Within the next few days, the first of what I hope will be many articles will appear on gamesquad under my name. The first is entitled Lessons From The Past and asks the question: what can PC game developers learn from their board game counterparts?

Blogs

As a way of complementing the article and any follow ons, and to make them interactive, I've decided to also create a blog. I've never been a fan of blogs; the concept initially seemed to me to indicate a frustrated writer who couldn't get published by conventional means because of a lack of something significant...

Tactical-level board wargames are back in vogue, and miniatures are in resurgence. Axis & Allies, Flames of War, ASL, Panzer Grenadier. Board wargame grogs got their hopes up with regards to computer games in the 1980s with M-1 Tank Platoon from Microprose, a mixture of sim and tactical level game that took everything oh-so-seriously, despite the vector graphics. At the time, they didn't look half as silly as they do in hindsight.

Tactical PC wargamers then got bombarded with a lot of mostly mediocre titles (which isn't to say they weren't fun) in the 1980s and 1990s, like Muzzle...

Between 1968 and the year 2000, over 100 separate board wargames were released depicting tactical level (meaning individual units depict platoons, squads, or individual men) combat in the 20th Century. Since then, several dozen more titles have appeared - some new ones, mostly modular in concept with multiple add-ons for the same game system. A review of these games gives one an opportunity to see how different designers have tackled design problems.

From 1985 to present, there have been several dozen different PC titles to portray the same thing - i.e. 20th Century tactical combat....

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The depiction of Waffen SS soldiers has been at times a controversial subject in the history of tactical wargaming. The controversy has stemmed not from the sensible dilemma of how best to portray their training, doctrine and actual abilities in combat - these problems are applied to all military forces that designers seek to depict in tactical wargames - but rather from the problem of how to reconcile their record of warcrimes with their military achievements. As most tactical wargames depict fighting at the sharp end, and most war crimes, even those committed by combat units, occurred away from...