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Microgame (board Games)
A microgame is a board game or wargame packaged in a small set. Description Microgames enjoyed popularity during the 1980s and have seen a revival with the popularity of tabletop games in the 21st century. The term generally refers to board games or wargames which were packaged and sold with instructions and maps or playing surfaces printed in a booklet format, or as one large sheet folded until it became "pocket sized" (approximately 4×7 inches). Game pieces (also known as chits or counters) were printed on one or more sheets of thick paper which the player sometimes had to cut for themselves. Other microgames had fully die-cut cardboard sheets like those included with most board wargames. Steve Jackson Games used the Pocket Box to package many of their games in this format. While small scale wargames and board games, including Tabletop Games' Micro Series Games, had existed before they began publishing, Metagaming Concepts first used the term "MicroGame" when they release ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Board Game
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a competition between two or more players. To show a few examples: in checkers (British English name 'draughts'), a player wins by capturing all opposing pieces, while Eurogames often end with a calculation of final scores. '' Pandemic'' is a cooperative game where players all win or lose as a team, and peg solitaire is a puzzle for one person. There are many varieties of board games. Their representation of real-life situations can range from having no inherent theme, such as checkers, to having a specific theme and narrative, such as ''Cluedo''. Rules can range from the very simple, such as in snakes and ladders; to deeply complex, as in ''Advanced Squad Leader''. Play components now often include custom figures or shaped counters, and distin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Game Designers' Workshop
Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) was a wargame and role-playing game publisher from 1973 to 1996. Many of their games are now carried by other publishers. History Game Designers' Workshop was originally established June 22, 1973. The founding members consisted of Frank Chadwick, Rich Banner, Marc Miller, and Loren Wiseman. GDW acquired the Conflict Games Company from John Hill in the early 1970s. GDW published a new product approximately every twenty-two days for over twenty years. In an effort to bridge the gap between role players, board wargamers and miniature wargamers, the company published RPGs with fantastic settings alongside games with realistic themes including rulesets for 15mm and 20mm miniatures set during the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the modern era; and boardgames involving these eras such as the ''Air Superiority'' series and ''Harpoon''. The company disbanded February 29, 1996 after suffering financial troubles. Products Role-pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BoardGameGeek
BoardGameGeek (BGG) is an online forum for board gaming hobbyists and a game database that holds reviews, images and videos for over 125,600 different tabletop games, including European-style board games, wargames, and card games. In addition to the game database, the site allows users to rate games on a 1–10 scale and publishes a ranked list of board games. As of , boardgamegeek.com has an Alexa rank of . History BoardGameGeek was founded in January 2000 by Scott Alden and Derk Solko, and marked its 20th anniversary on 20 January 2020. Since 2005, BoardGameGeek hosts an annual board game convention, BGG.CON, that has a focus on playing games, and where winners of the Golden Geek Awards are announced. New games are showcased and convention staff is provided to teach rules. There is also an annual Spring BGG.CON which is family friendly, and an annual BGG@Sea which is held on a cruise. In 2010, BoardGameGeek received the Diana Jones Award, which recognized it as "a resource w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, Kickstarter has received $6.6 billion in pledges from 21 million backers to fund 222,000 projects, such as films, music, stage shows, comics, journalism, video games, board games, technology, publishing, and food-related projects. People who back Kickstarter projects are offered tangible rewards or experiences in exchange for their pledges. This model traces its roots to subscription model of arts patronage, where artists would go directly to their audiences to fund their work. History Kickstarter launched on April 28, 2009, by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler. ''The New York Times'' called Kickstarter "the people's NEA". ''Time'' named it one of the "Best Inventions of 2010" and "Best Websites of 2011". Kickstarter repo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TSR, Inc
TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D''). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had been unable to find a publisher for ''D&D'', a new type of game he and Dave Arneson were co-developing, so founded the new company with Kaye to self-publish their products. Needing financing to bring their new game to market, Gygax and Kaye brought in Brian Blume in December as an equal partner. ''Dungeons & Dragons'' is generally considered the first tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG), and established the genre. When Kaye died suddenly in 1975, the Tactical Studies Rules partnership restructured into TSR Hobbies, Inc. and accepted investment from Blume's father Melvin. With the popular ''D&D'' as its main product, TSR Hobbies became a major force in the games industry by the late 1970s. Melvin Blume eventually transferred his shares to his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tri Tac Games
Tri Tac Games is a publisher of role-playing games based in Pontiac, Michigan. The company is built primarily on the work of Richard Tucholka, its founder and president. Company history Tri Tac Games was founded in 1978 as "Tacky Tack Games". Tri Tac is one of several small companies that rode the wave of interest in RPGs beginning in the 1970s with TSR's ''Dungeons & Dragons''. The company's first product was the humorous microgame ''Geriatric Wars''. It was followed by: '' Fringeworthy'', the first interdimensional travel RPG; '' Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic'', a late 20th Century Horror RPG; and '' FTL:2448'', a space RPG. All three were created by Tucholka. The company name was changed to "Tri Tac Games" to reflect what the company saw as the more serious nature of its new products. Currently the company sells a number of games and books, including a book of cartoons and a cookbook called ''Damn Strange Recipe Collection''. It has reincorporated as Tri Tac Games ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Task Force Games
Task Force Games was a game company started in 1979 by Allen Eldridge and Stephen V. Cole. TFG published many games, most notably including both ''Star Fleet Battles'' (currently published by the original designers, Amarillo Design Bureau) and the '' Starfire'' series of games (which is now published by Starfire Design Studio), which were later novelized by David Weber into such books as '' In Death Ground'', '' The Shiva Option'' and ''Insurrection''. Eldridge sold the company to New World Computing in 1988, which became a division of The 3DO Company in 1996 and went out of business in 2003. During the period that TFG was owned by New World Computing, the two companies attempted the first-ever simultaneous release of a board game and computer game. The two versions of King's Bounty wound up releasing about 9 months apart, and after NWC had sold TFG to John Olsen. Future versions of New World Computing's version of King's Bounty were called Heroes of Might & Magic to avoid co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Jackson Games
Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and (until 2019) the gaming magazine ''Pyramid''. History Founded in 1980, six years after the creation of ''Dungeons & Dragons'', SJ Games created several role-playing and strategy games with science fiction themes. SJ Games' early titles were microgames initially sold in 4×7 inch ziploc bags, and later in the similarly sized Pocket Box. Games such as ''Ogre'', ''Car Wars'', and ''G.E.V'' (an ''Ogre'' spin-off) were popular during SJ Games' early years. Game designers such as Loren Wiseman and Jonathan Leistiko have worked for Steve Jackson Games. Today SJ Games publishes a variety of games, such as card games, board games, strategy games, and in different genres, such as fantasy, sci-fi, and gothic horror. They also published the book ''Principia Discordia'', the sacred text of the Discordian religion. Raid by the Secret S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simulations Publications, Inc
A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the simulation represents the evolution of the model over time. Often, computers are used to execute the simulation. Simulation is used in many contexts, such as simulation of technology for performance tuning or optimizing, safety engineering, testing, training, education, and video games. Simulation is also used with scientific modelling of natural systems or human systems to gain insight into their functioning, as in economics. Simulation can be used to show the eventual real effects of alternative conditions and courses of action. Simulation is also used when the real system cannot be engaged, because it may not be accessible, or it may be dangerous or unacceptable to engage, or it is being designed but not yet built, or it may simply not e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operational Studies Group
Operational Studies Group, also known as OSG, is a publisher of board wargames. History Kevin Zucker, the Managing Editor at the wargame publisher Simulations Publications Inc. (SPI), left the company in January 1976. He and other ex-SPI employees started to plan a Napoleonic wargame that would be presented as a spiral-bound book. However the logistics of this format were beyond the ability of the group to create economically, and in the end, the group changed the design to a ziplock bag game titled '' Napoleon at Bay''. In order to publish the game, Zucker formed the company Tactical Studies Group, and convinced George Blagowidow, the owner of Hippocrene Books and distributor of SPI wargames, to buy 800 copies. On the basis of that sale, Zucker convinced SPI's printer to print 2000 copies. Zucker went to Origins '78 with the ziplock game and sold 250 copies. Due to the similarity of "Tactical Studies Group" and "Tactical Studies Rules" (TSR — the publishers of ''Dungeons & D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheapass Games
Cheapass Games is a game company founded and run by game designer James Ernest, based in Seattle, Washington. Cheapass Games operates on the philosophy that most game owners have plenty of dice, counters, play money, and other common board game accessories, so there is no need to bundle all of these components with every game that requires them. Cheapass games thus come packaged in white envelopes, small boxes, or plastic resealable bags containing only those components unique to the game - typically a rules sheet, a playing board printed on card stock, and game cards banded by magazine-cutout "sleeves". This allows the company to produce games for prices well below the market average. Later, Cheapass started offering some higher-quality, full color games under the "James Ernest Games" brand. History Ernest originally developed the idea for selling basic games without all the common components while freelancing at Wizards of the Coast during the 1990s. However, Wizards rejected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wargaming
A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a realistic simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to study the nature of potential conflicts. Many wargames recreate specific historic battles, and can cover either whole wars, or any campaigns, battles, or lower-level engagements within them. Many simulate land combat, but there are wargames for naval and air combat as well. Generally, activities where the participants actually perform mock combat actions (e.g. friendly warships firing dummy rounds at each other) are not considered wargames. Some writers may refer to a military's field training exercises as "live wargames", but certain institutions such as the US Navy do not accept this.''War Gamer's Handbook'' (US Naval War College), p. 4: "The .S. Naval War College's War Gaming Departmentuses the Perla (1990) definition, which describes w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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