Hi All,
Just though I'd drop a note to let you know about BenchTest games.
We are based in the UK and are currently have two games under active development: a miniatures wargame called Intervention and a political card game called Manifesto. (We assume you guys will be more interested in the former than the latter). We have experience in academic, professional and recreational gaming and aim to bring different perspectives to the games we produce. We mainly game in 6mm modern/cold war (as that's what Intervention is designed for) but sometimes branch out into other areas.
Last year we soft-launched Intervention - a semi-traditional wargame set in the cold war/modern era. Taking people's feedback into account, over the subsequent 6 months we updated the rule-sets to improve the gaming experience and expand upon the areas players were most interested in. We started writing Intervention about 5 years ago, after searching (and failing to find) a modern wargame that was at 1:1 scale and didn't involve what felt like uncomfortable abstractions or excessive complexity. (There are lots of great games out there, but none that quite did what we wanted).
Setting: Generic system. Suitable for Cold War to Modern Combat.
Figure scale: 1:1 – A unit of infantry represents a section and each vehicle represents one vehicle.
Game size: 10-30 units is typical, depending on the length of game desired.
Features: Dynamic turn structure keeps all players involved; a focus on mobility and positional advantage; focus on core stats to avoid extra complexity; flexible force structure and sandbox design enables infinite variety of scenarios to be gamed; low cost to get started;
Players: Recommended 2 to 4 (although suitable for solo-play or for 6 or more players)
The core rules are now complete and are split over 4 books:
- Intervention Core Rules
- Air Assault (Rules for incorporating helicopters)
- Technical Codex - a compendium or equipment, special rules and abilities
- Unit Builder - a guide to creating your own units, together with a points calculator.
The next things we are working on are:
- A stripped down version of the rules (working title "Rapid Intervention") which is mainly for non-gamers (soldiers, students etc) who want to quickly run a simple wargame;
- Rules for playing as asymmetric/insurgent/rebel forces; and
- A scenarios guide for creating missions and environmental factors.
If anyone would like to know more, be involved in playtesting or is interested in discussing game design more broadly, please drop us a line or visit the website
www.benchtest.net/intervention-about.
Cheers
BenchTest
21 September 2007, 04:32:49 PM