Archive For The “Analysis” Category
Jim Owczarski, 7 June 2020
David Ensteness of The Wargaming Company joins Jim & Doug to teach how to play their flagship Napoleonic title Et Sans Résultat!
Join us for a detailed look at how the game is played and don’t forget to pop into our forums to see if you can scare up a game online with the Regiment.
RockyMountainNavy, 4 June 2020
BLUF:
A Battle of Midway wargame/historical conflict simulation focused on air operations. Fury At Midway (Revolution Games, 2020) employs some hidden information and cards portraying impactful events to help you explore this one narrow aspect of the battle. Ignoring several real strategic conditions, the outcome of the game can be very ahistorical but not unrealistic. By no means a ground-breaking design, the narrow focus leads to a tight, easy-to-learn, quick-playing battle that enables one to explore some of the most wondered about ‘what ifs’ of the Battle of Midway.
Once history hits the tabletop, how well does it match, and what can we learn?
Brant Guillory, 13 May 2020
Based on an older academic professional development seminar, here’s a recording of Brant’s discussion of uses of games & sims in the classroom, for training & learning purposes.
We’ve previously discussed some different facets of the games & sims discussion with both Brant and Dr Sterrett chiming in. We’d love to hear what you have to say, too.
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Brant Guillory, 17 February 2020
Everyone that’s grown up in the fantasy RPG world knows how D&D’s “Vancian” magic works, and over almost 40 years of gaming, my experience is that virtually everyone hates it. There’ve been a variety of replacements introduced over the years, from spell points to the DD4e at-will/encounter/daily powers to skill-based magic. Stripping back from execution to concept, however, there are always a few considerations that need to be framed before moving forward with whatever way in which “magic” would appear in the game world. These underlying concepts are the building blocks which define virtually any magic system. (more…)
Professional development through better gameplay? ~
Brant Guillory, 12 August 2019
The first tremors hit Carana around 415 in the morning, local time. The capital was just stirring as many laborers were hurrying through their pre-dawn meals before shuffling out of their small houses to arrive at work by sunrise. The full brunt of the earthquake arrive 20 minutes or so later, and the devastation was described by at least one news outlet as “biblical.” The nations tenuous infrastructure, barely a patchwork to begin with, had no chance against the fury unleashed by the Earth’s shifting tectonic plates as bridges crumbled, roads buckled, water pipes tore apart like paper, and the electrical grid shut down, ending any communication that was out of shouting distance.
The full brunt of the earthquake arrive 20 minutes or so later, and the devastation was described by at least one news outlet as “biblical.”
Help was slow in arriving. Certainly the help wanted to arrive, but the routes into the country – the limited airport, the ramshackle seaport, and inland border – were never ideal under perfect circumstances, and these were not perfect circumstances. The local population certainly had a will to survive, but lacked critical supplies for medical care, safe water, and food & shelter. The world mobilized to help.
And the help began to arrive, a multi-headed hydra of organizations, services, expertise, and agendas. Usually cooperative, occasionally antagonistic, and always under the steady gaze of the worlds’ TV cameras, the various organizations rolled up their sleeves to start the long, hard slog of restoring the basic necessities of life to Carana.