometimes feel like a simpleton in the shadow of these scholarly analyses of the adventure gaming hobby. Some of their revelations seem so obvious once articulated despite the depth of subsequent discussion and investigation they can inspire. Often I find myself reaching conclusions and then responding to myself with, “Well, duh.” I’d like to think I redeem my naivete in my subsequent reflections on the subjects at hand.