Gamer?

 

I enjoy playing board games, but I am not really a serious gamer in the modern sense of the word. Serious gamers have their own lore, a catalogue of titles ready in their brain and a community of like-minded folk. But when I was in college my roommate Vern turned me on to SPI war games. Prior to this, my experience with war games consists of Risk, Battleship, checkers, and chess. SPI war games were about five levels above Risk. SPI stands for Simulation Publications Inc. This company was in existence from 1969 to 1982. They produced a great variety of war games which usually consisted of a map (some of which were multiple pages) and chits that represented individual units. Some of the games were based on historical battles and so the chits represented real units that fought in that battle, for example, one chit might represent the second battalion of the 506^th regiment of the 101^st Airborne Division. Sometimes the chits represented even smaller units than that. There were different kinds of chits for different types of units: Armor, Infantry, artillery, airborne, supply transports

Some of the games were based on fictional or hypothetical battles. We played one called The Next War which envisioned a Soviet invasion of Europe and NATO’s response. The map was three sheets and took up a large portion of my bedroom floor (we couldn’t figure out where else to play it because it was too big for any table). In order to make the game accurate, the rulebook was very complicated. Each turn consisted of many phases: there was an electronic warfare phase, an air war phase, a movement phase, an artillery phase, and a ground combat phase (I am probably forgetting some). Did I mention this was complicated? Both times we played this game, Vern was the Soviets and I was NATO. I am sorry to say that NATO got beat both times. The first time it took a couple of weeks for me to get beat (yes, it took that long to play this game). The second time I got slaughtered within a few days. In my defense, Vern was much more into military history and strategy than I was. Anytime Vern and I played one of these games, if I held him to a draw, I considered that a victory.

Another type of game that SPI made were simply fantasies. I still have a few of them including War of the Ring, and John Carter Warlord of Mars, The Creature that Ate Sheboygan (maybe the best title for a game ever!)

I suspect the complexity of the games were part of the reason that led to their downfall. The games had a loyal fan base, but they weren’t for everyone. Most people were not going to want to read a dissertation to figure out how to play a game. So, their fan base was not going to grow very fast.

Some of these games are now worth money. I have seen some of these games going for $400 or more on Ebay (at least, that is the asking price). I doubt if any of the games I still own would go for anywhere near that. I am going to hang onto them anyway. Partly from nostalgia, but mostly because I don’t think anyone has ever equaled SPI in developing these kind of games.

I still play games, though the games I play tend to be of a simpler variety. I haven’t pulled out an SPI game in years. Anyone want to play?

Star Liner