Maurice Suckling

Recent arrivals: (spot the theme; wrong answers only).

theplayersaid.com/2026/10/15/b...

Today’s game: back to Napoleon’s Conquests. The worker placement system went down well with people. The diplomacy system went down less well.

Today’s game: Fall of Camelot, 2-4 player prototype.

Yesterday’s game: Napoleon’s Conquests. 5-player game. Getting through the first few moves.

I just backed An Infamous Traffic: Second Edition on @kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com/projects/col...

Today’s game: Keep The Faith, a 2-5 player game about how religions transform over time. Our religion featured a magical monkey who ate a magical acorn (there was some schismatic tension over this) and pooped a tree of life. Design Greg Loring-Albright. Published by CMU Press.

Today’s arrival: Terry Brighton’s Hell Riders: The True Story of the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Today’s game: Coalitions (6 players), by Andy Rourke, published by Phalanx. I really enjoyed this. Some smart design choices here - especially with regards to the diplomacy system.

Today’s game: Witch Hunt 1649 (Martha McGill, CMU Press). It was sort of mean. Played with 6 people (two of whom went on trial and were executed, one of whom was exiled).

Today’s mood:

Today’s delivery: The Weimar Republic (Gunnar Holmback, GMT Games).

Today’s arrival: Frank McDonough, The Weimar Yesrs: Rise and Fall 1918-1933.

Sessions of Narrative-Driven Analog Games @ RPI - students are playing a range of story-making games such as Nanofictionary, Once Upon a Time, The Storymatic, PitchStorm, Inventory Management, For the Queen, and Untold Adventures Await, in preparation for demoing their own designs.

I'm bad at self promotion, but did you know that I'm also an editor and that you can hire me? I have edited history books (most recently for Osprey) and TTRPGs (for Modiphius and Exalted Funeral among others). Full list: www.stuartellisgorman.com/editor Can contact me via website or here!

Today’s game, The Reason Why, a prototype about allocating blame for the Charge of the Light Brigade. Many mechanical things to alter, but the narrative and broad design concept appears to hang together.

Latest arrivals (spot the odd one out):

Recent arrivals:

From Pea Ridge (1980), optional rule:

Yesterday’s arrival, Nine Space Games, by Jason Morningstar. Serious contender for being part of my Narrative-Driven Analog Games course this semester.

Unpacking mail that came for me while away from home this summer #6: The Weimar Republic, published by GMT Games.

Unpacking mail that came for me while away from home this summer #5: Education and Analog Role-Playing Games, Edited by Susan Haarman.

Unpacking mail that came for me while away from home this summer #4: Introduction to Global Military History, Jeremy Black.

Unpacking mail that came for me while away from home this summer #3: Coaltions (and expansions) from Phalanx.

Unpacking mail that came for me while away from home this summer #2: Hunt for Blackbeard from Fort Circle Games.

Unpacking mail that came for me while away from home this summer #1: Bretwalda (and expansions) from Phalanx.

Today’s arrival: Designing Historical Games For Classrooms, by my friend, @gamingthepast.bsky.social

Today’s adventure: travelling from Oxford to London:

Today’s adventure in Oxford:

Today’s game at BrotherCon, Sheffield, UK, Imperial Struggle.

Today’s games at BrotherCon, Sheffield UK: War of the Ring (Free Peoples get the Ring to Mordor a turn before Lorien falls), then we begin We The People (and make all manner of mistakes on our first run out). Much fun had by all (both of us).

Yesterday’s game - taking this prototype out for a walk - Fall of Camelot.

Read of the last month: Battle cry of Freedom. Excellent single volume on the war, covering not just the military dimension, but also politics and social history. I recommend it to those interested in the topic.

Today’s game: Game of the Generals by Sofronio H. Pasola Jr. (1970). Essentially similar to L’Attaque/Stratego, but flags (HQs) can move and if they reach the opponent’s back line and aren’t challenged that’s a win. 2 spies, who defeat everyone apart from privates also keeping things fun.

Book pairing in Kathmandu:

Yesterday’s read: Farmer Giles of Ham. Beautiful illustrations in this, by Pauline Baynes.

Today’s read: Smith of Wootton Major. Written 1964/5.

Today’s reading: Leaf By Niggle (by Tolkien) - it’s like reading a response to Kafka - I believe scholars generally consider it an allegory of his anxieties that he will never finish LotR:

Publication day. Thank you to @enwright.bsky.social, Iain, and Nick for making this so. I think this is a meaningful contribution to the field of historical games. My chapter is on historical rhetoric and board games, with a case study on Crisis: 1914. lnkd.in/evi5Z7Nw

Progress assembling my Fall of Camelot prototype:

Assembling a prototype for my Fall of Camelot game:

Tomorrow is the 96th birthday of René Soriano, the designer of Kerplunk & ~60 other board games he had never been credited for. I found him, & in this video he tells the story of a remarkable career ranging from dexterity games to some of the earliest Star Wars licensed games. youtu.be/dTepZ7qM24Q

Do you like developing games? Do you like money? Are you in New York? This could be for you: gamehub.rpi.edu/research/lev...

Two other games from this semester’s historical simulations class Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - one on the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, and the other on the development of the homophole movement in the U.S. prior to Stonewall:

Today’s development: Assembling the prototype for The Reason Why, a 5 player game about allocating blame for the Charge of the Light Brigade:

Today’s development: physical prototype of my Bartleby the Scrivener game arrived:

Monday’s game in Historical Simulation: Weird An’ Mire of Letters (selected writers trying to balance inspiration, community, and finances during the Great Depression).

Today’s game in Historical Simulations (a prototype by a PhD student) on the Chinese Educational Mission (1872 to 1881), where 120 teenaged Chinese boys were taken to Hartford, CT and educated- until the Chinese government, fearful the students were losing their traditions, brought them back:

We need historians because evidence doesn’t explain itself. Context does not simply exist. It is built through research, interpretation, and critical analysis. What stories have you uncovered in the historical record? #TalkAboutHumanities 🗃️