Development scorecard

[Matt W]

Here's a quick update on what has happened over the past two years and what is on our plates going forward

Daniel and I took on the Developer hat for PG in late 2014.  Daniel had done game development before, although not PG and I only had "playing a lot of scenarios, mostly solitaire" as a qualification.  In the past two years we have:

Completed development on two boxed games (Invasion and Road To Dunkirk).
Completed development on six supplements (Blackshirt, Tunisie, 1942, Maple Leaf, Land Cruisers and River Fleets).
Completed design and development of two entirely new units types, including movement and combat rules (Land Cruisers and River Fleets).
Edited two boxed games (Conquest of Ethiopia and the 2nd printing of South Flank).
Did additional development and final editing on one boxed game (Broken Axis).
Completed development on two completely revamped reissues (Kokoda and Go For Broke).
Added Battle Games to assess competitive performance in an operational setting (Road to Dunkirk, Invasion, Kokoda, Broken Axis, 1942, Maple Leaf, River Fleets and Go For Broke).
Added Solitaire Battle Games (Go For Broke)
Actually designed a game from the ground up (River Fleets)
Completely developed roughly 200 scenarios.
Edited, revised, mucked around with and (hopefully) improved another 75 scenarios.

However, that list is dwarfed by what is in the pipeline (including games from Jay as he has noted here, Mike Perryman, Mike Bennighof and Philippe Leonard).  Most of the "innovations" are hopefully done (Battle games are part of every product now going forward, unless absolutely unsuited to the topic, solitaire battle games where appropriate, two hex units for land combat, and riverine combat).  We have one more idea up our sleeve but need to wait for just a bit on that one.

Based on what we have done to date over the past two years I can tell you that we already have about 4 years worth of development already in house with more coming on a regular basis.

On the floor right now are games on the rest of 1940 (Belgians and SS as well as some with almost the entire mix), the Greco-Italian war, fun in the Philippines (41 and 44) and Korea, extreme sports in Crete and sunbathing in Sicily and North Africa, a couple divisional studies,  winter sports in Belgium, and to wrap everything else up a travelogue of the Ukraine.

I'm sure that there are opportunities for additional designs and would encourage people who want to submit designs on other topics (e.g. Spanish Civil War, Balkan fighting, especially in the later war, China, Russia, Southern France, Italy, China, Burma and China) (Wait, a second.  Did I mention China?) to do so. 

[Shad]

Write an article for PG-HQ on what you've learned having gone from a prolific player to a prolific developer. You can title it "what was I thinking?"

[otto]

Well, currently working on Canadians in Italy (Gothic line+Ortona+Liri battles). ...but my speed is one game every 7 years!

[JayTownsend]

Nice work Matt and Daniel!

[zaarin7]

"Edited two boxed games (Conquest of Ethiopia and the 2nd printing of South Flank)."

I have the first printing of South Flank. Did anything change?

[Matt W]

Re: South Flank, nothing of any significance. Mostly typos in the narratives. No OB or Victory condition changes. A couple clarifications of setup instructions was the extent.

[Coniglius]

I've been researching on the Brazilian contribution to the Gothic Line battles in Italy. I would like to put this together into a scenario pack or booklet but I haven't seen much support for it, especially from Mr. B. I've sent multiple emails asking for guidance on what would be appropriate (scenario book with 12-20 scenarios) or as a GC supplement. Each and every email has gone unanswered.

I've got tons of OOB material, deployment dates, casualty rates, equipment logs, etc (some of it is in Brazilian/Portuguese, which is a bit of a challenge for me, but not insurmountable) and lots of ideas for scenarios, but again, the support from AP is quite lacking.

[JayTownsend]

Awesome Coniglius, I have wanted the Brazilians for years. My wife is from Brazil, not that she is interested in wargames however.

[mwalbion]

Hi Coniglius - same here.

I've worked on "Hold The Line" with Worthington, Conflict of Heroes (Academy Games) and Lock N Load - The World At War series - I offered to help out with PG Modern, and got no reply.

Even a note of rejection would have been ok, but, got nothing.

Nothing but respect for Matt and Daniel - you guys have done some serious work !

[Matt W]

Hey Coniglius,

Just a quick response. RE: the Brazilians. Go for 20 scenarios and use only one or two boxed games in addition to new counters. Thinking of the terrain around the Gothic Line, you may want to look at either Korea game for the maps and something like An Army at Dawn for the German (and Italian if necessary) counters. AAAD might work for the maps too instead of Korea if you don't need much vegetation. I have received some submissions that went "around" the usual process and would be glad to slip them in if they aren't too big.

To the extent possible, especially for more esoteric projects, suggestions as to storyline and campaigns are helpful as are links to source material (in English for me as I am sadly an American cultural Imperialist, if in French I can ask Daniel to give it a look, Portuguese is likely beyond our capability unless we can stick it through a translate program). The goal is to have a both a game that is playable and a supplement that is readable. If you have seen Broken Axis, Kokoda Campaign or Invasion or any of the enhancements you can get an idea of the type of written material we like to wrap around the scenarios.

The OOB should be 88 counters or less if you can arm wrestle it to that level. Include leaders in the count. Any unique unit types should be outlined with proposed fire values and if they are vehicles a top down picture would be helpful. An example of such a countersheet for Go for Broke with only 77 counters and can be seen at the link below. Suggestions of colors for the units and the symbol devices (Cobras, right?) would be greatly appreciated.

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/2682...r-go-broke

While it is no guarantee to get it published I have found that completed projects will move into the production queue regardless of source. I do not have the final decision there. If this gets your motor running feel free to PM me with any additional questions.

Secondly, if people (mwalbion?) are hankering to do some development work please PM me.