A reflection on the EU referendum campaign.

A monumental, historic event occurred yesterday; I feel I cannot let it pass without commenting. On June 23rd the people of the United Kingdom voted in a referendum deciding whether or not they wanted to remain a member of the European Union. A 52% majority voted to leave, 48% desired to stay.

 

The people have spoken; this is democracy in action. It was fantastic to see so many people exercising their right to vote (72.2% turnout). Democracy, however, is a strange thing; it is essential to modern civilisation, wars have been fought (and are still being fought) solely to to defend the right of the people to choose who governs them, but it isn't perfect. Democracy doesn't rely on a populace being able to make an informed choice. Many voters, whether wilfully or not, are often ignorant of the consequences of the choice they are making.

Politicians will often cultivate ignorance, it is in their best interests; pre-election promises that go unfulfilled lead to disillusionment (just look at the student fees debacle in 2010). The campaign leading up to the referendum was rife with this practise on both sides. Whilst I am disappointed with the overall result (and to an extent, genuinely worried about it), it is the campaign process that has concerned me more.

Both sides' campaigns resorted to appeals to emotions, appeals to fear, appeals to consequences. ad hominem attacks, straw men, exaggeration, cherry picking,  flag waving patriotism, oversimplification, assumptions, non sequiter reasoning and seemingly intentional vagueness. In essence, propaganda at it's finest. Many leaflets I received in the post had glaring inconsistencies and illogical lines of argument. Having studied critical thinking I was able to spot these fallacies; some even made me genuinely angry - do people really believe what they are reading at face value?

  
The whole campaigning process was an absolute shambles. What this resulted in was people having to vote based on either scattered contradictory information, gut feeling, patriotism, nationalism or worst of all, prejudice. The information presented by both sides was so contradictory it was impossible to make a genuinely informed choice. It was truly disheartening. I'm not sure which is worse; voting based on poor information or not voting at all.

 

My ballot paper should have had a third option:

'I cannot make an informed decision and wish to abstain'. 

I wonder how many people would have put a cross in that box?

What do we enjoy about miniature wargaming?

I realised a couple of days ago that the release date for Warmachine and Hordes Mark 3 (June 29th) had managed to suddenly creep up on me. The third version of Privateer Press' flagship sister wargames had been announced back in April, and they've slowly been drip feeding out information about changes to the game over the past couple of months. I'm going to take the opportunity to reminisce  on my experience with Warmachine and Hordes Mark 2 and how this lead me to think about the different demographics within miniature wargaming.

I first started playing Hordes back in 2010 just as Mark 2 was releasing. I picked up a Legion of Everblight Battle Group, mostly because I quite liked the aesthetic of the warbeasts (this is my usual rule for any new game; pick the one I like the look of). I learned most of the rules and over the next few years managed to amass a fair amount of models; enough to play a reasonably large game (although that rarely happened). The game offered the most tactical depth found in any skirmish level game at the time; every model was important, every move was an exercise in precision, every attack and spell cast had to be timed perfectly. The smallest mistake could spell disaster.

Then an interesting thing happened. I discovered that my enjoyment of the game was inversely proportional to how many games I played; the more I learned, the more stressful the experience became. I was constantly trying to play as best I could; I wanted to avoid mistakes and play as efficiently as possible. This isn't to say that I won a lot of games, quite the contrary; I lost most of my games. Losing wasn't the catalyst for my lack of enjoyment however, it was the acknowledgement that this type of game simply wasn't clicking with me. This leads me into another trail of thought: Why do we play games?

Video gamers are traditionally grouped into three camps: casual, core and hardcore. It is difficult to make a direct approximation for traditional (analogue) games, especially wargames; they appeal to a number of different dispositions: competition, narrative and hobby (as well as others, but I shall distil it down to these three).

• Competition appeals to those with a desire to win, to be the best they can be at their chosen game and to prove play against opponents of similar calibre. 
• Narrative appeals to those who care about the world their game takes place in, the story that it tells and the characters and events found within, either in a historical or fictional context.
• Hobby appeals to those who enjoy building and painting miniatures; this either means they want to make their army personal and unique to them, or desire to assemble and paint their models to the highest standard. Again this can be found in both historical and fictional contexts.

These three aspects are not mutually exclusive; most gamers will fall somewhere in between the three whilst some will be found at the extremes. A dedicated competitive gamer will be found attending tournaments, building the most optimal list possible, will study the rules and will paint their miniatures to the minimum standard required, if at all. A dedicated narrative gamer is more akin to a role player; they will immerse themselves in the game's world, research it deeply and theme their miniatures to a very specific style. Dedicated hobbyists share a similar world to scale modellers; they will be found honing their craft to the highest degree, entering painting competitions or building beautiful terrain.

These demographics should not be thought of as static, an individual wargamer may find themselves concentrating on different aspects during different periods of their gaming lifetime. Thus it should be though of as more of a malleable spectrum.

So where do I currently fall on the spectrum? I would personally describe myself as 40% Hobby, 40% Narrative and 20% Competitive.

My favourite aspect of the wargaming hobby is researching and building new armies. I love picking up a new game and researching the different models available, the background therein, the types of armies you can build and attempt to put together something I will enjoy building. For a historical game this translates to researching and learning about the time period the game is set in, the key events and eventual historical outcome. My love of speculative fiction is great in this context; wargames are the best medium for exploring it. I'd go as far as to say all historical wargames are forms of speculative history.

The small 20% competitive component boils down to my appreciation of rules sets. I find great pleasure in learning and understanding game mechanics; to study the cogs and gears that make the wheels turn. This doesn't unfortunately translate into a desire to actually play any specific game for any length of time, as described above in my experience with Warmachine and Hordes. I like to know how the car works, not race it around the track.
 
With Warmachine & Hordes Mark 3 on the horizon, I'm sure I'll build a new army, paint it to my liking, read and understand the rules, but not play too many games.

I'd be interested to know where my fellow wargamers think they fit in the demographic triangle.

Let me know what you think.

Video Game Ruminations - Portal (2007)

A few months ago, sitting in the pub with my good friend Rich (having spent the day smashing up his garden with a pick axe), the topic of video games surfaced. We discussed what we enjoyed about the medium, how modern practises have ruined them etc. (grumble...grumble...).

I said at the time that I'd send him a list of some of my favourite games from the last ten years or so (specifically more single player orientated). I never got round to coming up with a list, so I'll instead take the opportunity to present it here as a new series of posts.

I find myself playing video games less and less frequently in recent years; very rarely does a game come out now that I will actually devote time to sitting and playing from start through finish. The games I'll talk about in this series are those that met that quality. Not all of them are viewed as critical successes (though most will be), often times what I personally enjoy about a game will not necessarily lead to acclaim by reviewers. I will attempt to keep my thoughts spoiler free where possible.

Portal (2007)

Released alongside Hale Life 2: Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2 as part of the 'Orange Box', I had no inkling of what this game was at the time (I'd bought the Orange Box solely for Episode 2). I was subsequently surprised to find that this game was definitely the best of the collection.

Portal is a first person puzzle game; the player must solve a series of increasingly challenging  puzzle rooms using the titular portal gun - a tool capable of opening two linked portals, one blue and one orange, through which the player (and objects) can pass. The player may also 'see' through these portals, as long as both sides are linked.

Mechanics are slowly introduced to the player; initially the interaction between boxes (which can be picked up by the portal gun in a similar vein to Half Life 2's gravity gun) and buttons, to the concept of conservation of momentum through portals. Obstacles are also sequentially added; moving platforms, deadly acid pools, energy balls and disturbingly charming homicidal gun turrets.

 Whilst the puzzle aspect of the game is enjoyable in itself, it is reinforced by the environment in which it takes place and the characters (or lack thereof) found within. The player character, Chell, finds herself completely alone within a seemingly abandoned Aperture Science testing facility, save for the attentions of the sentient A.I. GLaDOS (whose dark humour I find particularly delightful). The game successfully creates an atmosphere of isolation, tension and foreboding; no-one is coming to help, there is no escape.

 The story is not overtly explained, it has to be pieced together via different clues: an abandoned office powerpoint presentation, letters, posters and, hidden in some of the test chambers, the insane scrawling of a mad man. This is one of my favourite types of narrative; you have to want to piece together the story.

A stand alone sequel, Portal 2, was released in 2011. Despite introducing many more mechanics and being arguably a superior game, it was ultimately flawed in comparison to the original. What made the original so great was it's lack of characters, it's sense of isolation. Portal 2 throws this out of the window; there is rarely a time where you are not accompanied by some type of companion character, the A.I. core 'Wheatley' being the prime culprit. Sometimes less really is more.


Well, that's my thoughts on Portal. Both Portal and Portal 2 can be found on Steam. They are both well worth playing for their rather unique gameplay. Oh, and remember:

The Cake is a Lie.

Time off, Time spent, Time lost.

Having a week off from work is a funny thing; it both simultaneously creates and prevents apathy. Time constraints are a great motivator; we know the pressure of deadlines, we want to fill the few hours in the evening after work with something productive (well, I do at least). In my case, having any extended length of time available inevitably leads to procrastination - I am my own best and worst motivator.

Despite this I have managed to get some work done on my various projects:

• My 500 points of Warhammer Fantasy is nearly complete.
• I've worked out a 2000 point list for Epic Armageddon (and ordered some more models for it).
• I finished work conceptualising a special box of decks for Magic: The Gathering.
• I've worked out lists and purchased miniatures for two teams of Heroes and Villains for Super Open Combat.

Earlier this week I even managed to make myself go out and do a bit of photography practice. I decided I'd like to try and catch the sun rise over the local park and challenge myself to get some pictures of the local wildlife. My friend Steve decided to tag along as well; we got to Harrow Lodge Park at around 4:50am, clear skies in evidence.

Unfortunately it begun to cloud over quite quickly, so the light wasn't particularly great; the sunrise almost non existent. Nevertheless we trudged around the perimemter of the lake and took some photos along the way. I have a newfound respect for wildlife photographers; it is exceptionally difficult to get pictures of animals. I did my best though, and learnt a few things:

• Light is everything.
• I need to work on picking appropriate depth of field.
• I really enjoy taking macro images.

Anyhow, here's what I managed to produce:

I still need to complete my 10 minutes, 10 steps, 10 photographs assignment. Perhaps I'll do that in the second half of this week. Or maybe I'll get distracted and do something else entirely. Who knows.

Super Open Combat

Open Combat is a game I supported on Kickstarter a while back. I finally received my hardback copy of the rulebook a couple of weeks ago (after realising I hadn't actually paid the postage; I could have had it in my hands a lot sooner).

Although I shan't go into a full review of the rules here (although rest assure I will at some point), here's a quick succinct overview:

Open combat is effectively a sandbox rules set; there are no unit profiles, rather the players use 'Renown' points to stat up their models however they see fit. This allows players to use almost whichever models they want, within the confines of a pre gunpowder historical or fantastical setting. This means you can recreate archetypal dungeon crawl encounters, fight battles between Saxons and invading Danes or send your Spartan Warriors to slay a foul Gorgon and her minions. Your imagination is the sole limiting factor.

 

The few games I've played (using an older pdf version of the rules) pitted my necromancer and her undead followers against a band of chivalrous knights. These few games we're a lot of fun, but really just scraped the surface.

So what am I getting at? Where does the 'Super' come in to all this?

Last weekend I was playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends Elliot and Aaron. I use the word playing loosely, it really just gives us an excuse to meet up and talk about Father Ted, comic books and movies whilst occasionaly rolling some dice and maybe moving some models around.

 

We somehow ended up talking about B-list superheroes, and that we should come up with teams of our own and play them against eachother in Open Combat. We came up with some stupid ideas for superheroes and references we could make (some of which I can't repeat here); the Zookeeper from Futurama, for example.

Having subsequently given it some thought, I think the rules could actually handle the idea. Our crappy superheroes would almost definitely be fighting eachother in hand-to-hand, perhaps with the odd bow and arrow or laser beam thrown into the mix.

The few skills and abilities presented in the rulebook allow for some psychic or magic powers, as well as different weapons and combat styles. The renown points system also makes it easy to model certain powers - super speed (high SPD stat), super strength (high ATK stat) and super endurance (high DEF or FOR stat).

The 24" x 24" play area is also great for representing a small area where the two teams of heroes / villains might beleiveably meet up - a city square, dark back alleys, the interior of a base or other more exotic locales.

I've decided to take this idea and run with it; I really think it could be quite fun inventing our own (ideally terrible) Superheroes and Villains. Hopefully Elliot and Aaron will jump on board as well, letting us run a series of games using the campaign rules presented in the rulebook. We shouldn't need more than 5 or 6 models each, which will neither break the bank or be too difficult to get painted up.

I'll follow up with a roster for my Heroes and Villains once I've invented them and found some suitable models.

Until next time viewers, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

First Steps - Fundamentals of Photography.

So I bought a camera. Had I ever owned one before? Nope. Did I know even the basics of how to use one? Nope. So why on Earth would I drop nigh on £600 into getting one? Two reasons.

Firstly I wanted to be able to capture better images of my modelling projects. It is simply impossible to produce images of adequate quality using the camera on my tablet or phone. I don't like the like the quality, and you, reader, wouldn't be able to see anything of value. This, initially, was the only reason.

A second reason occurred to me later. The challenge. Presented to me was a whole school of thought almost entirely alien to me. I found myself in an unlit room with no idea where the light switch was. Fantastic. An opportunity to learn something brand new. Where to start?

 

I had purchased a Fujifilm model X-T10 with a 16-50mm lens. I read through the manual. Short of telling me what the dials did and how to access all the settings, it didn't explain a whole lot. Time to go back to fundamentals. ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed.

How could I brush away all the modern extras and paraphernalia, and work out the basics? Simple. Look back to the past, go back to analogue. So I rummaged through the cupboards to find my Father's old Canon A-1. Well used and worn, I like to think it was happy to once again see the light of day.

I found a website dedicated to the Canon A-1 and started reading. I learnt the following:

Aperture (also known as f/stop) is the size of the opening in the lens, which determines the amount of light which will fall on the film (or nowadays, the sensor). The aperture determines how much of an image will be in focus, the focal length. The lower the f/stop, the wider the aperture; less of the image will be in focus. Higher f/stops prouce an increased focal length, but require higher exposure times - the shutter speed needs to be longer.

Shutter Speed is the amount of time the film (sensor) is exposed to light. This affects the brightness of the image, too short a shutter speed the image will be too dark (under exposed), too long and it'll be too bright (over exposed). Modern digital cameras provide a preview image to aid in getting this setting right.

ISO (International Organisation of Standards) is the scale determining how sensitive a film (or sensor) is to light. I found this easiest to understand in chemical terms: the size of the silver halide grains in the film affect it's sensitivity to light. Larger grains require less light to translate into an image, smaller grains require more light. Thus large grain (fast) film works better in low level light (at night for example), but produces grainier images. Digital cameras use a similar concept, based on the properties of the sensor and processing carried out by the camera.

The following websites also helped to cement the concepts for me:

The Exposure Triangle: aperture, shutter speed and ISO explained

The Basics of Aperture: FocusEd 

With these fundamentals understood, I was able to transfer back to the X-T10 and start shooting on manual mode. Salute 2016 was my first outing using the camera, the outcome of which can be seen in my Salute 2016 post. I was reasonably happy with the results, especially considering I'd only had the camera and learnt this stuff two days prior.

A couple of weeks later my Father was having a clear out of his wardrobe and found a couple of lenses that used to fit his old Canon - a 50mm lens and a 70-210mm lens. I thought it a great shame to not get some use out of them, so looked to see if an adaptor existed to convert them to fit my camera. To my surprise such a thing did indeed exist. A small investment (£20) in an adapter ring opened up two new lenses.

Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm lens

Canon 50mm lens

With three lenses at my disposal, I decided to go in the garden and around the house and take some quick shots:

So what next?

I recently discovered the 'Photoclass 2016' subreddit, wherein a series of weekly photography assignments can be found, ostensibly aimed at beginners. Just my cup of tea. I intend to start at assignment one and work my way through.

Assignment one involves walking for 10 minutes, stopping, then taking 10 photos within 10 paces of the stopping position. I'll have a go at this one weekend and see what I can come up with!

Gateway to Game Design

A few months ago I embarked upon a journey of discovery; I wanted to seriously explore the realm of game design (specifically traditional games - board games, card games, miniature games etc. as opposed to video games). Game design is wondeful; it blankets into many different schools of thought: mathematics, psychology, logic, critical thinking, creative writing and design.

My initial discovery pertained to the appropriate naming convention for game design: Ludology.

Ludology (noun) - The study of games and gaming, especially video games.

Over my 10 years of experience playing miniature wargames (a relatively short time, I acknowledge) I have been able to gather, perhaps sometimes unconsciously, an understanding of a repetoire of game mechanisms. I shan't go into any specifics at this time, but I began to work out what did and didn't work when it came to understanding a rules set.

Over the past couple of years I've been able to cobble together a couple of rules set, both for miniatures games. The first was based on the video game 'Bioshock', retelling the story of the fall of Rapture as a skirmish wargame. This was never playtested and ultimately served as an interesting distraction whilst studying at university (some people went out and got hammered, I wrote a game).

The second game, 21 or Bust, a skirmish game based on the American Old West actually got to the playtesting stage. The game was dice less, and used a unique (I think) mechanic for determining player success - games of Blackjack. I'd like to divulge more on this game in it's own article sometime in the future, I feel it's an interesting topic that deserves it's own space. The following pictures are from the playtest version of the game:

I digress.

The aim of this series of articles is to share with you some of the resources I have found helpful in opening up the world of game design. These resourcs include books, podcasts, websites and videos I have found useful in my learning.

 

Ludology podcast - Ryan Sturm and Geoff Engelstein

A podcast devoted to the hows and whys of board game design, hosted by two published game designers. I will shamefully admit that my exposure to board games over the years has been rather minimal (I've only played two games of monopoly, ever). A lot of board game design translates directly over to miniature wargames, so this is an excellent source of information. Of specific interest should be episodes 123, 124 and 125, where Geoff and Ryan discuss their extensive checklist of questions game designers should ask themselves during the process of designing a game.

 

Magic the Gathering Drive to Work podcast - Mark Rosewater

Mark Rosewater, head designer for Magic the Gathering, records a podcast twice a week during his commute to work. He is a character, to say the least. The 'Drive to Work' podcast covers a wide variety of topics related to Magic the Gathering, and very occasiuonaly he will talk more specifically about game design (usually with the context of the card game as a frame of reference). The back catalogue here is extensive (I have yet to dig deeper), but a required listen is the series '10 Things very game should have': Goal, Rules, Interactions, Catch up, Inertia, Surprise, Strategy, Fun, Flavour, Hook.

 

Game Developers Conference (GDC) Vault

The GDC is an annual event (which leans heavily towards video games) where game designers from all over the world give lectures on different aspects of game design. Many of these lectures are made publicly viewable in the GDC Vault after the event. The event has been running for 20 odd years now, so the back catalogue is immense. I have been slowly trawling through the 2016 catalogue; the following are some lectures I have found I have found particularly interesting:

"Life Is Strange" Case Study: Using Interactive Storytelling and Game Design to Tackle Real-World Problems by Raoul Barbet, Michel Koch

A Course About Game Balance by Ian Schreiber

History and Game Design by Chris King  

Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons by Mark Rosewater

That's enough for now, or this post will become an essay by itself!

I will endeavour to make this article part of a series on game design - as I come across useful repositories of information I'll try and talk about them. I have only scratched the surface here.