Ship It!
I got the idea to design my first wargame at Consimworld Expo in 2018. I worked on it for the next year and had a prototype which I took to CSWE in 2019. There I showed it to John Kranz, who besides running Consimworld and the Expo, also works for Compass games. He was interested and eventually I signed an agreement with Compass to have it published in their wargame magazine, Paper Wars. The original plan was for me to have the design ready to submit by CSWE in 2020. That didn't happen because CSWE was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Proposed cover art for Fallujah Fury
Compass also hired Ty Bomba to be the new editor for Paper Wars and he pushed out my game. He had two of his own designs that were ready to go and he put them in the queue ahead of mine. Rank has its privileges. I didn't mind (much) since I used the extra time to do more playtesting. If there is one complaint that is always leveled at magazine wargames, it is that they are not playtested well enough. I took advantage of the time before I had to submit the design and think I did pretty well. I have seventeen people listed in the playtest credits for Fallujah Fury.
When I finally was ready to submit the design, Ty assigned a developer. That was a bit of a surprise because it was so late in the design process. Usually a game designer only does a rough design and then the developer is the one who drives the playtesting and finalizes all game materials, like rules, play aids, etc. In this case I had already done all of that. I think it was just done as a check. I am an unknown and I am guessing Ty wanted someone to really check out the design before he gave the final go ahead to publish. I was ok with that.
The developer he assigned was Robert "Smitty" Smith. He is an experienced wargamer and writes a lot of game reviews for Panzer Digest, an amateur wargame magazine. He is also retired US Army, and had been in Iraq in 2004. He had been in Fallujah early that year. He was even in a firefight at a village near Fallujah. You probably couldn't find a better person to check out the game. I was definitely interested in getting his reactions.
Smitty said he approached the game with some trepidation because of his experiences in Iraq. He did come back with a strong endorsement which was good enough for Ty to ok publication. He also had some good suggestions for organizing the rules which I incorporated. Together we got a package ready and submitted it to Paper Wars at the end of January. After two and half years, I was "done" with the design of Fallujah Fury. For now, at least. When we get closer to publication, I will have work to do with the artist who will develop the final artwork for the map and counters.
Playtest game of Fallujah Fury at GMT weekend fall 2019
Besides the game design, I wrote a historical article on the battle that will be in the same issue as the game. Then Ty also suggested that I write a design preview article, a teaser that would be published in an earlier issue to generate interest in the game. Both of those articles were submitted with the design package. Smitty also wrote a nice piece from his perspective to go with the design preview. In it he addressed some of his feelings associated with the game given that he had been in Iraq about that time.
So I am done for now. The queue for publishing is very long in the wargame hobby. The design preview article is scheduled for Paper Wars issue #99, which should come out in Q4 2021. The game will be in issue #103 in Q4 2022. Based on history, it's more likely they will be late than early. Still, it felt good to get everything wrapped up and submitted.
It seemed a little more real recently when Ty posted proposed cover art for upcoming issues on Facebook. It was exciting to see my design featured on the cover.
Now that Fallujah Fury is "in the can", I guess it is time to start working on my next design. I have a couple of ideas for more games. I certainly had a lot of fun doing my first one.
