Game Design and Development: My Experience
By John Stafford
Images by the author, or from (Image above: Napoleonics in 6mm: fictional battle of Pilzn)
John with a King Tiger tank near Elsenborn Ridge in GermanyIn 2010, Mitch Reed introduced me to the line of games published by Avalanche Press (AP). Their tactical approach to World War 2 filled a longstanding desire for something better than Advanced Squad Leader and Panzer Leader/Blitz by Avalon Hill. I began acquiring titles and reading the postings on their website. Shortly thereafter I began posting ideas for areas not covered by the Panzer Grenadier rules, such as logistics impacts on fighting (low fuel or ammo).
When they announced they intended to publish a World War I game, and Mitch and I offered to collaborate on writing the rules. Through this process, I made friends with the then-designer/developer Doug McNair and helped shape the final rules, artillery fire in particular.
A year later, when Doug decided left Avalanche, he suggested to the owner, Dr. Mike Bennighof me to be his new Developer.
What is Game Development?
Development of a game is different than the design of the game. The developer receives a draft game from a designer. The developer’s job is to turn it into a saleable product ready for the artists and printers. The publisher, in this case, Avalanche Press, gave me guidelines to work within for publishing, like map and counter count, the number of desired scenarios, interactions with other titles, and a deadline.
The developer has to convert the existing product into a saleable product successfully. That includes reading, editing, and playtesting (or at least evaluating) all the scenarios (and Panzer Grenadier games run 20-50 scenarios per game.).
In addition, the developer needs to edit the text of any supplemental information as well as the scenarios to ensure they are interesting and informative. They also need to tweak maps, evaluate the counter mix and usually cut it down significantly. Sometimes the developer and publisher will clash over something the publisher wants to cut from the game, but the developer sees value in it because this element is really cool or essential to the game/battle and needs to be included.
Some designers can be testy about how you monkey with their game. Fortunately, this wasn’t the case with the crew that supported AP. I was always able to find a final product that made both the designers and Mike happy.
Designing the War PG-Modern
After completing several development efforts, Mike asked me if I’d like to design something. We discussed options, and settled on a project plan to write a new Panzer Grenadier–Modern set of rules that would launch a series of games beginning with the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, then segue into Vietnam and perhaps into some Cold War “what if” games. My time shifted to 75% design time and 25% development time for the next four months.
First, I needed to perform a massive amount of research on the period, learning the orders of battle (orbat), the terrain, the tactics, and the battle history, then filtering in my knowledge of current day military capabilities, and thinking about how to morph the Panzer Grenadier rules into modern ones without throwing out too much.
Once I completed the research I conscientiously looked over each section of the Panzer Grenadier rules and asked myself: “Did this change after WW2 to a significant degree?” “if so, how?” This led to a long list of ideas and changes.
I reached out to some of the guys who support AP, like Matt Ward, Andrew Heath, and Alan Sawyer and ran some ideas past them. I did not want to alienate the mass of Panzer Grenadier players with this “modern” effort; I wanted to excite them. These fellows proved excellent feedback and the rules almost wrote themselves.
Significant changes to Panzer Grenadier included reduced stacking (more dispersed battlefield), logistics as part of the game (chances for low ammunition or fuel shortages after a variable amount of turns), antitank missiles, revision of the airstrike and antiaircraft rules adding missiles and enhancing the air-ground interaction, helicopters as transports and attack platforms, and many more. I then play-tested each of the new rules to ensure they worked in gameplay. With the rules on the shelf, I proceeded to the game itself.
Education
Eric Hammel’s Six Days in June served as my primary source. I fleshed out my knowledge with dozens of other sources from Osprey titles as well as video games. It took me a month to gather enough information to begin writing, and then I consistently referred to my references throughout the design process. I wrote a project summary upfront to keep me in scope, broken into four fronts-Golan, Sinai, Gaza, and West Bank. The game builds on units that are platoons, so scenarios could run from company to perhaps brigade size.
I wrote out a list of battles, then broke some of them down to phases or portions of the battlefield to keep the scenarios in scope. Once I had the scenario list, I fleshed out the descriptions and orders of battle (orbats). This step took some creativity and judgment as specific orbats were just not available for most battles, particularly on the Arab side. But I used their paper strengths and made judgments based upon typical readiness data for the period and estimated losses from previous engagements.
The Design
From the orbats, I made a master spreadsheet to determine the counter mix and was horrified to find I required about 50% more counters than Mike originally allowed me. Judicious substitution and editing of scenarios helped me get the counter mix down to a reasonable size.
Finally, the map issue loomed as my final headache. Since all Panzer Grenadier game use geomorphic maps at a scale of 200 meters per hex, one “historical” map was impossible. I needed a variety of terrain that encompassed built-up areas like Gaza, Jerusalem, and El Arish, rocky and mountainous terrain like the Golan, and flat desert with hills and dunes for the Sinai. Ugh.
As a developer, I’d built a hex template in the right size to play around with designer’s map concepts. Using that tool, I built about a dozen maps and played around with scenarios and possible map combinations again until I gleaned the final eight maps. This scenario adjustment meant I had to go back and adjust the counter mix again too.
Finished Products
This two-pronged effort eventually produced Panzer Grenadier–Modern rules and the historical game 1967: Sword of Israel. Israel preemptively attacked the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Palestinians in 50 scenarios, across eight maps, employing 869 playing pieces. Guy Riessen designed fantastic maps on this behemoth project, and I owe Mitch Reed a lot of credit for the research support he provided, and his solid advice as my rules sounding board.
Revisions and New Editions
I designed several other titles for AP, but I received the most satisfaction from designing the 4th Edition of the Panzer Grenadier rules. This effort needed the Panzer Grenadier community to participate actively in the design to ensure that the love of the game would not be tarnished. I reached out once again to Matt Ward, Andrew Heath, Alan Sawyer, and several others at the beginning of the process.
First, I survey them on their own list of “issues” with the game and posted a survey on Heath’s Panzer Grenadier HQ website to draw in more comments. This resulted in about 130 “issues” to explore altogether. I systematically reviewed each one, eliminated some, and wrote potential solutions for the others after more research.
I sent these potential solutions back out to my “team” and posted some to Panzer Grenadier HQ. After several iterations, I resolved all the issues. The hardest nut to crack revolved around making line-of-sight and line-of-fire determinations that were both simple to visualize for players, and easy to execute in-game rules, yet yield realistic results.
Along the way, we updated the charts to be more consistent in form and modifiers (close assaults had used a different type of chart and process than fire) and included and standardized all the terrain in previously published games in a single chart. I even redesigned the administrative counter set to change the mix of minefields and add some new terrain and logistics markers.
Guidance for new developers/designers
• Don’t be shy—everyone starts somewhere and your ideas may be worth publishing. Reach out to designers, developers, or publishers to ask questions and offer your help.
• If you like a game or publisher, get involved by posting game variants, game reports, FAQs, playtesting, manning a booth at conventions, etc. Trust me, publishers like volunteers.
• Purchase a good style manual (Chicago Manual of Style) and improve your writing.
• Research your topic well. Your players will expect a balance of accuracy, realism, and playability—seek it.
• Find people to playtest your game without your presence to explain things. Ask them to take detailed notes, then tell you what they like and don’t like, or found confusing; then fix them. If they do all this, cherish and reward them.
• Give people credit that help you.
• Don’t expect to earn a living as a designer. Sure, Jim Dunnigan, Richard Berg, Joe Miranda, and others make a living at it, but the vast majority of designers do not. They get paid a reasonable amount (typically a few hundred dollars) for designing a game. Rinse, repeat. Keep your day job until you either get that lucky break when Blizzard asks you to come design for them, or you get an inheritance. 😉
• Good luck.
John is a 21-year USAF transport pilot now working for the Department of Homeland Security. Born in California, living in Alexandria, Virginia, loves to play and tinker with miniatures (primarily ancients, Napoleonics, and fantasy), historical or family boardgames, roleplaying games, Magic the Gathering, and video games when he can’t find a face-to-face opponent.