HEADLINES

February 28, 2009

Heard Any Good Jokes Lately?

One Small Step has been laying low for the past couple of years. This is a lot longer down time that it should have been. There have been many, many changes. I will let you decide as their respective goodness or evilness.

Two of the major players decided to make a big family and move away. I put together some working relationships with some new folks who are ultimately more aligned with my strategic objectives for OSS. The first of these partnerships is with Modern Conflict Studies Group. Others will be announced shortly.

I put the Compound up for sale with a plan to move to Orange County to be closer to work. Of course, this happened just as the market peaked and started its way down. Down was ultimately good. Now there is a Compound South and a Compound North. Now I can have TWO cults. Whee!

We plan on making 2009 the first year of some strategic partnerships. These will provide OSS (and our partners) the additional tools needed to generate a lot more quality products, by each organization concentrating on what it does best, rounding out the capabilities of all parties.

Politics as Usual -- Unusual Suspects

We released Politics as Usual -- Unusual Suspects in the middle of last year, and the expansion set is selling very well. Will we make another set for the next election? Dunno. Depends upon the vitriol that is spewed by politicos between now and then.

Millennium Wars Advanced

We scrapped the idea of a Millennium Wars Advanced Rule Book. There was too much material salient to modern warfare that could not be supported by the current component mix. This is good news -- we are now publishing Millennium Wars Advanced -- The Game. The first installment will appear in an upcoming issue of Against the Odds, and is packaged as States of Conflict. Tres bitchin'.

This is WAY cooler than some dumb old rule book. Why? Because we devised something new. A wargame without numbers, without step losses, and without the usual CRT. I'll post some pictures soon. Closed-minded knuckleheads will hate it. That lets me know that we're on the right track in terms of publishing something amazing.

This has occupied about a year in and of itself. It's a big project. While the States of Conflict publication is just a medium size war game in a magazine format, we had to model all types of conflict for all factions worldwide in order to provide a slice for conflicts involving Israel. That was no small task.

Battle for Baghdad

Battle for Baghdad has been ready for printing for the better part of six months. The States of Conflict project has taken my attention away from completing the few finishing touches on this. Battle for Baghdad is a big, gorgeous, multi-player boardgame designed to teach you about the limitations of power, insurgencies, and multi-organizational interactions.

If you're teaching a class in Political Science, have your students pick up a copy and play it a few times with four or five other students. If you work in the State Department, ditto. Find some executives and make them play. It will make them smarter. Promise.

If you're a hard-core wargamer, set this title down and walk away. There are no combat values or hexes. This will just confuse and frighten you. Best just leave it alone.

2009 Monthly Deals

Look for some steep discounts on some of our products this year. Each month we plan to provide one game at a steep discount. This puts more quality games on your tables, which is really what this is all about, isn't it?

Stay tuned. We're in for a helluva ride.

NEWS

ARCHIVE

EVENTS