2020 Fall Semester G'town student presentations

[bayonetbrant]

So I just got to sit in on the student presentations of their works in progress, and they were very cool!

The first group is looking at the Sino-Vietnamese War in '79, and the core tension in the game is that the Chinese want to inflict some territorial 'damage' on the Vietnamese but taking control of certain city hexes, but there's also a political dimension that you have to pay attention to as well, in that public opinion - and especially Soviet opinion - matters, b/c it can bring in negative consequences.
Scoring is done on 2 axes: control of city hexes (a proxy for military success) and political points.  City hexes are are a zero-sum count; there's 20 of them.  Political points are squishier and the designers are still working thru the best way to manipulate those.  But it's possible for both players to lose, depending on where each of them end up on this 2x2 grid of scoring, which is an interesting concept in a strategic-level wargame.

The second group is looking at Ukraine, starting in about 2015 and rolling forward from there. (No Orange Crush jokes, please)
Their model allows for the manipulation of information, financial, and military control of most of the oblasts in eastern Ukraine, and different tools that the players can use to take different kinds of control in those spaces.
Moreover, there's a very neat mechanic for the Russians, that's an 'attribution' scale.  If they push too many tanks into the fray, then it's too obvious what they're doing, and the Ukrainian player has different consequences they can bring into play (a good part of the feedback was around the refinement of that model).  But the Russians have use of proxy forces, too, which are less militarily effective, but also don't bring about the same attribution penalties.


Neither of the games seemed to have a very robust or granular combat model, which is what a lot of hardcore wargamers might've been looking for, but neither really needed it at the level they were portraying, which was a high-operational/low-strategic level.

Both did have some very neat mechanics that were well-suited to the conflicts they were exploring and it was fun to see some good ideas come from some talented younger design teams.

[Tolstoi]

Somehow I missed this when you posted it, two weeks ago?!??! I need to pay more attention.

I understand these are WIP, and I"m wondering if there is any chance these games will be shared outside of the classroom? Maybe a print and play option? Do the students need to write a paper in conjunction with their game projects? Might be interesting to read those, or to at least see their reference pages.

Thanks for sharing.

[bayonetbrant]

I don't know how available these end up being. If I recall, at least one of the projects from last semester was being shopped around some game companies

Last year's Three Heroes game about medieval China looked really cool, but some of the components would be tough to mass produce

[Tolstoi]

Sounds good. I watched part of the Reconquering Rome video and that looks fantastic. Is there a video for the Three Heroes game?

I'm looking forward to learning more about the game covering the Sino-Vietnamese War and the game about the Ukraine, both sound very interesting.

[bayonetbrant]

Is there a video for the Three Heroes game?

you're killing me, Smalls!   


Sawyer presented a 1-hour talk about it at the VDA!
3rd video, left column

[Tolstoi]

Is there a video for the Three Heroes game?

you're killing me, Smalls!   

Sawyer presented a 1-hour talk about it at the VDA!
3rd video, left column

HA! I totally forgot Ms. Judge presented this in the summer. I was looking in the GUWS YouTube channel and I should have been looking at the Armchair Dragoon channel. Thanks for the Sand Lot reference, that made me laugh. 

[bayonetbrant]

https://twitter.com/SebastianBae/status/1334328385858920448