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About 18 months ago, while attending Buckeye Game Fest in Columbus, Ohio, we met up with David Thompson to get a quick look at a few of his newest upcoming games at the time including Line of Fire: Burnt Moon from Osprey Games and the very interesting American Civil War game with a twist called Rebels Against Rebellion from Flying Pig Games. I got to play Rebels Against Rebellion and very much enjoyed the game and what it was trying to convey about the lack of support for the secession of Tennessee from the Union as most of the residents of Scott County voted against breaking away during the American Civil War. The game pits the local groups against each other as the Free and Independent State of Scott fights against the local secessionist residents as violent confrontations between Loyalist and secessionist-aligned partisans and outlaws engaged in raids on farms, stealing livestock, and destroying property. Since that time, the game has progressed and has launched on Kickstarter. I reached out to one of the game’s designer David Thompson to see if he would be willing to share about the design and as always he was more than happy to oblige us.
Grant: David, welcome back to our blog. What is your new upcoming game Rebels Against Rebellion about?
Davind: Thanks for having me back! Rebels Against Rebellion is a card-driven war game for one or two players, set in Scott County, Tennessee, during the American Civil War. Tennessee’s own path to secession was messy. The state voted against a secession convention in February 1861, then reversed course and voted to join the Confederacy in June, following Fort Sumter. But East Tennessee never went along with it. And of all the counties in East Tennessee, none rejected secession more decisively than Scott County: 521 to 19. Later that year, the county court went so far as to pass a resolution declaring Scott County’s own independence from the state of Tennessee, calling itself the “Free and Independent State of Scott.” That’s the story we’re telling: Southern Loyalists trying to hold their ground against the Confederate army and their allied secessionist guerrillas, for the whole length of the war.
Grant: What should the title convey to the players?
David: I wanted the title to carry that irony right up front. Rebels Against Rebellion. The people of Scott County were, technically, rebelling against a rebellion by resisting the Confederacy in order to maintain their ties with the Union. History likes to flatten “Rebel” down to one side of the Civil War, but in Scott County that word cuts the other way too. I liked that the title does some of the historical educating on its own, before a player has even opened the box.
Grant: Why was this a subject you wanted to focus on?
David: It’s a story that doesn’t get told nearly enough. We hear a lot about the big battles and the big generals, but the internal fractures within the South (communities that stayed loyal to the Union under occupation, that organized home guards, that got raided by their own state’s army) that’s a different and much more personal kind of Civil War story. I’ve made a habit of chasing these under-told corners of history rather than the well-trodden ones, and Scott County is about as under-told as it gets. Once you learn about Julia Marcum defending her father’s house with an axe, or the Home Guard’s oath at the Huntsville courthouse, it’s hard not to want to build a game around it.
Grant: What are the unique features with the system used for the game?
David: The core of it is a deck that represents both your units and your locations. Playing a card from your hand isn’t just “move a piece,” it’s your people and your settlements acting together. Every location you control is physically a card sitting in your deck, hand, or discard pile, so controlling territory and building your deck are the same action. You don’t have a separate “buy phase” and “map phase.” When you improve control of a location or bolster in a new unit, you’re deck-building in exactly the same motion as you’re expanding on the board. I think that tight coupling between deckbuilding and area control is the thing that sets Rebels Against Rebellion apart.
Grant: What did you need to model regarding the American Civil War and the situation in Scott County, Tennessee?
David: Quite a lot, honestly. We needed the asymmetry between the two sides to feel true to what actually happened. The Loyalists start the game already holding six locations and 11 points, reflecting how entrenched they already were in the county by the time real fighting started, while the Confederates start with nothing on the board and have to earn their presence. We needed the food economy to reflect how much this was a war of resources and raiding: burned farms, stolen livestock, the constant question of how you feed yourself when supply lines are contested. We needed supply lines themselves to matter for Confederate regulars in a way they didn’t for local guerrillas, since regular units like the 43rd Alabama or Morgan’s Raiders came in from outside the county and depended on a route back to it, while home-grown units like the Home Guard didn’t need that at all. And we needed the map’s road, water, and path connections to reflect the real terrain. Scott County’s isolation and rugged geography is a huge part of why guerrilla warfare took hold there in the first place.
Grant: What is your design goal with the game?
David: We wanted a game that plays cleanly as a tight, two-player card-driven war game, and we wanted a player who knows absolutely nothing about Scott County going in to come away from a session with real curiosity about what actually happened there. Every named card, every location, every unit in the game is drawn from the historical record. If the mechanics are doing their job, “Capt. William Robbins” isn’t just a card with shield and gun icons on it. It’s a doorway into a real person’s story.
Grant: What other games did you use as inspiration?
David: The DNA is definitely there from our work on Undaunted, that idea of your deck representing your force on the board rather than being an abstract resource. But Rebels Against Rebellion pushes further into area control than Undaunted ever did, so we were also looking hard at how area-control and card-driven wargames handle territory scarcity and endgame tension. The most obvious influence comes from Martin Wallace’s A Few Acres of Snow, which serves as a the origin for the core concept of playing a location card as the source of movement. A lot of our actual influences, though, came out of the playtesting process itself.
Grant: What sources did you consult about the history?
David: We leaned heavily on the Scott County Historical Society throughout, especially David Jeffers, Alan Keeton, and James Cecil, who were enormously generous with their research and their archives. On the written side, Paul Roy’s Scott County in the Civil War was probably our single most important source. His overview chapter and his 148-page account of individual Scott County soldiers did a lot of heavy lifting for us. We also relied on Esther Sharp Sanderson’s County Scott and Its Mountain Folk and Scott County Gem of the Cumberlands, H. Clay Smith’s Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past, Noel C. Fisher’s War at Every Door for the statistical picture of East Tennessee loyalism, Ben Garrett’s Enclave, decades of back issues of the Scott County Chronicle and the First National Bank Chronicle, and the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies for the military correspondence. Dr. Stuart Ellis-Gorman did our proofing and copyediting to help make sure we got the details right.
Grant: What did you learn from your trip to this area as part of your research?
David: Back in the fall of 2025 I went to Scott County to meet with folks from the Historical Society and access primary sources that were otherwise unavailable. This trip was absolutely critical to the design process. The men I met at the Historical Society had deep knowledge on the subject, so I conducted interviews with them. They also provided me some of the primary sources I had read about, but could not access without their help (mostly in the form of photocopied versions of printed documents from local authors). My trip to Scott County also gave me the opportunity to visit the area and experience the topography for myself.
Grant: What are the differences between the playable factions of the Confederates and the rebels?
David: Thematically, the Loyalists are defenders who start the game already dug in. They begin with six locations and a head start on the scoreboard, and their whole arc is about holding what’s theirs and expanding cautiously outward. The Confederates start with nothing on the board and have to fight for every location, but they’ve got the raw power to do it: bigger regular units, the ability to bring in outside firepower, provided they can maintain a supply line back to where those units are actually based.
Grant: How did you differentiate them in their mechanics?
David: A few ways. The Loyalists have much more extensive access to the Improve Control action, which allows them to place a second control marker into a location for an additional victory point and card benefit, while a couple of key Loyalist locations, Brimstone and Trammell’s, double as both a location and a unit card depending how you want to play them that turn. The Confederates, on the other hand, get access to harder-hitting regular army units, but those units can carry a supply line requirement, so playing them isn’t as simple as just having them in hand. You need an unbroken road connection back to their origin. It creates a real asymmetry: the Loyalists play a tighter, more efficient game, while the Confederates have more raw strength but have to work to unlock it.
Grant: How does the game use cards?
David: Cards do double duty as your units and your locations, and every card you play resolves a specific action before it goes to your discard pile. Food is the one shared resource, but everything else, from combat strength to your area-control footprint, lives directly on the cards moving through your deck.
Grant: Can you show us a few examples and explain their use?
David: Sure, take the Home Guard. It’s a Loyalist unit card linked to Huntsville, and if you upgrade it, you get an improved version with better combat value. Or take Chitwood’s, a basic location card: play it for its Take Food action to add to your supply, or play it to Move into an adjacent location, which is how you expand your territory or launch an attack. And then there’s Brimstone, which starts as a plain location card but can be improved into Capt. William Robbins. At that point it’s simultaneously the location and a combat unit, with its own attack value and shield icons, giving you flexibility about how you use it depending on what your turn needs.
Grant: How do the cards upgrade or power up?
David: There are two upgrade paths. Improve Control takes a basic location card, has you pay food, and swaps it for its improved version, which usually comes with better attributes and, for a couple of key locations, unlocks a linked unit. Improve Unit works the same way for unit cards directly. You pay the listed food cost, and the improved version replaces the original in your discard pile while the old card goes out of the game for good. Either way, you’re not adding new cards on top of old ones. You’re replacing weaker cards with stronger ones, so your deck gets more powerful without getting bigger and bloated.
Grant: How important is this to the design?
David: It’s central. Deck quality, not just deck size, is what wins you the game, and the choice of when to spend food on upgrading versus expanding onto the board versus bolstering in new units is the core tension every turn.
Grant: What is the layout of the board?
David: The board depicts Scott County and its surrounding area, with locations connected by roads, water, and paths. Each connection type governs how many cards you can commit to an attack moving along it, from one card on a path up to three on a road. Locations within Scott County proper are marked in brown; locations outside the county, like Somerset, Jacksborough or Jamestown, are marked in grey and generally serve as Confederate staging points and supply origins. Each location shows its star value, which doubles as its point value and its food cost to take control, along with any food production and, for locations that can be improved, their upgraded attributes.
Grant: What is the anatomy of the counters?
David: We use control markers rather than traditional counters. One per location per player, showing who currently holds it, with some locations (mostly limited to the Loyalists) able to carry a second marker once improved. The real “unit anatomy” lives on the cards themselves: name, faction affiliation, attack and defense attributes, a linked location, an improvement cost, and icons indicating whether the unit returns to its supply or is removed from the game entirely after a successful attack.
Grant: How are units activated?
David: You activate units by playing their card from your hand as part of a Move action or in response to an attack. There’s no separate “activation phase.” A unit card played in combat commits its attack or defense value to that fight; the same card, played on its own, might instead trigger a Bolster or Improve Unit action. Context and the icon panel on the card tell you what’s legal in the moment.
Grant: What is the general Sequence of Play?
David: Turns alternate, Confederates first. On your turn you play cards from your hand one at a time to take actions, resolving each fully, including paying food and playing any additional required cards, before moving to the next, and you can stop whenever you like. Once you’re done taking actions, you discard down as much as you want from what’s left in hand, then draw back up to a five-card hand, reshuffling your discard pile into a new deck if you run out.
Grant: What actions are available to players?
David: Take Food, Improve Control, Bolster, Improve Unit, and Move, which is also the action that triggers combat if you’re moving into a location your opponent controls.
Grant: How does combat work?
David: Once you move into a contested location, the attacker plays one required combat-eligible card face down, and the defender either matches with a card of their own (up to a maximum of two, since they can also commit the target location’s own card) or passes. This goes back and forth, both sides adding cards until they hit their limits or choose to stop, with the attacker’s ceiling set by the connection type they’re attacking along. Everyone reveals at once: the attacker totals their attack icons, the defender totals their defense (and any dual-purpose attack icons used defensively), and the defender wins all ties. Win as the attacker, and you strip your opponent’s control marker, shift points in your favor, and get the option to immediately take control as a follow-up action.
Grant: How is victory achieved?
David: You’re racing toward one of a few thresholds: reach 20 points while your opponent sits at 10 or fewer, or simply hold more points than your opponent once the game’s light-colored food tokens run dry and it tips into sudden death. The Confederates have a separate, blunter win condition too: if the Loyalists ever lose every control marker on the board, the Confederates win outright. And if the very last food token, one of the ten darker ones, gets taken, the game ends in a draw, so there’s a real, ticking clock underneath everything you do.
Grant: Who is the artist and how does their style assists in thematic immersion?
David: Kwanchai Moriya handled illustration and Jina Rueter handled graphic design, and I couldn’t be happier with how it came together. Kwanchai has this warm, painterly quality that makes Scott County’s mountains and creeks feel lived-in rather than just decorative. It goes a long way toward making cards like Capt. William Robbins or Julia Marcum feel like real people from a real place rather than generic Civil War stand-ins. Jina’s layout work keeps the cards (action icons, attributes, linked locations, improvement costs) legible at a glance, which matters enormously in a system where you’re constantly reading your hand.
Grant: What type of experience does the game create?
David: Tense and personal. Because the map is so tightly connected, and because food is always ticking down toward sudden death, every attack matters and every food token spent is a decision you feel. It plays fast for a war game, but it doesn’t feel light. The historical grounding and the asymmetry between a scrappy, entrenched Loyalist defense and a Confederate side that has to earn its foothold give it real dramatic shape.
Grant; What are you most pleased about with the design?
David: I’m just happy that we had such an amazing team come together to work on this game. Trevor and me from a design perspective, Kwanchai and Jina bringing the game together through their illustration and graphic design, with Denver at Flying Pig Games leading the way. It was a dream team for this project that I am so passionate about. Of all the games I’ve worked on recently, this is the game closest to my heart. I just want to spread the word about these amazing people who fought for what they believed in.
Grant: What other games are you currently working on?
David: It’s a busy stretch. Alongside Rebels Against Rebellion, I’ve got Night Witches coming, co-designed with Liz Davidson (Fort Circle Games); two expansions for Sniper Elite with Roger Tankersley (Rebellion Unplugged); Flintlock!, a Seven Years’ War and French & Indian War game built on Paolo Mori’s Blitzkrieg! System, also with Roger (Floodgate Games); For the Gods!, co-designed with Trevor and Brett J. Gilbert (Mighty Boards); Zheng He, co-designed with Geoff Engelstein (GMT); and Undaunted 2200: Revolution, co-designed with Trevor (Osprey Games). There are some others on the way, but those are further off…
Thanks as always for having me!
As always, thank you so much David for your time in answering our questions and for showing me the game about a year and a half ago. I very much look forward to playing the final product and wish you well with the Kickstarter campaign.
If you are interested, we did an interview video with David while attending Buckeye Game Fest in the spring of 2025 and you can watch that at the following link for more information on the game:
Day 2 dawned early with me getting up at 6:20am due to the sunlight beaming into our window as we had not carefully drawn the blinds together tightly. We got ready and left the room fur breakfast and arrived in the Winterberry Room at 8:30 ready to dive into the Grand Tactical Series.
As we approached the table, I was absolutely blown away by the size and scale of it and the multiple boards laid out on it with plexiglass and secured with binder clips and tape. The boards combined measure 17’ of wargaming good and include The Devil’s Cauldron: The Battles for Arnhem and Nijmegen and Where Eagles Dare: The Battle for Hell’s Highway from Multi-Man Publishing.
The game state is actually a continuation of a game that started at WBC last year. Joe and Matt took pictures of the game board and also of each of the formations and their position from last year’s game and had set it up in that state to play over the next week.
Here is a look at those carefully taken pictures. Such detail and care given to the game. How am I not going to love this experience?
There were a total of 6 of us playing the game and we were loosely assigned a few formations to be in charge of. Actually we were told we were in command and were to make plans and then discuss those with the CIC’s to get approval and then execute that plan. A lot of autonomy and ability to go about it individually.
Over the span of 10 hours we played and finished the 0700 and 0800 turns for September 19th. This system is very fun and crunchy but also involved. When attacks are made there is very structured procedure but that isn’t overly complex. Company bonus checks initiate the action and the player will have to roll less than or equal to their troop quality number to gain a +2 to their combat value. Typically this troop quality ranges from a high of 7 to as low as 2 for artillery. Once completed, this bonus is added to their combat factor and then is reduced for the terrain defensive bonus and any defense shown in the enemy counter. Typically you are targeting following under a 7 for good units and a 2 for lesser units. Sometimes these modifiers make it so only a roll of a 0 on a d10 will hit. A 0 is not a 10 in this game. But there is always a chance. Hits are then referred to the CRT which uses the rolled value to refer to the type of Fire to determine results. Types of Fire include indirect, HE or small arms and results include a Cohesion Hit, with multiple Cohesion Hits leading to step losses, step losses of 1, elimination or suppression. There is also limited opportunity fire and assaults that require a bravery/morale checks. At first it seemed over the top but once I picked it up was really fairly simple.
Activation is chit pull and works very well. A formation activating gets to do something with each unit but then can spend Command Points to take additional moves or attacks. Just a very solid system that reminds me a lot of the Company Scale System also designed by Adam Starkweather. The system focuses heavily on how well division and regimental HQ’s can coordinate their sub-units and handle combat stress. I liked it very much and look forward to playing a few more hours tomorrow before moving into some other games.
I also wanted to show off the ingenuity and commitment of these Grognards and their setup for GTS.
First off the lighting. They have light poles that provide above the board light which makes a huge difference in visibility of the game and its counters.
They also have magnetized the chits and when they are drawn are posted on a board for all to see who has activated and who is up. There are chits drawn early but that are hidden on the board to allow for the next player to begins planning to speed game play.
The table they use is also custom made and is modular to fit the various games in the series. The bases are sturdy and they appear to be solid but are assembled quickly.
They use 1/4” thick plexi that is quite thick and has somewhat of a magnifying effect. It is very well done and made playing the game more enjoyable.
While playing, there was another nearby big in-design East Front wargame being played by Antony Birkett, Chip Saltsman and Curtis Baer. If you didn’t know, all 3 have been involved with, designing and developing several volumes in the Operational Combat Series from MMP. Tony has designed several volumes including The Third Winter, The Forgotten Battles and Crimea.
The system is called the Operational Warfare System and its first game is called After Stalingrad designed by Antony Birkett. Think modern mechanics being brought to the Operational Combat System in Tony’s words.
The system is focused on maneuver and command and control and uses HQ’s with different amounts of Action Points used to activate units. The game play is back and forth and interactive and it was said there is little downtime. They hope to use this system to tell the study of other WWII battles in North Africa, the Mediterranean and Western Fronts, as well as the tried and true East Front.
The fame has been in designer and development over the past 6 months and is being made ready due extensive play testing. They are currently shopping the design to publishers and hope that it is published in 2027.
I was able to shoot a 15 minute interview with these guys and had some really good discussions about their goals with the game and the system highlights.
I also met at different times of the day several fans of the channel. I met 2 first time attendees this year who both watch our videos named Jason and Bill who were both class acts.
Jason.
Bill.
This is probably a bit personal but Bill told me that our videos helped during a time when his now deceased wife was sick and he was in a dark place. That was very touching to me and I appreciated that we somehow assisted him through that difficult time.
We met Akar Bharadvaj while attending SDHistCon in 2023 and played his award winning design Tyranny of Blood: India’s Caste System Under British Colonialism, 1750-1947 and very much enjoyed the experience and talking with him about game design. Since that time, he has been working on another designer called Chalice of Poison: The Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988 from GMT Games, which was announced in March on their P500. Chalice of Poison is the first volume in a new series that models complex conflicts not only as clashes between adversaries in the air, land, and sea, but also as political struggles within the regimes and military forces fighting it. We reached out to Akar and he was more than willing to share.
*Keep in mind that the design is still undergoing playtesting and development and that any details or component pictures shared in this interview are for prototype purposes and will definitely change prior to final publication as they enter the art department.
Grant: Akar welcome to our blog. First off please tell us a little about yourself. What are your hobbies? What’s your day job?
Akar: Thanks, Alex and Grant! It’s great to be here. I live in sunny Arlington, Virginia, just across the river from our nation’s capital. Besides board games, I enjoy travel, museums, graphic design, bad movies, comedy shows, and nice meals. As for my day job, I work as professional wargame designer. I work on teams that make analytic games and tabletop exercises to help policymakers think through challenging issues related to international relations. That said, Chalice of Poison is solely a personal project, and does not reflect my day job or the views of my employer.
Grant: What motivated you to break into game design? What have you enjoyed most about the experience thus far?
Akar: I’ve always enjoyed board games since I was a kid, and have gotten into historical games in the last 15 years or so. I flirted with the idea of designing my own for years, but then I actually decided to design one in 2020 when I heard about the Zenobia Award, which is a competition and mentorship program for historical games on underrepresented topics. I was looking for a good project to distract me from the ongoing pandemic, so I entered the contest on a lark, not expecting it to go anywhere. But Zenobia did a great job of helping me walk gradually through the game design process, and before I knew it, I was hooked. When the award project finished, I learned that I had won first place. But more importantly, I had discovered a new passion.
My two favorite things about game design are the creative process and the people. I find the creative process immensely satisfying. I get to analyze systems, experiment, and iteratively solve problems and improve a process, and there’s few consequences to failing! If I find that a design doesn’t work, I can just move on to another one, and hopefully return at some point in the future. It’s a beautiful process, and one that actually feels a lot like playing a game.
I also love the people I’ve met through game design. I’ve made lots of designer friends through various cons, and it’s always a delight playing games with them, talking about game design, and just chatting. I always leave cons full of inspiration and ideas, and it’s largely due to all the great people in this field.
Grant: What was it like winning the 2021 Zenobia Award for Tyranny of Blood? Where does this game stand at the present time?
Akar: Winning the award was one of the greatest moments of my life. As I mentioned earlier, I started designing the game just to see what it was like, and I didn’t expect it to go anywhere. (If I knew there would eventually be interest, I would’ve designed a simpler game as my first one!) So, I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that I won, and was excited at how much interest it received.
For those who do not know, Tyranny of Blood is about changes to the Indian social structure under British colonialism, through the lens of the caste system. I designed a fully playable game during the Zenobia Award process, but like so many first designs, it had a bit of a “kitchen sink” approach, and had far too many layers placed on top of each other.
I realized that the game had lots of great elements, but it had some flaws at its core, and so I needed to redesign lots of it. The topic is a difficult one, both ethically and in terms of complexity, so I needed to get the game right to do justice to the subject matter and avoid creating something offensive. On top of all that, the rapid prototyping during the Zenobia process left me exhausted (in a good way). So, I decided to take a break from it, and work on other games in the meantime to improve my game design skills before I can return to Tyranny. Now that Chalice is in development, I can return to that project. That said, it’s been a while, so I need to read through my notes and remember all the nuances of the topic.
While attending SDHistCon in November 2023, we played Tyranny of Blood with Akar and had a great time. We shot the following video interview at the time and you can watch that at the following link:
Grant: What is your upcoming game Chalice of Poison about?
Akar: Chalice of Poison is about the Iran-Iraq War, which took place in the 1980’s. The game focuses on the interplay between external conflict and internal regime stability. You play as one of the two countries, and you are trying to improve your military effectiveness so that you can win the war, without making your military so effective that it becomes a threat to your own regime. Players can win the game if they capture certain objectives in the war, or they can lose if their regime collapses due to political challenges.
The actual combat resolution and prosecution of the war is only one part of the game; the other part is managing your regime and ensuring it does not fall to internal threats, whether that be generals who instigate a coup d’etat or dissident groups fighting against your government.
Grant: What should the name convey to players about the history of the Iran-Iraq War?
Akar: The phrase “chalice of poison” comes from a quote from Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. When he signed the ceasefire agreement in 1988 that ended the war, without any major concessions despite all the bloodshed, he described it as “more deadly than drinking from a chalice of poison.”
Additionally, I found the evocative phrase to be an appropriate name for a game about accepting risk and making sacrifices to achieve objectives. The game is full of hard decisions that seem enticing at first, but end up doing internal damage.
On a lighter note, ever since Tyranny of Blood, I’ve been trying to give each of my designs a name that sounds like a heavy metal album.
“Taking this decision is more deadly than drinking from a chalice of poison.” ~ Ayatollah Khomeini, on accepting the ceasefire that ended the Iran-Iraq War
Grant: What is the new series called? What type of games might be included?
Akar: I haven’t been able to find that perfect name yet, despite coming up with a long list of ideas. So, the series doesn’t yet have a name. If anyone has an idea, I would love to hear them! Please sound off in the comments.
The system best models historical conflicts where major dynamic changes occurred within the halls of state power and the military command structure, rather than with territorial exchanges on the battlefield. So, future games in the series could model other conflicts where weak states fought each other while dealing with significant internal tensions. There are no shortage of those throughout history, from the modern Middle East to 1960’s Vietnam to Ancient Rome.
Grant: What games have you used as inspiration for your design?
Akar: I tend to prefer historical games that include strong political dynamics over straightforward wargames. So, a major point of inspiration has been the Great Statesmen Series, to include Congress of Vienna, Versailles 1919, and Churchill. Those games do an excellent job of demonstrating the interplay between peace negotiations and warfare, and it inspired a lot of the ideas I had about war being played in two phases, and how the two interact with each other. Instead of the connection between fighting war and negotiating peace, I focused on the connection between fighting war and improving military effectiveness. From a purely user experience perspective, I enjoy the tactile feel of placing cubes on cards that was in Versailles 1919, and the mechanic seemed to work well in this game.
Additionally, the war mechanics are loosely based on the States of Siege Series, though with a lot of complexity added. That system offers a simple push-pull model for combat, which I employed for a 2-player tug-of-war. I needed a fairly simple mechanism at the core, so that I could layer many other mechanics on top of it without overwhelming players.
Lastly, one of the solitaire modes is inspired by Mark Herman’s Peloponnesian War, a genius solitaire game where players face off against a bot, but if they begin to defeat the bot by too much, they then switch sides and have to fight against everything they set up in previous turns.
Grant: How have you used and followed the academic research of Dr. Caitlin Talmadge?
Akar: Dr. Talmadge’s 2015 book The Dictator’s Army explores the question of why some authoritarian regimes, especially so-called “strongman regimes,” are ironically so bad at fighting war. Her research delves deeply into 2 case studies: Iran versus Iraq, and North versus South Vietnam.
Her argument is that the factors that reduce the threat of coups also reduce military effectiveness at fighting adversaries. The ideal military promotes based on merit, trains troops robustly, incentivizes open and honest communication, and empowers junior officers to improvise within reason. Conversely, strongman regimes tend to do the opposite: promoting based on sycophancy, avoiding training, incentivizing lies and secrecy, and making all decisions through an inefficient centralized command structure. These traits help dictators feel more secure, but they make militaries less flexible to deal with changing circumstances.
This argument underpins the core argument of Chalice of Poison. The main thrust of the game is reforming your military to improve each of those four factors, but at a cost to your own political power.
Grant: What is important to model or include in a game about the Iran-Iraq War?
Akar; A game on the Iran-Iraq War needs to provide a very specific incentive structure, by which players feel the hubris of thinking a quick victory is possible, but also a deep sense of desperation when things go poorly. It also requires mechanics for dealing with internal stability within each country, and being able to affect stability in the adversary’s country. Lastly, such a game must afford players the latitude to take a wide variety of actions; the story of the Iran-Iraq War is two countries quickly falling into a stalemate, and then experimenting with a large number of strategies and unsavory steps to break the stalemate and achieve victory.
Grant: What challenges did you encounter in the design? How have you overcome them?
Akar: I had to design the game carefully to reflect some misperceptions that the actual historical figures had. We know now that the Iran-Iraq War was an enormous catastrophe for both countries, but the game had to give players some false hope that the game could end at any turn. As such, I had to implement a variable game length, with victory conditions that contract as the game progresses. I had to pace the game well so that players always feel like they’re on the verge of victory (or collapse), and I think the game is nearly there.
The early iterations for the game were very mathy, with a lot of dice roll modifiers and additions to provide bonuses for military reform. It wound up not being fun; either players would have their eyes glaze over due to the excessive math, or they would try to calculate every little decision and descend into analysis paralysis. Instead, I replaced all the bonuses with card play mechanisms, which thematically worked, because it gave players more flexibility to deal with bad situations. I replaced most of the math with a simple card color-matching system.
The game has a unique action costing system that requires players to push their luck, carefully budgeting their political power or else risk losing it all (and the game). I learned that most players instinctually spend their full action allotment, so if I give them 10 points, they want to spend 10 points! So, I had to add in some “brakes” to stop new players from losing the game immediately.
I had 2 additional in-game challenges that I needed to solve. One was how to depict the more unsavory aspects of the conflict, such as chemical weapons and human wave attacks, which were historical atrocities, but necessary to tell the story of this conflict. Typically, a game would have a penalty or cost for doing such things, but in the actual historical case, neither country actually suffered a penalty for these actions until well after the war. Additionally, I needed to balance the game a bit more, to give the losing side a chance. I quickly realized that both of these challenges could actually solve each other. I created a “Desperate Measures” mechanic that allows the losing side to catch up a bit, but at a moral cost.
Grant: What is the scale of the game? Force structure of units?
Akar: The game plays at the political and strategic level, so it is pretty abstract. It models the conflict along up to six fronts: the air, three or four different ground fronts, and the naval front. Each one has an abstracted military strength represented by zero to six wooden chevrons. Each side has one air force, one navy, and three different ground forces: the elite guard, the regular army, and the paramilitary. Each of these five forces has a commander in charge of it. That is as complex as the game’s force structure gets; it does not model more specific units or officer ranks.
Grant: What is each player’s overall goal in the game? What does this mean?
Akar: Each player is trying to win the war while preserving their regime.
Winning the war means capturing a certain amount of territory. Most spaces on the map contain stars representing the relative importance of that space. A player advances on the War Progress Track one space for each star captured. Additionally, the War Progress Track includes an Objective counter that starts at 10, but decreases as the game goes on, representing war-weariness and a reduction in expectations for what players define as “victory.” If a player’s War Progress meets or exceeds the current Objective, that player wins the war (and the game). Of note, a player can potentially win even with zero points, which reflects what happened in real life.
Preserving the regime means holding onto political power cubes within the Regime pool on the board. If the Regime pool has zero cubes in it, the player’s regime falls and that player loses. Cubes move out of the Regime pool when players reform their military, improve their commanders, face problems with dissidents, or fight against a coup d’etat. The fewer cubes in the Regime pool, the higher the risk of internal problems erupting.
Grant: How do players go about developing a professional army that values competence and skill?
Akar: Players start with a “coup-proof” military that is pretty ineffective at fighting, but they can expend political power, and thereby accepting risk to their regimes, to make reforms.
Grant: What actions are available to players to reform their military?
Akar: Players have four major actions they can take. They can coordinate to allow commanders to communicate openly with each other and their underlings, empower their forces in the field to make decisions for themselves, promote commanders based on competence instead of personal loyalty or family ties, and train existing commanders to be better at fighting. Each of these actions has four different levels; players can upgrade the actions to improve their effectiveness, but at a cost of political power.
Grant: What are the costs of this process? How do players manage these threats?
Akar: The costs of each action comes in political power cubes. Each action starts at level zero, which does not cost anything, but is not very useful. Players can make reforms, which essentially upgrades each of these actions one step at a time, up to level four. Upgrading to a higher level requires placing that number of cubes on that card. Actually taking actions usually has an additional cost in power cubes.
Players need to “push their luck” to best achieve reforms gradually. Doing too much too fast is a recipe for disaster. Players can spend a large number of cubes each turn, but they will not necessarily get them all back at the end of the turn. Reforming too quickly can threaten regime stability. To protect against these threats, players will need to go slow, keeping enough political power behind to stabilize their regimes, but inaction can also be risky if it means losing the war.
Grant: What is the Turn Sequence?
Akar: The game has up to 9 turns, each representing a year from 1980 to 1988. Each turn has 4 phases:
In the Planning Phase, players issue hidden orders for six fronts to carry out this turn.
In the Action Phase, players reform their militaries so that they can improve the likelihood that these orders are successful.
In the Battle Phase, players resolve orders, change territorial control, fight dissident groups, and learn lessons for future battles.
Finally, in the Unrest Phase, players face internal threats, to include popular outcry, dissident groups, and coup attempts.
Grant: How are hidden orders issued?
Akar: Each front has a space for an order tile, which players place face-down during the Planning Phase, so that they are secret from the other player. Each order tile has four options, which are chosen by how players rotate their tile:
Attack allows players to start a battle against the adversary, and to advance into their territory if they have a stronger force after the battle.
Defend allows players to fight against an attacker at an advantage, and to bring in a small amount of reinforcements, but does not permit advancement.
Subjugate (Air and Ground only) allows players to fight a battle against dissidents.
Attack Tankers (Navy only) allows players to threaten the adversary’s political power.
Regroup allows players to bring in a large amount of reinforcements, but not to fight in any battle that occurs.
Air and Naval forces have one order tiles each, but Ground forces have three different order tiles, representing the three different ground forces in the game: the Guard, Regular Army, and Paramilitary. The more elite the ground force, the earlier it gets to execute its order and deal damage, which gives it a slight advantage in combat.
Grant: How is combat handled?
Akar: Combat strength is a function of 3 different factors:
The Order tile, which represents orders from on high, determines whether a battle occurs, and if it does, which order the forces use to deal damage.
The Commander card, which represents high-level military leadership, determines the damage the front will do that turn. Each commander has a hit value for each of three battle suits: Fervor, Discipline, and Leadership.
The Battle card, which represents forces in the field, determines which suit on the Commander is used to deal hits on the opposing force. A new Battle card is drawn during each battle.
For each hit defined in the previous step, players remove one military strength, represented by wooden chevrons, from that front. If an attacking front is stronger than the opposing front, it may advance and capture enemy territory, for some bonuses.
In each battle where one side deals more damage than the other, the active Commander learns a lesson about how to fight, which changes his stats. Of note, not every lesson is a good one; some lessons can actually make the Commanders worse at fighting; for instance, if it makes them complacent or arrogant.
Grant: What elements of unrest confront the players? How do they handle these challenges?
Akar: Unrest comes in 3 forms, during the Unrest phase:
Public outcry occurs if a player does not attack in a given turn. This removes a political power cube from the game.
Dissidents represent groups that threaten the regime’s power. The strongest dissident group on the map each turn has a massive negative effect, the second strongest has a moderate penalty, and the other three have a slight penalty. If left unchecked, the dissident groups can cause major chaos, but any troops dedicated to fighting dissidents are necessarily not fighting the adversary, so balance is important.
Coup attempts may break out if a commander has more political support than the regime. Each commander has a number of cubes on the card, which corresponds to his risk to the regime and typically corresponds with his competence. If a commander (or a group of commanders allowed to coordinate) has more cubes than the regime, a coup attempt may break out, and then the player will have to fight battles against the rebellious commander(s).
Grant: How does the design use cards?
Akar: The game has 4 types of cards:
Action cards allow players to choose from among four different military changes each turn, as listed above. Players can “reform” or upgrade these actions to have more of an effect, at the cost of political power.
Personnel cards represent the major figures involved in the conflict. They are dual use cards:
When horizontal, they are Commander cards, meaning that the person on the card now Commands forces. These Commanders each have different strengths across three suits (discipline, fervor, and leadership), which dictate how much damage they do each turn.
When vertical, they are Battle cards, meaning that they are forces in the field who are actually fighting the enemy. Battle cards dictate which suit on the Commander deals damage in a given fight.
Dissident cards represent the negative penalties from the five dissident groups that are in the game. Each turn, during the Unrest phase, players draw one of these cards, which determines what effect they have. The strongest dissident group this turn has a major penalty, the second-strongest has a moderate penalty, and the other three groups have a small penalty.
Grant: What is the layout of the board? What do the point to point tracks represent?
Akar: The War Map is a point-to-point map, which was a necessary design choice because the terrain along the Iran-Iraq border only allows approaches through specific narrow corridors, to avoid marshes, mountains, and other rough terrain. Additionally, the amount of land that each side managed to capture in the war was miniscule, so having a map to scale made little sense.
The map has different squares representing ground territory and sea locations. Black squares are Iraqi-controlled at game start, and red ones are Iranian-controlled. Each space has icons: stars are Victory Points, representing strategically and symbolically important areas; circles are Economy, representing oil infrastructure and sea lanes, and hexagons show the presence of dissident groups.
Beyond the map is a series of tracks representing the current turn, the strength of each country’s economy, and the current war progress (i.e., the winning side’s victory points and current objective).
Additionally, each side of the board has an area to show each regime’s current political power and active military commanders.
Grant: How is victory achieved?
Akar: The most important spaces on the board have stars on them, which represent victory points. Every time a side captures a starred space, the War Progress counter advances that many spaces. (Of note: this value is zero-sum, so only the War Progress of the winning side is marked; if the winning side flips, the counter flips to show that the other side is winning.)
Additionally, an Objective counter, marked with a dove, represents the current victory condition. The game begins with the Iraqi side having maximalist objectives, but as the game progresses, each side is willing to scale down their goals and definition of “victory.” So, the Objective counter moves left each turn, and additionally moves due to player actions.
If the War Progress counter ever meets or exceeds the Objective marker at the end of the Battle Phase, the game ends and that side is the winner! Of note, a side can even win with zero victory points, which probably was the real-world historical outcome.
Additionally, if a side ever runs out of Political Power cubes from their pool at the end of the Unrest Phase, that regime collapses and loses the game. If the other side still has cubes, then they win the game! If both regimes collapse on the same turn, then both players lose and Henry Kissinger wins the game.
Grant: What do you feel the game models well?
Akar: The game does a great job of building tension, fostering an alternating sense of hubris and desperation, and encouraging experimentation through trying different combinations of actions until one comes out ahead. All of these factors were present in the actual history, so I am excited that the game design reflects these traits.
Grant: What are you most pleased about with the design?
Akar: I am pleased about the game’s originality. I don’t know of another game that shows the competing priorities of internal political stability and external military effectiveness quite in this way. I would be most excited if I (and eventually, other designers) could employ this system to explore other conflicts through history, or perhaps even outside of history.
Grant: What other designs are you contemplating or already working on?
Akar: As I mentioned earlier, I’m hoping to return to Tyranny of Blood, my game about the Indian caste system, and finally finish it. This one is the furthest along, but I have other games that I’m in the early stages of designing.
I’m hoping to adapt the Chalice of Poison system for a 3-4 game about the Vietnam War, tentatively called Riding the Tiger. My idea so far is to add some more asymmetry to the system. The South Vietnam player will likely play similarly to the two sides in Chalice, as an unstable strongman regime prone to coup attempts. The United States player will not face coup attempts, but will have to deal with popular support and an election every four turns. The North Vietnam player will have to manage its politburo, attempting to exert influence over the southern revolutionaries and balance between its Chinese and Soviet patrons (and their competing priorities for Vietnam).
I have another game concept, tentatively called Iron and Cardboard, about intra-alliance dynamics and competition among the Warsaw Pact nations as they rebuild from the destruction of WWII under Soviet domination.
Lastly, I have a concept called Pillars of Fire about competition and conflict among Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia from 1979 to 1991. It will be asymmetrical, based on the 3 different systems of government (revolutionary theocracy, strongman dictatorship, and conservative monarchy), which will vie for dominance of the region. Chalice actually began as the military module of Pillars before it took on a life of its own, but I think the grand strategy of this rivalry is worth exploring in its own game.
While attending Buckeye Game Fest in spring 2024, we met with a new designer named John Lapham. John had with him a new game called A More Perfect Union and we got a chance to play the game and chat about it with him. A More Perfect Union is a 2-player card driven game that simulates the public debate over the ratification of the Constitution that took place across the United States from 1787-1789. The game uses the same system as Twilight Struggle and 1960: The Making of the President but felt very fresh and unique to the situation. Catastrophe Games is planning a Kickstarter campaign in the near future and we reached out to John to see about getting some more insight into the design and he was more than willing to share.
Grant: John welcome to our blog. First off please tell us a little about yourself. What are your hobbies? What’s your day job?
John: Thanks so much for having me, Grant. My main hobbies will surprise no one – gaming and history. I also enjoy hiking, cooking, and theater. As for my day job, that is in the past. I’m retired now. Before that, I had jobs in both the legal and educational professions.
Grant: What motivated you to break into game design? What have you enjoyed most about the experience thus far?
John: I wanted a game on this topic and no one else seemed willing to oblige me—although Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard came close with Founding Fathers. I enjoyed the beginning and end of the experience. I love historical research and pondering messy interpretive narratives and historical hypotheticals. So, I was not surprised by how much I enjoyed the front end of the design process. What surprised me was how much I enjoyed the collaboration that occurred near the end of the project, and the practical and artistic challenges of turning an idea into an actual, physical game. I had no experience with that process and enjoyed learning about it.
Grant: What is your upcoming game A More Perfect Union about?
John: A More Perfect Union is about the political struggle to ratify the U.S. Constitution in the thirteen states from 1787-1789. The game employs the popular card-driven mechanics of such well-known games as Twilight Struggle and 1960: The Making of the President.
Grant: Why was this a subject that drew your interest?
John: It was the subject of some of my earliest graduate school research in the late 1980’s (yeah, don’t ask, I’ve been around the block more than a few times). As a history educator, I was drawn to less well-known stories, involving people and events that popular and school histories have neglected. This is one such story, and it is an important one that has enduring relevance for understanding much of American history and our current turbulent moment.
Grant: What is your design goal with the game?
John: I had two main goals. I wanted the game to offer a window into the history of that moment and to spark interest in the topic. I also wanted it to be a fun, tense game that could be played in a couple hours but with enough complexity and variability to invite repeated plays.
Grant: What from the Constitutional Convention was most important to model?
John: Ok, that’s a hard one. I cannot give you just one. Several things were important to me.
First, I wanted the game to capture the intense war of words that occurred in the nationwide debate. America was on the leading edge of the first wave of mass media made possible by high literacy rates and the printing press. Americans of the period were highly literate, avid consumers of news, and intensely interested in politics. Ninety different newspapers and hundreds of presses across the country printed thousands of essays, letters, and pamphlets over the course of the debate.
Second, I wanted the game to capture the importance of political strategy in terms of grabbing and holding onto the initiative in the debate through the scheduling of the thirteen state conventions, as well as exploiting the momentum gained from successful outcomes in those conventions.
Third, I wanted to express the tension and uncertainty felt by the delegates during the actual conventions themselves. Delegates often went into these conventions uncertain of their outcomes.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I wanted players to come away with an understanding of the immense challenges faced by the new nation to come together and form a strong union that did not threaten the individual liberty that Americans prized at this time. It is in large part the work of the Anti-Federalists that delivered the country its Bill of Rights, a fact that is perhaps too often overlooked or forgotten by modern Americans.
Grant: What sources did you consult about the details of the history? What one must read source would you recommend?
John: Tremendous digital resources are available on the ratification debate thanks to the phenomenal work done by the Center for the Study of the American Constitution at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (https://csac.history.wisc.edu/). I encourage anyone interested in this topic to explore their website and the treasure trove of material available there.
For a more curated collection of primary source material, the Library of America has published an excellent two-volume collection of many of the most important essays, speeches, newspaper articles, pamphlets, and private letters, The Debate on the Constitution, which also includes a detailed chronology and biographical information on the participants in the debates.
For a single, narrative history of the entire series of events, the best choice is Pauline Maier’s Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788, published in 2010. Reading that book was the last nudge that I needed to start designing the game.
Grant: What is the goal of the game? How do players go about trying to sway States to their way of thinking?
John: Fortunately for me as a designer, the main goal of the game was set out for me in the Constitution itself, which required nine states to ratify it to become binding on those states. Thus, the Federalists win the game immediately if nine states ratify the constitution without recommended amendments, and conversely the Anti-Federalists need five state conventions to reject the Constitution to win immediately. If enough states thread the needle of compromise and ratify the Constitution with recommended amendments, then victory is determined by the weight of the states on each side of the ledger.
The primary tools to convince voters in the states are direct campaign efforts, which involve the use of the campaign points in particular states, and the play of publication events. Publication events address one of three broad sets of issues that animated the debate – commerce, states rights, and individual rights. Each state in turn has a rating that reflects how important each of those sets of issues is to its voters. As a result, the effect of a publication will be more or less, depending on the state in which it appears.
Grant: What is the layout of the board?
John: The board includes several broad features – a map of the thirteen states with a state information and holding box for each state, turn and round tracks, a convention track, a state status track, and a table of information.
Grant: What information is contained in each State Box?
John: Each State Box has a number that reflects the maximum number of combined player cubes that can be present in the state, icons showing if either player starts with cubes in the state, numerical ratings for each of the publication issues, the convention value, and the momentum value of the state, and a spot for the state’s status marker, which shows if the state has scheduled or held its convention. Finally, the state boxes are color coded to show the section of the card deck in which the state’s convention card is seeded.
Grant: What are the 5 different words and corresponding values in these boxes mean? How are these elements connected to the cards?
John: The words “Commerce, States, and Individual” relate to the three publication issues and the numbers (0,1, or 2) next to them reflects the effect that a publication on that issue will have in the state – either adding or removing that number of player cubes in the state. The word “Convention” refers to the convention value of the state and the number next to that is the number of campaign points (CP) a player must expend either to call an early convention in the state or to attempt to take control of the State Status Marker through legislative maneuvering. The word “Momentum” refers to the campaign bonus a player will earn if they win the state’s convention.
The issues ratings connect directly to the publication event cards. The Convention ratings connect to the expenditure of CP gained from card play. The Momentum rating does not connect to the cards but instead relates to the outcome of the convention in the state.
Grant: What is the purpose of the State Factors Table and the State Issues Table?
John: This table summarizes in one place the information contained in the individual State Boxes, and it groups the states by their color codes to show players when they will draw the State Convention Cards over the course of the game.
Grant: What is the Back Room? What role does this play in the game?
John: Each player has a Back Room in which they can place a maximum of two cards. Cards in the Back Room are not part of a player’s hand, cannot be played during a player’s action round, and are not discarded at the end of the turn. Players can access the cards in their Back Room at three times – (1) during the card draw phase of each turn, when they can freely remove or add cards to the Back Room, (2) at the start of any convention, when they can remove, but not add, cards from their Back Room, and (3) during an action phase by playing a card for the sole purpose of adding or removing cards from their Back Room.
The Back Room plays two main roles in the game: (1) it provides a means by which players can hold onto powerful events that are not yet ripe to play – often convention events for conventions that will happen on a future turn, and (2) it provides a way to avoid playing a strong opponent’s event at an inopportune time.
Grant: How does the game use cards?
John: This a classic Card-Driven-Game. Each player is dealt a hand of cards each turn and plays one card each round either to spend the Campaign Points provided by the card or to implement an event described on the card.
Grant: What different types of cards are there? What is the purpose of these different types?
John: There are five different types of cards: State Convention Cards, Publication Events, Convention Events, Reaction Events, and General Events.
Each state in the game has a State Convention Card, which are mandatory events that must be played in the turn in which they are drawn. They grant the player cubes in the state and control of the State Legislature, and they schedule the state’s convention by placing the state’s status marker on the Convention Track.
Publication Events publish and distribute a publication addressing a particular issue in a particular state that and a few of its neighbors. Most of these events will specify the state in which they originate and the issue that they address. A few allow the player to pick the state and/or issue for the publication.
Convention Events can be played for their event only during a convention and will have some effect on the outcome of that convention.
Reaction Events are played in response to some other game effect.
General Events are a catch-all for any other type of event.
Grant: Can you share a few examples of cards and explain their use?
John: Sure, here is an example of a State Convention Card:
Each state has one of these cards and they all work the same way.
These cards trigger the scheduling of State Conventions.
They must be played on the same turn they are drawn and cannot be discarded or placed in a player’s Back Room.
They are seeded in a particular quarter of the draw deck at the start of the game, as indicated by the colored banner in the upper right corner of the card.
When played, you move the indicated state’s Status Marker from the map to Box 1 on the Convention Track and mark it with a cube of your color. This represents that you are in control of the state legislature and can spend CP to call an early convention in this state on a later turn. In addition, you may add or remove 2 cubes in the state.
Here is an example of a Publication Event:
These are the most involved events in the game but like the State Convention Cards they all work the same way. So, once you’ve done it a few times, it becomes straightforward.
The red star identifies this card as an Anti-Federalist Event.
The “3” in the star shows that this card is worth 3 CP.
The newspaper icon under the star shows that this card is a publication event, as do the words in the white banner running along the left side of the card.
When played for the event, publications are distributed in a number of states equal to the CP value of the card. In this case, that means 3 states. The first state the publication must be distributed in is the state identified by the postal code in the title of the card. In this case, it must be distributed in Virginia. In addition, the publication may be distributed in twoadditional states that are adjacent to Virginia for a total of 3 states.
The issue addressed by this publication is individual rights, which is indicated in text at the bottom of the card. The issue controls how many cubes the player will add or remove from each state based on that issue’s value (from 0-2) in each state. The individual rights value in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina is 2, but it is only 1 in Maryland. That means that this publication with add or remove 2 cubes in Virginia, Pennsylvania or North Carolina, but will only add or remove only 1 cube in Maryland.
Grant: What happens if you play an opponent’s event? What type of thinking and strategy does this create?
John: Generally, the event triggers, although the player gets to decide whether the event happens before or after they use the card for campaign points. There are two ways to mitigate powerful opponent events. They can be played during the Initiative Phase of the turn to bid for initiative without triggering the event, although doing so often reduces the player’s chance of winning the initiative for the turn, which is costly in its own right. They can also be stored in the player’s Back Room for possible play on a future turn when the event might be less damaging. This too is costly as the Back Room can hold only two cards and those spaces can also be used to save your own events for a future turn when they will be more effective. Thematically, in both instances you are spending time and energy managing a potential problem rather than advancing your own agenda.
Grant: What is the general Sequence of Play?
John: Each turn has the following phases:
Card Draw – Slightly more involved than a standard CDG because each turn you can change the cards in your backroom, which is often a challenging decision.
Initiative Phase – This phase sets the initiative and the first player for the turn.
Action Phase – The heart of the game when players alternate playing cards from their hands.
Convention Phase – State Conventions are resolved or move closer to resolution.
Voter Apathy Phase – Some voters lose interest and players remove some cubes from the map.
Grant: What is a Convention and how does it work? What is the outcome of this process?
John: A Convention is when a state makes its final decision as to whether it will ratify the Constitution. Thematically, this is the moment that elected delegates meet, debate, and vote on the Constitution. To model the drama of these events, players have a final opportunity to play cards that can affect the outcome. After that, the player’s cube totals in the state are compared. If the Federalists have the most cubes, the state ratifies the Constitution. If the Antifederalists have the most, the state does not ratify. If the two factions have an equal number of cubes, the state ratifies with recommended amendments.
Grant: How does Campaigning work?
John: Each state has a set number of voters. This number puts a cap on the number of combined player cubes that may be placed in that state. Players can think of it this way: the voters in each state can have one of three states of mind – undecided, Federalist, or Antifederalist. At the start of the game, most voters are still undecided, which is reflected by the fact that only a few cubes are placed on the board during setup. Campaigning involves the expenditure of Campaign Points (CP) to persuade these votes to change their mind, represented by placing or removing cubes in the states. It costs 1 CP to place a cube in a state. It costs 2 CP to remove a cube from a state. If a state is already at its cube limit, the player will first have to spend points to remove an opponent’s cube before they can place their own cube. Thus, to replace an opponent’s cube with one of your own costs 3 CP. Cards range in CP from 1-4. So many cards will not grant the player enough CP to replace an opponent’s cube with one of their own.
Grant: How is victory achieved?
John: The Federalists gain an immediate victory if nine states ratify the Constitution without amendments. Conversely, the Antifederalists win if five states reject the Constitution. If neither player achieves these conditions before the end of the final turn of the game, at least one state has ratified the Constitution with recommended amendments. Victory at that point is determined by comparing the values of the states in each section of the State Status Track. Each state has a value that represents its political and economic importance – the larger the state the more it is worth. Each player gets full credit for each of the states in their column and the Antifederalists get partial credit (the Convention value) for each state that ratified with recommended amendments. Thematically, this represents a compromise situation, where the Constitution is ratified but with amendments. The stronger the opposition to the original Constitution, the more impactful those amendments will be. Strong amendments represent a partial victory for the Antifederalists. Historically, the Antifederalists efforts resulted in the adoption of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights.
Grant: Which side has the tougher challenge to meet their goal?
John: The challenges faced by the two sides are different, but I hope they are roughly equal in difficulty.
Grant: What are some basic strategies the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist players?
John: The Federalists need to strive to win states quickly and build on that early momentum. They may need to consider making aggressive moves early in the game to take states off the board. They also must stay competitive is as many states as possible. They can only afford to lose four states, and the deck is stacked against them in two states – North Carolina and Rhode Island. The Antifederalist player has a wider range of strategic choices. They can focus on winning outright victory in one or two of the early states in an effort to reach the five states they need for an automatic victory, or they can build up their strength in several of the more valuable states that hold their conventions later in the game and improve their chances of winning the game on the basis of points at the end of the game. They cannot afford to compete with the Federalists in every state. They need to pick their battles carefully.
Grant: What type of an experience does the game create?
John: My hope is that it offers players challenging strategic and tactical decisions and creates dramatic moments of high tension where careful planning or bold action can alter the course of the game.
Grant: What are you most pleased about with the design?
John: Overall, I am pleased with the way it models the challenges and choices faced by the historical actors. With respect to the game play, I particularly like the Initiative, Back Room, and Convention mechanisms.
Grant: What other designs are you working on?
John: I’m working on a four-player game about the labor movement in Chicago, during the late 19th-century, and a solitaire game about the Civil War in which the player takes on the role of Lincoln and has to prosecute the war as commander-in-chief, while also navigating the challenges of domestic policy and political campaigning.
While attending Buckeye Game Fest in spring 2024, we met John Lapham and shot a video interview discussing the game and its mechanics:
Over the past several years, we have done interviews with Matt White, publicized his games and played a few of them as well and he always has something cooking. Recently, I came across his newest offering on Kickstarter called Spearhead: Hell on Wheels – Tank Battles in Normandy. This game is a solitaire or 2-player print and play tactical game that allows players to take command of US tanks in German occupied France. I reached out to Matt and as always he was more than willing to share on the design.
Grant: What is your new project on Kickstarter called Spearhead: Hell on Wheels?
Matt: This is a brand new solitaire and co-op World War II print and play tactical wargame. In this game you are in command of a group of 3 US tanks in brutal and intense tank combat in enemy-occupied territory.
The players must lead their tanks, through unforgiving terrain, finding and then engaging the enemy in fierce fire fights. They must defeat any encountered enemy tanks and forces, whilst meeting the objectives as they move across the map.
Grant: What was your inspiration for the name? What do you want it to convey about the design?
Matt: My biggest inspiration was reading accounts from various US armored units. Keeping your tank crews alive and positioning your tanks whilst dealing with unexpected enemy positions is key to survival and success and truly seemed to be “Hell on Wheels”.
Grant: What about the battles during Normandy inspired you to make this game?
Matt: Basically I wanted to focus on and show the difficulties with the survivability of the armored crews and their vehicles during the D-Day invasion and the days after as the Allies broke out into France. That was the biggest point I wanted to make.
An American M10 Tank Destroyer.
Grant: What research did you do on the subject?
Matt: As with all my games, in trying to get the historical aspects correct both in the mechanics of the game as well as the look and feel of the art, I basically try to do lots and lots of reading! I read as much as I can on the subject, from various authors and viewpoints, and when I am not spending time playing games or making them, I basically read! This knowledge is part of the inspiration for my games as I draw upon things that I have rad and then translate them to the page.
Grant: As a tactical level wargame, what are the most important areas of focus for the design?
Matt: The positioning of your tanks in relation to where the enemy could be, and not only the tank hull but also the turret. Keeping your tank crews alive and positioning your tanks whilst dealing with unexpected enemy positions is key to survival and success. This game is point-to-point based where you must place your tank orientation and can aim the turret separately. Being able to keep the front of the hull forward towards the enemy tanks whilst hopefully being able to fire on their flank is critical.
Grant: How does the game differ in its 2 modes including solitaire and cooperative?
Matt: In the game you are in command of a number of US tanks – these can be split between players if you wish. Its quite unlike a number of solitaire WW2 tank games where you are in command of one tank. In this game you have a number which makes it really suitable for co-op play.
Grant: I know the design is a Print and Play offering. Why do you feel this model is best suited for your designs?
Matt: I like making print and play games as it forces you, as the designer, to make every component count and making the most of the physical space on a sheet of paper. I find that challenge one of the most interesting parts of the creative process. I also like the print and play model because it is very affordable for all parties, both me and the players, and allows the game to be available to anyone at anytime and on their terms.
Grant: I see that the board has a point-to-point movement layout. Why was this your chosen method of conveying information about the battlefield?
Matt: As much as I love traditional hex based games (and continue to play a lot of them), I also like point-to-point too. I like the way you can combine not only line of sight but also information about the environment in the game.
Grant: What is the meaning of the different symbols that appear on the board?
Matt: Movement is from point-to-point and where you move from a Position Point (the rectangle points) to an Observation Point (the circle points) where you will test for observation and perform the majority of combat. If combat is successful then you will be able to move to the next position point.
As you can see from the map there are multiple paths from Position Points to Observation Points and then onto other Position Points. Plus there are a variety of pros and cons to various paths to allow for a variety of terrain types and observation challenges. These paths are illustrated on the map in the shape of lines which are known as Movement & Observation Lines.
For each Movement & Observation Line there is a symbol at one end. The most common symbol is a black arrow, which denotes normal terrain and normal observation. There are other symbols which mean more difficult terrain or harder observation. These are:
Black Arrow – Normal Movement – Normal Observation
White Arrow – Normal Movement – Hard Observation
White Square – No Movement – Normal Observation
Black Circle – Difficult Movement – Normal Observation
White Circle – Difficult Movement – Hard Observation
Grant: What difficult decisions do players have to make in the game?
Matt: You will have to deal with enemies and you discover them but you don’t know where they are and so you must make some decisions based on information you do and don’t have. The player will also have several simultaneous objectives that must be obtained and will have to contend with both the German forces defending them that you know about and those that you do not.
“Lady luck” plays a part, as with any military operation, but your decisions and tactics are crucial, especially in how you position your tanks on the map when facing enemies as you cautiously roll through the environment.
A German Panther.
Grant: What dangers and threats meet the players on the battlefield?
Matt: There are a variety of dangers but not only the enemy forces as tank obstacles and mines can be a serious threat, combined with the environment itself.
Grant: What objectives does the player have to accomplish?
Matt: For each game session the objectives are randomly generated with Objective markers provided. All you have to do is safely get your tanks to those Objective markers, all the whilst dealing with the enemy!
Grant: How are hidden German units handled?
Matt: Every time you move your tanks you will need to check what they can observe and into which other points then can see. At this time you will roll on a couple of charts to see if you can see enemy units. However, just because you can’t see any doesn’t mean that they are not there.
Grant: What is the makeup of the Tank Cards? What information do they contain?
Matt: Using the Tank Cards you record the status of the major components of your tank such as the engine and tracks plus any gun jams. You also record the status of the various tank crew, all of which can have an impact in the game. Counters are provided to record all the status of both the tank and the crew.
Grant: What different types of tanks are included on both sides?
Matt: There are variety of tanks in the game with each tank having its own unique gameplay – for example the M10 tank destroyer has no hull machine gun (but does have a better anti-tank weapon). There are also Stuart M5A1 Tanks, StuG’s, Panzer IV’s, and many more.
Grant: How does combat work?
Matt: In the combat phase, you determine the order in which both your tanks and the enemy tanks fire. This is crucial to how the combat plays out as in real life WW2 tank combat, the results will favor the tank crew who can fire first on their target.
You will roll a few dice, depending on your tank positioning and other factors, and retain the highest number. You can increase your number of rolled dice by certain criteria – the more dice you roll the better! For example, if your tank turret is facing the enemy, the terrain type, the health of both the tank and the crew and if the enemy have been observed all are major factors. The enemy tanks will be doing the same, so factors such as successful enemy observation in the previous phase are crucial!
Grant: What is the goal of the game? How is victory obtained?
Matt: Your goal is to reach your various objectives on the map, whilst trying to keep your tanks and crew alive.
For each game session the objectives are randomly generated with Objective markers provided. All you have to do is safely get your tanks to those Objective markers, all whilst dealing with the enemy!
Grant: What are you most pleased about with the design?
Matt: I am most pleased to be coming to the end of the design and getting it ready for people to play! Finishing or coming close to it, is the hardest part of the development. In terms of the actual game, I really enjoy being able to get a game that has depth and is engaging that can be printed on just a few sheets of paper.
Grant: What kind of an experience does the game create?
Matt: I hope that the game creates a thoughtful representation of actual tank combat and how decisive it can be!
But that is not all. The game is modular and has several options included. As well as the map shown above, the game will also come complete with another map, additional counters and a rulebook which allows for you to create your own unique scenarios.
This map has the same points but where you will roll on tables to determine the various Movement & Observation Lines from each Position Point and Observation Point. There will be counters that you can place between the Position and Observation Points as an aid. You will be using various charts and tables to procedurally generate your map as you play, determining those gameplay elements as you progress. This type of game session will present you with a new challenge as you really have to deal with more unknown elements as you progress your tanks across the map.
Grant: What other designs are you currently working on?
Matt: I have a few games I am working on – currently working on something involving WW2 Mosquito aircraft!
For a YouTube video overview of the game, please check out Matt’s overview video here:
Thanks to Matt for his time in answering our questions and for his great little print and play games. I love it when one of these new games is brought to light as I get to oodle over the art and see what new things he has created!
Yesterday we announced Wingspan Pocket, a new standalone 1-5 player game that distills the Wingspan experience down to a lighter, shorter, streamlined experience that has each player activate a single row of cards on each of their turns (even on the same turn you play a bird). The cards are all double sided: a food side and a bird side. Bird powers are primarily indicated by icons instead of text, and they include a new type of power, ongoing (green) benefits.
On Monday I will have an article about the in-depth pre-production copy testing process of Wingspan Pocket, but I haven’t posted the corresponding design diary entry yet, so today I have an interview about a completely different game from another publisher!
Gabe Barrett runs Best With 1 Games, and over the last few years I’ve seen him adapt a really interesting strategy for creating and launching games. With their latest game, Stonefall, in its final days on Gamefound, Gabe was kind to take some time to answer questions about his methods.
As far as I can tell, you’ve run solo-coop game campaigns once a month every month for several years now. Is that correct? How many games are we talking, and what are the biggest hits so far in terms of the campaign and retail?
The biggest hits have been Rome: Fate of an Empire, Radiance, and Small Time Heroes.
Do you manufacture and ship each game independently, or do you have any overlapping production runs and fulfillment (i.e., so multi-campaign backers can pay shipping once for multiple products)?
Each game is sent to the factory independently, but there have been a few instances where the queue line got backed up to the point that several games were printed and shipped at the same time. However, I use a fulfillment company based in China that ships worldwide and charges by the gram, so there are no cost-savings in bundling.
Games ship as soon as they’re completed, and there’s no crossover between campaigns from an admin level – every campaign is a separate spreadsheet.
How have you found the project management puzzle for juggling so many projects? Any key tips or tools that you’ve found work well? Is there something specific about solo games that enables you to have so many projects in the works?
I wish there was some secret or magical piece of software that I could share, but I’ve found that a basic checklist is the best tool overall. I’ve used Trello and other project management apps, but nothing works as well as a good, old fashioned checklist with every aspect of a game’s production broken into line items.
Then, you just work the list and check things off as they’re completed.
The “magic” comes from realizing the checklist needs improvement over and over and over again until you finally get something that works best. And when you run a campaign every single month, you get a lot of opportunities to make revisions.
Nothing about publishing solo games specifically makes things easier, but standardizing as much as possible helps a great deal. I only offer a couple different box sizes which makes designing, publishing, manufacturing, and shipping everything much simpler as I’ve removed all but a few variables. It also allows me to order certain things in bulk and get a better price – shipping boxes and foam, for example.
Are you happy with the current pursuit of 1 game per month, or have you considered spacing out campaigns (e.g., every 2-3 months)? I’m curious about what you view is the advantage of 1 game per month. 12 new games a year seems like a lot for you and for customers–what drives that quantity versus any other quantity of games per month/year? Is that based on what backers have told you they want, sheer momentum, company finances, etc?
“Solo Game of the Month” has a nice ring to it. “Solo game of the quarter” or “solo game of the fortnight” just doesn’t sound quite right.
But once the right systems are in place, and you find great people to work with, twelve games a year is really not that hard to get your arms around. We’ll probably end up doing around 20 new games this year in total. Most of those will be Gamefound campaigns, but others will be direct-to-retail.
However, these aren’t expensive games. Most are $25, and a lot of the “extra” games we’re working on in the background are $15. I don’t think it would be possible to do 12 traditional crowdfunding style games that are $100+ and contain boxes upon boxes of minis and content. The customer base would burn out quickly, most people’s monthly budgets can’t handle it, I would probably be speedrunning my time on this earth, and game shelves wouldn’t be able to support it.
But for the price of a couple meals at McDonald’s, you can get a box the size of a VHS case containing a fun game with great art that offers an excellent solo-gaming experience.
And at that price point, people are more likely to give a game a chance when they might not normally vibe with the theme or core mechanisms. Also, since I don’t print very many extras, a game is easy to sell on the second-hand market, if you don’t enjoy it.
Am I happy with the cadence of one a month? Absolutely. 12+ games a year means I can take some chances on games that might not have wide appeal. It means I get more opportunities to find hits. And it means consistent cashflow to grow a sustainable business.
Are most backers just picking and choosing a few of your games each year, or is there a significant percentage of people who back every Best With 1 campaign? If so, do you offer a subscription option for them? How has it been to work with Gamefound so consistently?
I have a core group of about 500 customers that buy basically everything, and around 40% of my customers have purchased more than one game, so I get a ton of repeat buyers. People often discover the series through a campaign and then purchase a bunch of the previous games.
And that’s by design. I started the company to create a home for solo gamers where everything would be tailored to a one-player experience. The games are all pretty different, but if you like one, you’ll probably like at least ten others.
As far as a subscription, I planned to have one before diving into things in 2024, but I got talked out of it by someone who was doing one. It’s not that they’re bad; they just don’t integrate very well with crowdfunding platforms, and they create a bunch of extra work and overhead. And since simplicity is one of the main pillars of my company, I opted not to go the subscription route.
However, I’m finding other ways to reward repeat customers. For example, a couple months ago, I sent a free game to all 500 of the core customers mentioned above.
And working with Gamefound has been great. I’ve had an awesome account manager named Luke who has been extremely helpful and pretty pivotal to my company’s success.
Last, I was excited to see a game (Stonefall) from Peter and Michael of the One Stop Co-op Shop as the latest Best With 1 campaign. For people who haven’t dived into the world of solo games, are there a few Best With 1 games you recommend they start with?
Yeah, Stonefall is a project I’ve been excited about for a while, and I’m really pleased with how it’s all come together!
As far as recommendations, if you like meaty Euro games, check out Rome: Fate of an Empire. If you like card-crafting and/or rogue-lites, check out Mech Bunny. If you like Slay the Spire and/or deckbuilding games, check out Small Time Heroes. If you like boss battlers, check out Storybook Saga and Witch Hunter.
But in general, if you’re a solo gamer, my catalogue probably has something you’ll enjoy.
And if anyone wants to sign up to be notified when new solo games launch, they can join the newsletter here: https://bestwith1.com/month/
Big thanks to Gabe for answering these questions! I’m curious to hear your thoughts and questions in the comments. If you want to check out other creator interviews and guest posts, here’s a list dating back to 2012!
Foto: SPIEL EssenRobin de Cleur ist begeisterter Spieler, langjähriger Besucher der SPIEL und PR-Redakteur. Nach Stationen bei Asmodee und der Brost-Stiftung arbeitet er seit 2023 als Director Communications beim Merz Verlag und ist seitdem für die Außenkommunikation der größten Spielemesse der Welt verantwortlich.Das Interview wurde am 10. Juni 2026 per Videocall geführt und anschließend…
Bleibt Ally der Musik treu oder wechselt sie komplett unter die Autoren? In diesem Interview der „Musikszene“ bei DieHausis sprechen wir mit Ally Storch von Subway to Sally über ihr brandneues Buchprojekt, ihre Erlebnisse mit der Deutschen Bahn und warum sie nun auch zum Stift (und Skizzenblock) gegriffen hat. Wir werfen einen Blick hinter die Kulissen: Vom Schreibprozess über die Zusammenarbeit mit dem Adakia Verlag bis hin zu Gastbeiträgen von Musikkollegen wie Simon Michael. Außerdem erfahrt ihr alles über ihre kommenden Lesungen und welche kreativen Projekte noch in der Pipeline stecken. Viel Spaß beim Anschauen!
Als ich mich das erste Mal mit Believe in me! (please) beschäftigte, kam mir sofort das ikonische Video von Jesus He Knows Me in den Sinn. Die Bildsprache des Brettspiels und der erste Blick auf das Thema ließen sofort Phil Collins vor meinem geistigen Auge tanzen, mit Scheinen wedeln und um zahlungskräftige Anhänger buhlen. Meine...
Foto: Spiel des Jahres e. V.Harald Schrapers, Jahrgang 1964, veröffentlicht seit Anfang der 1990er Brettspielkritiken. Er war freier Mitarbeiter der Fairplay, hat für die Thüringer Allgemeine und Die Zeit geschrieben und ist in aktueller Position freier Mitarbeiter der Spielbox. Seit 1993 betreibt er die Website Games We Play.Seit 2017 ist er Mitglied des Vereins Spiel des Jahres e. V.
Ist die Jury „Spiel des Jahres” wirklich so unabhängig, wie sie behauptet? Wir haben beim Vorsitzenden Harald Schrapers nachgefragt. Im Interview spricht er über Lizenzeinnahmen, Werbeveranstaltungen und einen Streit innerhalb der Jury. Das Interview ist eine Ergänzung eines etwa eineinhalbstündigen Interviews mit Harald Schrapers. Das komplette Gespräch könnt ihr im Podcast Boardcast von Frederik Malsy nachhören. Das Interview mit Tom Werneck, auf das wir uns beziehen, findet ihr unter Tom Werneck: „Schaue mit Neugier auf die Arbeit der Jury, nicht mit Groll“. Unabhängigkeit der Jury In seinem Buch „Das moderne Brettspiel“ schreibt Tom Werneck, es sei fragwürdig, ob die Jury
Folge 40 regt hoffentlich ein wenig zum Nachdenken an. Zumindest uns hat das Interview mit Cosima Werner ebenso die Antennen hochfahren lassen wie die Beschäftigung mit dem Spiel LIMIT von Alexandre Poyé (erschienen bei Ludonaute bzw. bei Spielworxx). Zusätzlich sprechen wir noch intensiver über SKYBRIDGE von Michael Rieneck und Franz Vohwinkel (erschienen bei Deep Print […]
Seit 1. April 2025 ist Nico Finkernagel Chief Technology Officer (CTO) bei Pegasus Spiele. Teil der IT-Abteilung ist er aber bereits seit 2018. Als Software Engineer war er seither an der Realisierung zahlreicher Projekte beteiligt. Er setzte seine Fähigkeiten und Kenntnisse in den Bereichen Datenanalysen und Prozessoptimierungen ein, zum Beispiel bei der Einführung eines neuen Shopsystems und dem Aufbau der IT-Infrastruktur für das Pegasus Spiele Tochterunternehmen Pegasus Spiele North America.
Als CTO hat er nicht nur die Leitung des IT-Teams inne, sondern kümmert sich als Teil des Managements unter anderem auch um den Ausbau der IT-Sicherheitsstrategien, die Einführung neuer Technologien und den Aufbau strategischer Partnerschaften im Bereich IT.
Nach seinem ersten Jahr als CTO blickt er auf die ersten Erfolge und zukünftige Projekte:
Auf welchen Themen liegt dein Hauptaugenmerk seit Beginn deiner Tätigkeit als CTO?
„Seit ich CTO bin, bewegt sich mein Alltag im Grunde zwischen zwei Welten: Zum einen leite ich ein für unsere Unternehmensgröße ziemlich großes IT-Team von fünf Personen. Das heißt ganz konkret: Projekte priorisieren, Strukturen weiterentwickeln, aber vor allem dafür sorgen, dass das Team gut arbeiten kann. Zum anderen ist ein großer Teil meiner Arbeit strategisch geprägt. Ich beschäftige mich viel mit der Frage, welche Technologien für uns wirklich relevant sind und welche eben nicht. Es geht darum, sinnvolle Schwerpunkte zu setzen und die IT so auszurichten, dass sie das Unternehmen langfristig unterstützt. Das betrifft Logistik- und Handelsprozesse, IT-Infrastrukturen, aber auch generelle Tools, die beeinflussen, wie wir im gesamten Pegasus Spiele Team zusammenarbeiten.“
Mit Blick auf über 30 Jahre Firmengeschichte ist ein Jahr als CTO natürlich noch keine lange Zeit, aber gibt es schon Erfolge, auf die du zurückblicken kannst?
„Ein großer Schritt war für mich, dass wir uns als IT-Team neu aufgestellt haben. Zwar arbeiten wir nach wie vor eng zusammen, besprechen uns regelmäßig und sind als Team die Anlaufstelle für alle technischen Probleme, aber wir haben nun auch alle unsere Schwerpunkte: Entweder im Bereich Administration & Tooling mit Fokus auf Identity Management sowie IT- & Netzwerk-Sicherheit oder im Bereich E-Commerce mit besonderem Blick auf SAP als unser Warenwirtschaftssystem, aber auch unser Shopsystem Shopware. Diese Splittung schafft Klarheit bei den Zuständigkeiten, lässt uns aber auch produktiver arbeiten als früher.
Ein weiterer wichtiger Fokus lag im letzten Jahr auf dem Thema IT-Sicherheit. Wir haben begonnen, unsere Architektur stärker in Richtung eines Zero-Trust-Ansatzes weiterzuentwickeln, also weg von klassischen, klar abgegrenzten Netzwerken hin zu einer Umgebung, in der jeder Zugriff grundsätzlich verifiziert wird. Das betrifft unter anderem Identitäten, Geräte und Zugriffsrechte und schafft eine deutlich robustere Grundlage für unsere Systeme.
Darüber hinaus gab es viele kleinere Projekte und Verbesserungen im Alltag, zum Beispiel die flächendeckende Einbindung der SSO-Authentifizierung oder ein vereinfachtes Zeiterfassungsmanagement, die sich jedoch in Summe deutlich bemerkbar machen und unsere Arbeitsweise kontinuierlich voranbringen. Einige dieser Projekte sind in der IT inzwischen State of the Art, für andere mussten wir eigene Soft- bzw. Hardware entwickeln. Ein größeres Projekt im letzten Jahr war außerdem der Relaunch von pegasus.de Mitte 2025, den wir als Teil eines interdisziplinären Website Teams begleitet haben. Insgesamt ging es in meinem ersten Jahr als CTO aber insbesondere darum, Grundlagen zu schaffen, auf denen wir künftig aufbauen können.“
Verrätst du uns, wie dein Arbeitsalltag aussieht?
„Sehr unterschiedlich und ehrlich gesagt mag ich genau das daran. Es gibt Tage, an denen ich gefühlt von Termin zu Termin gehe und viel im Austausch bin: mit meinem Team, mit anderen Abteilungen oder mit externen Partner*innen. An anderen Tagen habe ich mehr Raum für konzeptionelle Arbeit oder tiefere technische Themen.
Was allerdings tatsächlich zu kurz kommt, ist das Programmieren selbst. Das bedaure ich manchmal, weil mir genau dieser Teil nach wie vor großen Spaß macht. Deshalb versuche ich, mir so oft wie möglich kleine Zeitfenster freizuschaufeln, auch wenn das dann nicht selten in einer ‚Nachtschicht‘ endet. Es ist für mich wichtig, den Bezug zum operativen Geschäft nicht zu verlieren und Dinge auch selbst auszuprobieren. Außerdem achte ich darauf, auch mal einen Schritt zurückzutreten und mich zu fragen: Sind wir noch auf dem richtigen Weg? Was müssen wir anpassen? Wo wollen wir eigentlich hin? Den Überblick über das große Ganze zu behalten ist ein wichtiger Faktor meiner Position.“
Woher kommt deine Faszination für IT und Technologie?
„So genau kann ich das gar nicht auf einen bestimmten Moment zurückführen. Ich glaube, mich hat schon früh gereizt, zu verstehen, wie Dinge funktionieren und wie man sie verbessern kann. IT bietet da unglaublich viele Möglichkeiten.“
Brettspiele sind als analoges Medium nicht gerade, woran man bei technologischer Innovation denkt. Wieso reizt dich gerade diese Herausforderung?
„Der Gedanke ist absolut nachvollziehbar. In unserem Fall geht es weniger darum, das Produkt selbst zu digitalisieren, sondern vielmehr um alles, was drumherum passiert: Entwicklung, Planung, Produktion, Logistik oder Datenmanagement. Wenn man an diesen Stellen die richtigen Hebel ansetzt, kann man enorm viel bewegen. Und genau das finde ich spannend, in einem Umfeld zu arbeiten, das nicht per se als ‚tech driven‘ gilt und trotzdem enormes Potenzial bietet.
Gleichzeitig hat uns das Internet sehr deutlich gezeigt, was Digitalisierung leisten kann: Sie ist ein Werkzeug, um viele Menschen zu erreichen und miteinander zu verbinden. Für uns bedeutet das, unsere Vision weiterzutragen, möglichst vielen Menschen den Zugang zu Brettspielen zu ermöglichen und neue Verbindungen zu schaffen. Technologie ist dabei kein Selbstzweck, sondern ein Mittel, um genau das zu unterstützen.“
Welche Ziele hast du dir für die nächsten sechs Monate und welche für die nächsten sechs Jahre gesteckt?
„Kurzfristig möchte ich vor allem weiter an klaren Strukturen arbeiten: Transparenz schaffen, Prozesse sauber aufsetzen und Prioritäten klar definieren. Mir ist wichtig, dass die IT nicht nur als Dienstleister wahrgenommen wird, sondern als aktiver Teil des Unternehmens.
Langfristig denke ich weniger in einzelnen Projekten, sondern in Fähigkeiten. Ich wünsche mir, dass wir eine IT-Organisation aufbauen, die stabil läuft, aber gleichzeitig flexibel genug ist, um schnell und unkompliziert auf Veränderungen reagieren zu können. Denn insbesondere der digitale Sektor ist extrem schnelllebig und eine Innovation jagt die nächste. Dazu kommen rechtliche Vorgaben, aber auch sich ständig wandelnde logistische sowie bürokratische Herausforderungen. Meine Hoffnung ist es, dass ich als CTO bzw. wir als IT-Team dazu beitragen, dass Pegasus Spiele technologisch stets gut gerüstet ist und ein Arbeitsumfeld bietet, in dem Technologie zu Kreativität, Wachstum und nachhaltigem Erfolg beiträgt.“
Es ist Zeit für Musikszene im Interview – DieHausis sprechen mit mal wieder mit Simon Michael Drummer von der Band SUBWAY TO SALLY über privates, die Eisheilge Nacht 2025 Tour im Dezember, über die Band und was ist und kommt 2026, wie z.B. die Nackt3 Tour. Das Interview könnt ihr auch super als Podcast hören.
Seit dreißig Jahren begeistert Catan Menschen auf der ganzen Welt. Zum Jubiläum haben wir Benjamin Teuber dreißig Fragen gestellt – über Raubkopien, den Film zum Spiel und seinen Vater, den Erfinder von Catan. Catan erschien 1995. Klaus Teuber entwickelte es in seiner Freizeit, hauptberuflich arbeitete er damals als Zahntechniker. Sein Sohn Benjamin stieg 2010 ins Familienunternehmen ein. Er leitet seit dem Tod von Klaus Teuber die Catan GmbH mit seinem Bruder Guido. 1. Welche Frage zu Catan kannst Du nicht mehr hören?Warum der Wechsel von Holz auf Kunststoff? Ursprünglich wurde das Spiel mit Holzfiguren ausgeliefert. Ab 2003 erfolgte die Umstellung
Im Zuge der Arbeit am Sammelband "Von bierbrauenden Mönchen und kriegerischen Nonnen - Klöster und Klerus in analogen und digitalen Spielen" enstand ein Interview zwischen Lukas Boch und Randy Rathert, dem Autor von The King`s Abbey. Im Mittelpunkt stand die Frage nach der Entwicklung und Umsetzung des Themas Kloster im Brettspiel.
The latest entry in our interview series Why You Should Back: Death By Coconuts on Kickstarter. We spoke with the creator to get information about their latest launch. They look to be bringing something very interesting to market that walks the fine line between humorous and morbid. The Kickstarter launch date is May 31, 2022. Check out the link below to go directly to Death By Coconuts Kickstarter page or continue on to read the interview with the creator.
1. How would you describe your product in a few sentences?
Death By Coconuts is best described as a race-to-the-finish board game where you move by betting on death statistics.
First, you draw three causes of death, which can be anything from sharks to falling vending machines and projectile Champagne corks. There are additional time periods and geographical parameters to help you work out the answer. Then, when you’ve made your mind up, you bet up to three chips on which of the three you think is most deadly.
If you’re right, you move forward the same number of spaces as chips you bet with. If you’re wrong, the same applies – only you move backward instead! So you can see, it’s a game of risk and reward were betting big or small dictates how quickly you move across the board.
You’ve got to navigate shortcuts and trapdoors, and the treasure chest cards will more often than not expedite your arrival at the finish line. But sometimes they’ll throw a curveball at you. Only the first to the finish wins, unless there’s a tie. In which case we’ve got a pretty dramatic best-of-three tiebreaker to decide the winner. This is our very first attempt at a board game. We’ve created a simpler mechanic than our first Kickstarter game, Plant-Based Riot, but it still delivers bucket loads of quick-fire fun.
2. Introduce the team bringing this to market? What is your background that brought you to launching this?
Marty Pardoe worked behind the scenes of Plant-Based Riot but is at the core of this team. She’s a hugely gifted designer that’s been involved from the early stages when the game went by the rather sinister name of “May Cause Cancer” (a story for another time…). Marty was named as a rising star in Mojo Nation’s 100 Influential Figures list in 2021 for her work on our game Girl Power. It was Marty’s idea to make Death By Coconuts a race-to-the-finish board game and we’ve run with that ever since.
Roberto Rotaru is our artist, graphic designer, motion graphic designer, video editor. He continues to add strings to his bow since our campaign last year. Originally from Romania, he’s the biggest gamer of the bunch – our go-to guy when it comes to making key decisions on mechanics. All the motion graphics and videos you see in relation to this project are down to his artistry.
I’m the content writer for Death By Coconuts. It was my job to trawl the deepest depths of the internet to put together 250 death statistics. It was definitely no day at a tropical beach, I can tell you. You know what they say, though… It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.
Courtney is the guy that oversees everything. It’s his job to stitch all the individual components together. He started Bubblegum Stuff in Hong Kong back in 2013, so there’s traces of his blood, sweat and tears in this and every other product the company has put out over the years.
We’ve turned to Kickstarter again because we loved the experience last time out. It brought us closer to our community in more ways than one. Like us, the people that backed Plant-Based Riot believe in the power of collaboration. And because they have tons of experience backing games on the platform, they are an invaluable source of insight and opinion. We’re sure many of those guys will play active roles in making key design and gameplay decisions with Death By Coconuts, too.
3. What existing games would you compare your game to?
Death By Coconuts is similar to a few games – and in various ways. It’s got elements of Snakes & Ladders, which we all remember as one of the first games we ever played. The shortcut across the lake and the lava flow trapdoor are essentially a ladder and a snake respectively.
The treasure chest cards also give the sense you’re being given a ladder or a snake, depending on what you’re lucky or unlucky enough to pick up. Saying that, though, they could be likened to the chance or action cards that are fairly ubiquitous in many board games.
There are also similarities with a game from London-based games producer Big Potato. Their game What Came First? uses the same betting mechanic as the method for moving around the board. The difference being in What Came First? you’re betting on what happened first out of two events in history that are paired together on the same card. In Death By Coconuts you’re betting on three separately drawn death stats.
That small difference adds endless amounts of replayability to the game. It means there are over 2.5 million possible combinations of death cards! Each round will feel like a fresh challenge regardless of how many times you’ve played the game. That’s amplified even more when you consider the additional caveats like time period and location.
4. What sets your game apart?
What sets Death By Coconuts apart is the delivery. We’ve produced a game that features 250 causes of death without it feeling overtly morbid. And that was always the mission. It must be said, we’re not making light of death or any of the events featured on the cards in the game. But it is as much a part of life as birth. And we knew if we handled it correctly, it wouldn’t cause offense. Much in the same way that Halloween or the Mayan festival Day of the Dead doesn’t.
Some of the content comes across lighthearted, such as the deaths by falling coconuts, which causes on average 150 deaths a year! (Incidentally, that’s more than sharks – and it’s that fact that was the inspiration behind the game.) However, most of the leavening is being done by the 1950s Americana/tropicana/tiki-style design, artwork and overall theme. The board depicts our little skeleton character getting into all kinds of comedic scrapes with cannibals, krakens, snakes and more. Many of which are causes of death featured in the game. In addition to those Easter eggs, there are 150 coconuts on the board in reference to the stat that started it all. We’ll be impressed if anyone finds them all. You might even notice the spaces stretching from Coconut Beach to Eternal Paradise look familiar…
5. How can everyone be assured that they are going to get quality components and you are going to deliver on all the promises you are making?
As previously mentioned, we’re a slightly expanded team to the one that delivered Plant-Based Riot through Kickstarter last year. And this slightly expanded team is working within Bubblegum Stuff, which is a small gift and game company based in London. We’ve been plying our trade for nearly 10 years. So getting things designed, made and delivered is our bread and butter.
Furthermore, we delivered Plant-Based Riot – our first Kickstarter – through all the turmoil and disruption caused by Covid and one of the worst shipping crises in history. We’re really proud to have delivered the game to our backers, as promised, by Christmas. This meant changing from sea freight to air freight right at the eleventh hour. Seriously… the stock was on a ship in port and we took it off and got it onto a flight!
Not that we wouldn’t go above and beyond for our customers anyway. But the loyalty, support and patience showed to us by our backers last year really moved us. And that’s still ringing in our ears going into this next campaign. We’re committed to delivering on our promises and building on our incredible community through Kickstarter.
6. Why should someone back your project?
Death By Coconuts combines diabolically gruesome subject matter with super funky artwork, near-addictive fun and endless replayability.
It feels incredibly unique but still familiar enough that it’s accessible for pretty much everyone. And the learning to fun time ratio is stacked heavily in favor of fun. That makes it a perfect game to pick up and play, whether you’re looking for a casual game for two or something to sustain a great big games night.
So what are you waiting for? Back our project, grab a few fellow shipwrecked shipmates and get going on the race to Eternal Paradise. Where your knowledge of death might just save your life!
Well we are satisfied!
Great insight and enthusiasm from a passionate and experienced designer. This game has some wonderful funky art and is sure to please a very specific type of gamer. If you are looking for an interesting quick-fire game, give this one a shot. Take a look at their Kickstarter for more info!
Have you received enough info on why you should back Death By Coconuts on Kickstarter? Are you backing? Let us know in the comments below or on our BGH Facebook page.
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