Presentation

A group of players with many games played and a longstanding and deep interest in everything related to Military History. Our members come from Cadiz and Seville and we are proud to start this Andalusian and Spanish project in the field of strategy and simulation games.

Please let us introduce ourselves:

Francisco Ronco Poce (1969).

Game designer and producer. A Napoleonic fan for over 40 years. He is both the heart and manager of the team. And has designed the four first game series that our company will start developing shortly.

Reyes Gallardo Gutiérrez (1978)

Our newest gamer. A military history enthusiast as a hobby and teacher of physics at a secondary school by trade. She is an outstanding playtester, with a critical and analytic mind.

Ramón López Martín (1973).

An experienced gamer. Game designer and play tester. Well known for his skill eliminating all game counters in play; both his and his opponent’s…

Daniel Peña Rodríguez (1969).

An experienced rule and play tester. ur specialist “rules lawyer”, he’s got a talent for spotting any weak point or unwanted side effect in a rule set. He is usually the first to read and test all our rules.

José Sánchez Giráldez (1969).

Designer. Ideal for “brainstorming” sessions in which to imagine new concepts, rules, systems or scenarios. Very skilled with history books and the computer.

What do we do?

Strategy and simulation games. In fact they are “cardboard simulators”. Computer and video games based on the simulation of car races, first person adventures, aircraft -or spacecraft flight- or tank driving are both widely accepted and successful. Now we propose something similar; our games strive to make the player confront the experiences that historical commanders and leader lived. Facing the same situations, managing resources and taking decisions of a hardly predictable outcome.

The main attributes of a simulation as we understand it are:

Resource management
Essential role of logistics
Game centred on decision marketing
Uncertainty and fog of war

All of them are present in every one of our games. With the firm intent of achieving this with the least possible number of rules. We do not feel that elaborate and complex rules are necessary if the internal dynamics of a game system can produce the desired effect. Likewise, it is our intention to follow an editorial line based on game SERIES, thus the players may learn a new game effortlessly having to deal with just a negligible number of special rules. In our view, the games will contain a “Series Rulebook” dealing with all the elements forming the game system and another “Special Rulebook” containing those rules that reflect the peculiarities of a given scenario.

Our commitment is to offer the player a maximum of playability and variability for his money without an unnecessary effort learning rules. Our simulations are fun to play, both for the already versed in Military History –since they are simulation models- and for the uninitiated looking for a good opportunity to learn the hobby.

After years playing war games of all kinds, periods and scales (from World War Two to Rome, including XVIII century or Napoleonic tactical games) we are convinced that exist basically two different approaches to war gaming; one is game oriented while the other emphasizes simulation. To reach an equilibrium between these two tendencies is not an easy task. There are games whose mechanics and effects might equally apply to a Panzer Division or a Roman Legion. These games are usually easy to learn and are nicely presented, essentially they provide a competitive play, are fun and quick paced. Others try to accurately portray a period, campaign or battle where the player must play the role of a corporal firing a machine gun and –at the same time- that of the Army Corps Commander; sometimes they have plenty of rules, exceptions and an alleged “realism”. Quite often, this double perspective has presented “playability” as opposed to “realism”. Quite often, this double perspective has presented “playability” as opposed to “realism”. We think that this approach completely misses the point; We rather see it as a question of “game” vs “simulation”.

We make games:

Rules systems that allow players to perform certain actions while forbid others; with goals that all participants may and want to reach. But our desire is to provide “simulations”; our rules try to establish a framework as close as possible to the one that historical participants faced so that the goals that players must achieve correspond to their historical counterparts, then it is up to the players to find the means.