Postcards from the Front is a Wargame Design Jam.
Created by @hissycatstudio for wargamers of all kinds! Join Postcards from the Front on itchio.
What is it?
From the home page:
This is a community centric Game Design Jam. This is a Jam NOT a Contest.Collaborations, sharing, community playtesting and feedback are all encouraged.
Play nice with everyone. PERIOD.
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Rules | Guidelines
Games must fit on a 5" x 7" postcard (or metric equivalent) , both front and back can be used.
Game must be a Wargame.
What is a wargame? That question has cause a few civil wars unto itself...lol. I will use a very loose interpretation of what is a Wargame. One of the goals of the Jam is to encourage exploring that boundary.
Dice, 52 card decks, Coins may be part of the design and not included on the postcard.
Counters, Cubes, Player markers MUST be included on the postcard. (The spirit of a postcard game is that a postcard game is complete and self reliant, sans dice or 52 card decks or coins)
Submission Limit : 2 per person.
*** FREE GAMES ***
All playable games will be made available for FREE to the general public. I will create a publisher page on BGG and upload all of the games there.
This looks like a ton of fun!
Wargame Culture Postcard Games
This sounds like an excellent area to explore the nuts and bolts of game design, with little chunks of games that fit on a post card. My first submission will be the Scouting Game I’ve developed based on Tony Bath’s work.
To make it even more fun, I’m going to create custom, hand-painted game boards with plastic RISK pieces for playing. As a limited-edition mini-box game I think this would be a lot of fun. Probably not profitable, but fun.
Here are some WIP pics of the 3D game pieces. I may make an option for the Subscribers here to be able to order painted Scout minis…
I’ll share more of this 3D mini-game later for subscribers when the Game Jam is over.
Here is a draft of the game board:
The board is 4 inches x 6 inches, and to fit the 5” x 7” space, I’ll be able to put some 1” tokens on two sides. There will be three Scout tokens for each side, red and blue, and five terrain tokens for Forest and Hill.
The Rules
The rules will be essentially those already described, with changes to movement & combat to reflect the smaller board.
Movement
Each General may move up to three of their Scout figures each turn, a total of up to 6 grid squares forward, left, or right. Any one Scout can only move up to three squares.
When a figure reaches the enemy baseline, it must spend one turn in place, observing the enemy. Afterward the figure may attempt to return to its own baseline with the intelligence gained.
Encounters
Scout figures that occupy the same grid square may attack their enemy counterpart. Each figure rolls a d6 with the higher roll winning the conflict. The die rolls are modified by the terrain of the occupied square.
Resolution is based on the difference in die scores. Subtract the lower result from the higher. If the modified die scores are equal, there is no effect. the winner may move 1 square immediately. If the difference is:
1 Losing token is Wounded, movement is reduced to a maximum of 2 squares, -1 to future Encounters
2 Losing token is killed and taken out of action.
3 (or greater) Losing token is captured.
Terrain Modifiers
The Terrain Modifier is applied to the first token to occupy the terrain square, the Defender. The second token to arrive is the Attacker.
Hills +1 to Defender die roll
Forest +2 to Defender die roll
Example: Scout A1 is in a Forest square. Scout B2 moves onto the same square. Scout A1 will roll d6 +1 against Scout B2, Scout B2 will roll an unmodified d6 versus Scout A1.
If there are two enemy tokens attacking, roll two dice for the Attacker and use the higher of the two scores.
Mission Completed
The general with the most Scouts returning to their home baseline will be declared the Winner.
What do you think? This is definitely a post-card-sized game. This is also definitely a mini-game that could be added on to the Project Hextrail boardgame.
Download the WIP PDF of the Scouting Mini-game here.
Playtest video:
Please share your thoughts in the Comments!