Bringing a game to market is an expensive and time consuming proposition (follow along as we take Froggy Bazaar from an idea to publication & beyond). It’s easy to over-estimate the value of your game idea, and underestimate the value of the rest of the process of bringing a game to market.
In short, even if your game rocks it isn’t worth it for anyone else to steal it.
Stealing a game would also come with a lot of risk. The indie design community is small and close-knit. And indie game consumers likely wouldn’t be forgiving towards a publisher who stole another designer’s game.
You do occasionally see successful games re-implemented like Cards Against Humanity broadly re-implemented Apples to Apples with NSFW content. But, I don’t know of any instances where an indie design was ripped off especially before publication.
So, get to playtesting!
Where to Find Playtesters
I like to think of playtesting in a couple of categories each with a different audience, and with different goals. Where you go to find playtesters in each stage will vary. And, as you playtest more you’ll be sourcing playtesters more broadly outside of your immediate circle.
Early Stage
The earliest stages of playtesting you’ll be figuring out whether your game is fun and functional. This will mostly be playing by yourself and roping family and friends into games while you iterate on rules.
Where to find early stage playtesters:
Mid Stage
As your game progresses you’ll be focused on developing the game, balancing it, and finding your audience. In some playtests you’ll be focused on getting feedback on specific mechanisms or interactions, in others you’ll want broad feedback, and in others you’ll be focused on what gamers your game gels with.
If you had to give an elevator pitch to attract new players into LARPing, what would you say?
Erin: At its core, LARP is about coming together with other people and exploring a story that none of you could tell alone. People come for lots of different reasons: wanting to act out a role; looking for something more immersive than tabletop or videogames; making music or other performances; crafting flashy costumes. But strip all of that away and there’s no feeling quite like your heartbeat racing as you wait to see the consequences of your actions, or just sitting back and bathing in the atmosphere of a group of people creating a world together.
For those who picture LARPing as wearing costumes in a field, please could you explain a bit about chamber LARPs – what do these involve, and what do players spend their time doing during a game?
Jon: The focus is generally on social interactions, which might be very political and strategic or just hanging out as your characters. There’s also space for very personal storytelling, one of the central themes of Changeling is having your life turned completely upside down by a magical, incomprehensible experience, and trying to make sense of what to do next.
That said, all those things are often possible in “field” LARPs too, so I suppose the biggest difference is that there are fewer rules, and no dramatic combat or spell-slinging. Problems are more likely to be solved with discussion, negotiation, and problem-solving.
More of GMT’s Digital Offerings that allow you to “Play GMT Games Anytime, Anywhere.
As I noted in our first article, we have created, in cooperation with individual programmers and digital game platforms, numerous ways for customers to experience our boardgames on your digital devices. We’ve done this for one large, underlying reason: We want players to be able to engage with and experience the learning, fun, challenge, and historical insights of our boardgames with other players from around the world on digital platforms where they can play the games generally much more quickly than they can on their physical game tables.
Online Multi-player Games that enforce the boardgame rules but have no solo AI opponents. We’ll talk about these today.
Traditional VASSAL and TableTop Simulator Game Modules. We’ll feature these in our next installment of the series.
Free-to-Play Online Games
Today we’ll talk about all of the Free-to-Play Games that we have authorized to be published on Popular Online Platforms. First, a few notes about these games:
Most GMT Games on online free-to-play platforms look and play like the boardgame. You can play them multi-player with friends or multi-handed “hot seat” solo, but there is no AI built in, so there is no “against the computer” solo play.
A nice feature of Rally the Troops, one of the platforms listed below, especially if you want to familiarize yourself with gameplay before you play yourself, is that you can “Watch” a game in progress or “Review” a completed game.
All we ask for those of you who play our games online is that at least one of you who are playing owns the physical boardgame. That’s how it would be if you were meeting friends face to face to play – ONE of you would bring the game. But there’s no requirement that all players own the game to play online. We WANT you to use online free-to-play options to “try before you buy” our boardgames.
Here’s the list of games we have authorized that are currently available on free-to-play online platforms:
Rally the Troops.com
GMT Games Available to play for free on Rally the Troops as of April 21, 2025:
1989: Dawn of Freedom (2-player Card-driven game (CDG) set in Eastern Europe in 1989)
Andean Abyss (1-4 player COIN series game on the struggle for power in Columbia in the 1990s )
Nevsky (1-2-player Levy & Campaign series game about the clash between Latin Teutonic and Orthodox Russian powers along the Baltic frontier in the mid-13th-Century.)
Plantagenet (1-2-player Levy & Campaign series game of the War of the Roses)
Red Flag Over Paris (2-player Card-driven game on the Rise and Fall of the Paris Commune, 1871. )
Time of Crisis (1-4 player Strategy game of Ancient Rome)
Vijayanagara (1-3 player Irregular Conflict Series game of Medieval India, 1290-1398.
Washington’s War (Strategic 2-player CDG about the American Revolution.)
Wilderness War (Strategic 2-player CDG about the French & Indian Wars)
I hope this article and “all in one place” listing of games gives you insight into what’s available to you for our free-to-play digital games offerings. We want all of you to have plenty of options to find your favorite ways to “Play GMT Games Anytime, Anywhere.”
Next Time: VASSAL, TableTop Simulator Module, Cyberboard for almost all of our games, plus Solo Apps!
In William Shakespeare’s Richard III, the eponymous character is described as physically deformed and a psychopathic villain. Was this the truth or Tudor era propaganda?
Shakespeare has these lines in the play depicting Richard as deformed in body:
“To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-backed toad.”
“O, thou didst prophesy the time would come that I should wish for thee to help me curse that bottled spider, that foul bunch-backed toad!”
“Look how I am bewitched! Behold mine arm is like a blasted sapling withered up”
Old Bill is clearly saying that Richard is a hunchback, much like Quasimodo from the Victor Hugo novel, or the Disney movie, take your pick. And that one of Richard’s arms was withered and wasted. In 2012, archaeologists found and exhumed King Richard III from a car park (parking lot in America) in Leicester, England. The site was formerly part of Greyfriars Priory where the fallen King was buried after his death at Bosworth. An analysis of the skeleton showed that Richard had a severe case of Scoliosis, which at most would have caused one of his shoulders to lower than the other. There was no evidence of the “withered arm” mentioned in the play.
As far as Richard being a psychopathic villain that murdered his brother George, Duke of Clarence, his nephews (the infamous princes in the tower), among others. Richard had served his brother, Edward, well as the Duke of Gloucester, helping him win his crown and become King Edward IV. George was executed for treason and likely “deserved” it, for turning on both Edward and Richard several times. As for the princes, there is much debate about what became of them and who ordered what. The designer of Blood & Roses, Richard Berg, clearly believed that his namesake was a not responsible for their disappearance. There is some evidence that the bones found in the Tower of London were not those of the princes. Politics in England during this time period was a little rougher, to say the least, than it is today. More on par with Soviet Russia, where people suddenly disappeared and were erased from history.
Bosworth, one of the more important battles in English history, wherein, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, defeated King Richard III and gained the English crown for the House of Tudor (political descendants of the House of Lancaster) as Henry VII.
Battle of Bosworth, as depicted by Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740–1812)
But more than that, Bosworth is interesting for two reasons:
• It is the only battle on English soil in which an English king was killed (if one starts counting from the reign of William I)
• It is a rather interesting situation, with each side waiting to see which way the political and tactical wind will blow, and two “Battles” of Stanley’s sitting athwart the field, like soccer fans, waiting to weigh in for whoever looks good.
Richard Berg was a Ricardian, meaning he was pro-Richard amidst all of the Tudorian propaganda out there, much of it thanks to Shakespeare (doing a spin job for the Tudors). Richard, for one, was a most stalwart and capable battlefield commander and fighter, and was unfairly smeared as a hunchback because of his scoliosis of the spine… and a pretty good king while he ruled.
Some of the historical text above was lifted from the Men of Iron Battle Book’s Historical Background for the Battle of Bosworth.
You can learn more or pre-order the Men of Iron Tri-Pack 2nd Printing here.
Edward “TK” King and co-designer Dennis Northcott started their publication journey for Galactic Cruise around the same time I started our journey with Nut Hunt. I remember fondly the early days of us on the Board Game Design Lab Facebook page talking design tips, sharing prototype pictures, and learning the ins and outs of bringing a game to market.
We took different routes with our games – where I spent about 18 months developing Nut Hunt and bringing it to market, TK, Dennis & team (Koltin Thompson who I haven’t interacted with as much) have had a much more measured approach and expects to launch Galactic Cruise on Kickstarter in the first quarter of 2024.
I’m extremely proud of what Ed and team have accomplished. A solid 6 months ahead of launching the Kickstarter they already have over 3,000 followers on the page, the game was a hit at Gen Con, and they’ve built a great game with a great community.
As I wrote about last week (in a regular blog post), as a game evolves through the development process the goals of your playtests, as well as the target playtest audience will change.
We’re now at the point for Froggy Bazaar where I need to broaden our play tester base (beyond my immediate circle), and so have a few important questions to answer.
What is the medium of playtesting?
Who is playtesting?
What are our goals for playtesting?
Playtesting Medium
We enlisted the help of Tabletop Simulator wizard Alexei Menardo to script our Froggy Bazaar mod. Alexei is great at getting TTS to do what you want including what could otherwise be fiddly set up [if you’d like to commission Alexei to build a mod for your game, you can reach him at pixelandboard@gmail.com].
As such, most of our playtesting in the near term will be online through Tabletop Simulator. That said, if you’d like to print out your own version of Froggy Bazaar, we have PNP materials here, and very rough written rules here.
Playtesters
Since we’ve been through this process a couple of times, I am fortunate to have an audience of Pine Island Insiders who are excited to play our upcoming games. Over time I’ll be reaching out on the various forums to source an even broader audience.
If you are looking for playtesters for your game, check out last week’s article Playtesting & Playtesters.
Playtesting Goals
These first rounds of playtesting are aimed at tightening up the game mechanically, finding pain points, and making sure every inch of the game is fun. Since this series focuses on a specific game, I’m going to go into a little more detail of my primary goals for this round of playtesting
Make sure that the BIG HOP action is balanced.
Figure out if we have the best end of game trigger (a player filling their rucksack).
Balancing group bugjectives & figuring out whether we should separate them into separate color and number bugjectives.
You can check out my full playtesting feedback form here. What I also love about these early rounds is that I run the playtesting, so can talk with players in real time about how they feel about different aspects of the gameplay.
While I think each playtest should have a focus, it’s always helpful to have some level of consistency in what you are asking your play testers. JT Smith over at The Game Crafter put together a pretty decent starting point for a playtesting form. You can download a free pdf or buy printed booklets of it here.
The Game Crafter Playtest Form
I prefer to come up with my own forms rather than use a template, as the specifics of the playtest and game will determine the kinds of questions that are relevant. But, JT’s form is definitely a good starting point for inspiration.
Despite seeing years of play, the deck (seven of clubs not withstanding) has held up remarkably well. The cards are crisp, snappy, and despite some face wear perfectly serviceable (seven of clubs not withstanding). The cards really are the kind of made for life component we all love in our games.
Varnish Crackling
My new deck of red arrows is a different story. After only two plays we cracked open the deck and found substantial crackling on the face of cards.
To understand what is going on with this, we first need to talk a little about how playing cards are made. First a long roll of card or plastic stock (in this case PVC or a similar plastic) is taken. It’s rolled through a printer, and then is finished with either a varnish or a laminate.
Once upon a time (well, in September 2022, actually), to celebrate The Treehouse’s fifth birthday, we had our first go at running a Megagame. You can find out all about what happened during our first run of Watch the Skies, and get an overview of what on Earth (and off Earth) it actually is, in our previous blog post here.
We came away from the previous experience exhausted, exhilarated, and bubbling with ideas for what we wanted to do ‘next time’. Perhaps, in retrospect, we had TOO MANY ideas for tweaks and changes, because it then took us over a year to get our ducks into anything resembling a row and announce the next game. But finally, the day dawned… our second run of Watch the Skies took place on Friday 26th January, and once again, it was a TOTAL BLAST.
This time, a reasonable proportion of those in attendance had played the game before, but no problem! We had plenty of plot twists and new mechanics the keep things fresh, not to mention some nifty new game components, and even a brand new type of team in the mix. Read on for some of the headline changes in this year’s game, some actual news headlines from the in-game newspaper, and lots of pictures to give you a feel for what went down.
Note: All of the images depicting game components in this article show early concept or playtest art.
A Time to Plant.
It was 18(!!) years ago that Chad and I started talking about designing a Combat Commander: Vietnam game together. Of course, Chad was the master crafter of Combat Commander and knew the CC design a bazillion times better than I did, but he didn’t really know anything about Vietnam. I probably know more about that war/period than I know about any other in military history, and I love Combat Commander, so a co-design with Chad and myself seemed like a good fit. But we both were really busy with other projects, so we decided to work on CC: Vietnam in the margins, not caring if it took even a decade to get to our game tables in finished form.
So we went slowly but had a ton of great conversations as we crafted the project—and I learned even MORE about the genius of Chad Jensen when he sent me his master CC spreadsheets to adapt for CC: Vietnam. Wow. Over time, we honed the design document, unit spreadsheets, and scenario scope, and I finally put together a very ugly test CC: Vietnam map that we used to maneuver and “fight” our imaginary battles. Here you can see both that original map and Chad’s enormously better version of that map at right, which depicts mountainous jungle terrain that we envisioned as a base map for an “Assault on a US Fire Base” scenario, Marine defenses of a hilltop position, and US assaults (mini-Hamburger Hills) on dug in NVA/PLF forces.
Gene’s playtest map (left) vs. Chad’s playtest map (right). Yeah, I know… 😊
As most of you know, Chad’s design plate was continually busy during those years. There wasn’t a time I can remember when Chad didn’t have a couple games on our P500 list and a few more in his head. Here’s an ad we did back around 2015 that showed just a few of the Family Games that Chad had completed or in the works:
So Chad was busy. And starting around 2014, I got into serious development and testing on the game I’d wanted to do forever, Mr. President. So both of our design time for CC: Vietnam was minimal, but we kept honing the design document and both thought it was coming together and that we’d do it “someday.”
A Time to Weep.
Sadly, we were wrong. Even 5 ½ years later, I still have trouble thinking and talking about that incredibly heart-wrenching period of Chad’s sickness and passing. I lost a good friend, Kai lost the love of her life, and the gaming world lost an absolute rock star designer. So gaming-wise inside GMT, everything Chad-related just stopped while we all grieved his passing.
A Time to Build Up.
Probably a year later, allowing some time to pass and the hard edges of grief to soften a bit so we could get through a phone conversation without crying, Kai and I began to talk about finishing Chad’s unfinished or unpublished designs. And he had a bunch of them. Honestly, I didn’t think at that point that CC: Vietnam would be one of them because, frankly, I didn’t want to design it without Chad (and there was STILL Mr. President dominating my design time). And so we did other games instead—games that either Kai or I had a team in place or recruited to finish. Of all those games we talked about and have worked on, I’m especially happy that John Butterfield volunteered to finish Downfall with Kai. And it won the CSR Game of the Year last year! What a tribute to Chad, and to John, a forever friend to Chad and Kai.
In 2022, Kai and I began to seriously discuss the Combat Commander series and agreed to create an Anniversary Edition of the CC: Europe/CC: Med. games which was packaged as Chad originally intended, in one big box. And we had designers ask us about taking the CC game to other theatres and periods. But no movement for CC: Vietnam. Until there WAS!!!
A Time to Seek.
Two of our newer GMT designers whose work I’m really excited about are Non-Breaking Space (NB) and Stephen Rangazas. NB created Cross Bronx Expressway(nearing heading to the printer now) and Stephen designed The British Way. Both have other designs on P500 now and also on the design table. Well, in the fall of 2023, NB came to our Weekend at the Warehouse and showed a couple games to Jason, Kai, Rachel, Mike Bertucelli, and me. I liked his games, but more importantly, I liked HIM. After the weekend, we were all excited about working with NB—I heard several “he fits with us” comments (and he DOES!)—on various projects. And Stephen’s The British Way and The Guerrilla Generation demonstrated both his design skill and the depth of research that he puts into game design. I was particularly impressed with the way he engages with customers online: he communicates clearly and humbly and is open to feedback and other interpretations while being committed to making the best product that he can.
So, at that warehouse meeting, being really impressed with NB, I mentioned in passing that I’d really love to find a team to get the Combat Commander: Vietnam project moving forward. NB surprised us with “I need to make a phone call.” That call was to Stephen (they often work together in a design partnership). NB has since told me that it was Stephen’s background in Vietnam research that prompted the call. Stephen’s design of Sovereign of Discord, the expansion to our hit COIN game Fire in the Lake, already benefited from his depth of knowledge (and I would note here that your work has to be pretty impressive to get Mark and Volko to sign off on doing an expansion for one of their best-selling games!). After the call, NB told us something along the lines of “We’re interested, but it’s a divergence from the path we are on right now. So we need to take some time to think about it and discuss it in depth before we give you an answer.”
Fast forward to January of 2024. NB contacted me and Jason and let us know that he and Stephen were definitely interested in working on a Combat Commander: Vietnam game! We had an online meeting a week later where they walked us through a slide show of how they intended to move forward with the design, assuming we approved it. Here are a few of the slides from that meeting:
Stephen and NB’s scoping of the Factions that they proposed including in the game.NB and Stephen’s early overview of Faction Deck Force Composition and Timelines
It was a really good meeting. We had a lot of questions, and NB and Stephen answered them with skill, honesty, and transparency and were not shy to share what their research showed. I liked that when they hadn’t figured something out yet, they said so. It was clear to me that they had the chops to research, design, and deliver a new Combat Commander: Vietnam that aligned with Chad’s and my vision for the game but was not limited by it. I left that meeting IMPRESSED. And we gave them the go ahead to push forward into the “create the physical game” stage, which they proposed to have to show us by the Fall 2024 Weekend at the Warehouse.
A Time to Dance.
We didn’t hear much from Stephen and NB from January to September. We just left them alone, knowing that what they were creating was a huge task. Occasionally they’d have a question, but mostly they just worked away on their own, sculpting what we all hoped would become a masterpiece.
Then, just before the Weekend at the Warehouse, NB sent us the image below and told us he’d have the playtest kit ready for the Weekend. We were so excited!
At the Weekend, we were all really happy about where the design was and ready to move forward to getting it ready for P500. I was thinking it might be ready to go on the P500 list in a year. Then NB said, “Please give us a deadline. We work better that way.” So I said, “April 2025.” NB didn’t blink, so that was our target date.
Then, in January, Stephen and NB informed us that they had EIGHT maps (pictured below) they were now testing on and anticipated they’d double that within a month.
They also included a Map of Vietnam with a Scenario and Reference guide for all the planned Battles (below).
And then they COMPLETELY blew me away. They built a campaign system! WHAT??!!??
Campaign Scenario Generator (left) and the CC: V scenario it generated (right)
They then noted that they thought they’d be ready for a MARCH P500 addition instead of April. Looking at the quality and completeness of their work (I’ve shown just a fraction here), I had no problem giving them the March slot. So here we are, with Combat Commander: Vietnam hitting the P500 list with this week’s customer newsletter. I hope you’ll order yours now!
I hope this article gives you all some insight into how Combat Commander: Vietnam has come to exist. What a long journey this has been. I am HUGELY excited about what NB and Stephen have created and how they’ve taken Chad’s system and our vision and combined it with their own research and added so much that we probably wouldn’t ever have thought of. I still can’t believe we’re going to have a Campaign System for CC: Vietnam!!!!!!
I believe (and hope) that the Combat Commander community will be blown away by how cool this game is and by the amount of value they’re going to get in this big box of Combat Commander love. And I know Chad would be SO happy to see this game that we planted the seeds for finally come to fruition. As with everything in the Combat Commander world, every time I play this, I’ll be thinking of Chad. And I’ll always be thankful that NB and Stephen took up this challenge and have honored Chad with the care, attention to detail, and general awesomeness that they’ve created for us to enjoy as we play Combat Commander: Vietnam.
Many of you told us how much you appreciated us giving you a Buyer’s guide to our 2024 Fall Sale, so as we approach our Special Spring Sale that starts on Tuesday, April 1, Rachel and I have updated this Buyer’s Guide to try to give you some of that information to help out with your buying choices. We encourage you to use this information and the links below to build your sale carts on the GMT website between now and Tuesday when the sale begins. I hope you find this Buyer’s Guide useful.
Where Can You Find ALL the Eligible Sale Items?
We’re trying to make things a little easier for all of you this year, so can find all of the games you can buy in the sale in one department on the GMT Website. Just click Spring Sale 2025 (or choose it from the left side menu on any page in the “Browse by Series/Type” section except the front page on the GMT website) to see a list of every item that you can buy with the 40% off sale discount.
Which Games are Close to Going Out of Stock?
Here’s an alphabetical list of our lowest-stock games, with current quantities on hand for all games with less than 200 copies currently in stock:
NOTE: The following games have been “OUT OF STOCK” on our website for a while, but in our latest physical inventory, we’ve found some copies in the warehouse (quantities noted below). Good while stocks last:
Note that some of the games pictured may already be out of stock now (updated 4/1)
Which Games in the Sale have the highest retail prices?
Here’s a descending order list of our highest retail priced games, for those of you looking to optimize value. Price listed is BEFORE your 40% sale discount:
We hope you find this Buyer’s Guide useful and that you all get some 40% off games in the sale that will bring you many hours of enjoyment! – Gene & Rachel
