I thought I'd give everyone a brief foray into my mind and the creative processes that went on during the creation of Kev's Game (no small children as this may contain violent or otherwise frightening images.) As many of you know, I ran through several variations of Kev's Game. What may surprise you is that I had seven working playable scenarios before I decided to adopt the one that has been posted. Seven times, I created cities and roads, RRs and Airports, VPs and reinforcements. Six times I deleted the resulting scenario from my HDD in frustration. Why was it so hard to build this game?
The secret, of course, rests in some of my previous creations. For every scenario of mine that's posted (five, if you count the three ATC scenarios and Kev's Game) I have three others on my drive that I either deemed unworthy or have yet to complete. (As I write this, at least one more is in my mind, perhaps several.) My first scenario, Attu, was greeted with general lack of fanfare and a rather embarrassing ribbing by Endgame about making sure my Long Description says what actually happens in the game. However, after some time, some others played it and found it worthy (of comment if nothing else). I am rather pleased with it, though it will probably remain my sole contribution to the Historical category.
The second scenario sent up the pipe was probably the one that Rommel has refereed to in his last post. I didn't playtest it. It was a human/human game and needlessly complicated. The idea was neat, but the resulting scenario sucked. Rommel did not post it and I'm glad.
The third was the ATC campaign. It like most of my ideas, came because of a simple question; "What would Earl do without VPs?" So I found out. The result is a pain in the rump scenario that most everyone seems to think highly of. It's hard, there's no real goal except the destruction of the enemy, but it works. I'm sorta proud of that one.
On to Kev's Game: I'm very proud of this one. I don't care if everyone hates it. I like it and I enjoyed playtesting it and I've played it for fun at least twice (winning once and losing once.) It's a random ecstasy game, but I think it somewhat unique.
If you don't mind, let me take you on a journey whose end result is Kev's Game.
When I first downloaded Endgame's map, I sat with a Coke and a large bag of corn chips and studied the map. I really liked it. It had all sorts of terrain. I could see a lot of different scenarios coming from this one. My first thought was 'beach invasion', but my second thought was 'everyone will do that... or a random ecstasy'. At the time, I had just finished Tom Clancy's 'Executive Orders' for the Nth time and the final battle intrigued me. I shaped the action in the book to fit the map and voila... Kev's Game.
The first playtest, Earl bought more Mobile Artillery than God and blew my front line into powder. Obviously a little tweaking was in order. I gave Earl a Divisional Artillery Battery and denied him artillery elsewhere. This worked, but the game was BORING! Thus ended version 1.
Version 2 began as a very creative reinforcement idea that just didn't work in the game. I forget the details, but it turns out the editor has some pretty specific ideas sometimes and is reluctant to fiddle with itself too much. Without the source code, my hands were pretty much tied. I new what I wanted, but you can't get there from here.
Version 3 was similar, except with a beach invasion thrown in. Three lasted all of 20 minutes on the old drive.
Versions four and five were conceived, born, and demolished on one painful Saturday. In fact, it was the Saturday of the last DalNet Debrief. I first designed a game with lots of Neutral City States that had to be invaded to get reinforcements (see Endgame's recap of that Debrief for details.) That worked in principle, but again the game was dull and somewhat (who am I kidding... it was very) painful to playtest. Five was a beach invasion scenario, but with several neutral countries. An added twist was the 950 pt. VP on the small island in the SE corner. Only by owning certain airports could you get to that island and the bounty it contained. Needless to say, it survived until Sunday morning. This was the one with LOTS of airports.
Version six was the start on turn four. It was the coolest of the design attempts, but it's coolness was also it's downfall. The premise was a general is in charge of a multi-beach invasion... and screws it to hell. A colonel must (after the general's bunker was destroyed by arty fire) take over and save the day. Unfortunately, it depended on a random event. This random event was really the make or break point. Do you respond with what may be a feint or do you not respond to what may be an all out attack.
Again, unfortunately, with TPG2's randomness generator, every game was exactly the same. I spent a week trying to get it to work out. Their may be some hope for it later, but not as a start on turn four game.
Which brings us to the final version (7). It may seem by reading this, that things went smoothly and quickly from one to the other... NOT! Every design was sweated over, ever finger poised over the delete key was trembling. "Should I... or can this be saved?" Finally, after more hours staring at a blank map, I came up with a premise. I don't know where it came from, but it appeared, in my mind, fully formed.
What would happen when several poor countries ganged up on several other poor countries? I used the idea of Central Africa with many countries tightly packed and not at all pleased with each other. Some countries would join an alliance and some would be the targets. Thus the random country beginnings.
These countries are poor, thus the small units and lots of Infantry. I purposely left out Infantry units, because they are (IMHO) pretty much useless in this game. The real power of these small countries lies in the small villages and farms that provide food and some measure of light industry. Besides, in these rural countries, enough people with enough friends can topple governments. Thus the VPs for small cities, villages, and farms.
The money, however, resides in the capitol and with it the people who want to keep their money and their apparent power. Thus the reinforcement in the capitols.
Who would expect a beach invasion from a podunk country? I wanted to give Earl and the human player, the ability to make trouble behind enemy lines (believe me, you must form front lines quickly). Thus the invasions.
The end result is something that I am quite proud of. As I said, I even playtest this one for fun! It's really a random ecstasy, but with only ACs and INF units available, you must plan in advance. It's perfectly reasonable to have an armored car travel a third of the way across the map to roll into a lightly guarded capitol. It happens.
Everyone keeps saying make games that you want to play, well I finally did it. And, do you know, they were right. I love this game. Try it. Try it twice, I guarantee it won't be the same.
See ya on the front
CaptainKev