War on Terror - The Boardgame

Friday 13th October 2006

Game Report: Andy S, Andy T, Tom & Ben

Have we been looking forward to this! Not only has it been ages since we've found time to actually play the game, but tonight marks the first game on a proper set with no home-made elements whatsoever. And what a lovely, shiny, smooth, newly-printed treat it is.

The board is set up and the original WoT triumvirate - the Andies and Tom - take a moment to drool over the cards, money and other game elements. Ben looks worried. It's not even started yet.

Ben gets to lay his starting villages first, spreading them out across the globe. Andy S next, sensing Ben - as fresh blood - would be easy pickings, places his villages next to Ben's. Tom goes for Nowhere and Asia, while Andy T cannot resist getting aggressive straight away and tries to outnumber Andy S in N.America.

Andy T also turns evil very early on, earning him some valuable terrorist cards. Unfortunately, as soon as he can, he uses his new terrorist influence to destroy Andy S's barely upright-walking culture in N.America. A town and a village fall, but the next go, Andy S puts some war cards to good use and chases Mr T out of his home continent.

In his excitement, Ben managed to overlook the Falkland IslandsSmarting, but not defeated, Andy T concentrates on populating Africa and Australia instead, while Tom and Ben quietly get on with the relatively peaceful business of Empire building.

Both Ben and Tom get a thirst for development and cities start springing up in Asia and S.America. A lucky oil gush makes Andy T an instant billionaire, while Andy S isn't going anywhere fast, hindered by a regime change in Egypt and a terrorist attack in Libya. Shortly after, Tom flushes Andy S out of Saudi Arabia and Iraq and so leaving Andy S with one village in the Balkans, sandwiched by three empires - a crucial buffer to world peace.

But not for long. The Balaclava of Evil gets passed round to Tom, then Andy S, then Ben, each wreaking their own special brand of terror.

Suddenly Ben seems to wake up to the point of the game and turns nasty. He decides he wants S.America for himself and funds some terrorist activities in Columbia to make sure of it. Then in the same go, quite arbitrarily, he decides to drop 'The Bomb' on the centre of Tom's business district in Afghanistan. Nasty business. Luckily Tom has a nuclear bunker and the attack is foiled.

A moment of particular tension follows when Ben, holding a terrorist column, hovering over Asia, can't quite decide where to place it. Each move seems to have a thousand possible outcomes, none of them good. "It's too mental", he declares and decides against the move altogether. Ben, you haven't seen anything yet ...

The temptation to ramp up the mental stakes is too much for Andy S who cashes in his chips and turns terrorist, but not before playing the much-feared 'insurgency emergency' card, thus doubling every terrorist unit on the board. Chaos and horror ensue.

It's a bloody mess from that point onwards, but Ben starts to see the temptation in turning terrorist, especially when Andy S convinces him that with some careful planning as a rogue Empire, he could ensure a terrorist win when he turned. To this end, Andy S donates two of his best cards.

What no one expected from a newbie is that he'd take those cards and use them entirely to his own advantage and try and go for glory all on his own. He builds a few cities, declares Europe for himself and bingo! Victory!

But not quite. In his excitement, Ben managed to overlook the Falkland Islands and so hadn't quite conquered S.America, despite the fact that sheep and penguins formed the only resistance on the vital island. But it's the end of his go and he has to save glory for another day.

After Andy T does very little, it's down to Tom - if Andy S can persuade Tom to turn terrorist, then a terrorist victory is well within grasp. Tom's interested, but first he needs to use all his cool cards that he's been saving up for half the game.

So that's why he cleared up some radiation in Peru, and then followed this by dropping a nuclear bomb in Brazil. Ben's devastated. A load of terrorist nasties in Europe and a particularly uncalled-for political kidnap mean that Ben finds himself on the verge of bankruptcy. He caves in and joins the terrorist force, pushing the terrorists to within a point of victory.

While Tom contemplates which mode of torture to use on Andy T, Andy T is busy doing sums and very slowly comes to the realisation that the next person to turn terrorist ensures a terrorist victory, thus resulting in the one remaining Empire losing. Pointing at the board, he ventures, "Hang on, if I turn ..." And just at that moment, Tom declares his intentions to join the dark army.

And that's how the game was won and lost. Three terrorists share the victory and Andy T, the sole Empire, a very sorry loser.

A classic game. Everyone was evil. Terrorist hi-jinks. Stupid secret messages. Back-stabbing a-plenty. And asses laughed well and truly off. Ben declaring at regular intervals 'I can't believe you've made this thing I'm playing'...

And now, my friends, we give it to you...

- posted by TerrorBull Games on 13 October 2006 - 0 comments

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Monday 9th October 2006

Delivery update

Just when we thought things had calmed down a little...

The past week has been a mental'un. We did an interview with Forbes magazine; been asked on Mexican TV; asked to give a talk on boardgame design in Holland; sent some promo sets out to reviewers and others who have influenced and inspired us ... And then all hell broke loose when our shipping and fulfilment partner (Charles Gee & Co.) who had been working with us for six months suddenly backed out after seeing the 'sick' tabloid headlines.

Needless to say we were amazed by this latest development. We first talked to Charles Gee representatives at the London Toy Fair back in January. Since then we were repeatedly impressed by their friendly and prompt service. Two reps came out to see us. They had reservations, but loved the game as soon as they saw it. Only after we'd arranged shipping, warehousing and fulfilment with them, did Tim Thompson - a partner at Charles Gee - drop us an email to say he didn't want our business. We'd never heard of Tim Thompson before, but here he was, screwing up our entire release date with one email. Very professional. Cheers, Tim.

So where does that leave us? Well we managed to sort out a replacement shipping and fulfilment company pretty quickly. They are cool and we're indebted to them. As far as dates go, Instead of our original delivery estimate of end October, we now have a confirmed shipping arrival date of November 12. Apparently we have to factor in another week for customs clearance, so this is a real set back. Sorry. We're as gutted and frustrated as you are.

We've sent an email out to everyone who's pre-ordered. If you pre-ordered and didn't receive this email, please get in touch right away.

The only problem we're left with is North America. Our Original partner had a base in the States, from which we could fulfil American orders. Unfortunately our new partner can't do this so we've just started contacting warehousing/ pick+pack/ fulfilment people in the States, but have had no joy yet. It's pretty hard when you don't have any leads. So if you know of a suitable (and reliable) company, please let us know.

If you've ordered from the States and you're now panicking, please don't. We have 500 games heading your way and even if we have to train winged monkeys to distribute them, we'll do it.

Having companies run away from us is getting such a bad habit, that we've dedicated a page to flakey and irrational business behaviour. We've called it the Coalition of the Unwilling.

Thanks for your patience and understanding. We'll get there in the end. After seeing the finished product last week, we just can't wait until the games are out there! We want to be a fly on the wall of every house as they open this box of joy. It will be well worth the wait, honestly.

- posted by TerrorBull Games on 9 October 2006 - 0 comments

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Tuesday 3rd October 2006

First sets arrive!

A very exciting day here at TBG HQ: the first finished games have arrived from the factory.

15 sets of War on Terror, the boardgame turned up on the doorstep this morning. This was the first time we'd seen a complete, finished, shiny game - and the first time we'd ever clapped eyes on the cards as individually-cut packs.

We have to say, it looks amazing. We're not disappointed at all. We can't wait until these start turning up at people's houses all over the world and they open it up.

The first finished games have arrived from the factoryWe also can't wait to have our first game with an official set, so we're going to organise that soon.

Unfortunately, these sets are for promo & review use, so if you're wondering when you're getting yours, the other 4,985 sets are rolling off the production line as we speak and are getting shipped direct to the UK and the US very soon. We're expecting exact shipping dates to be confirmed in the next couple of days and we will of course update you with a more precise E.T.A as soon as we know.

Press update: there's a nice, balanced review of the game in Stars & Stripes and a rather 'serious' look at what may or may not be behind the game at Small Fish On-line (Small Fish is well worth further exploration) and if you haven't had enough of our rambling, then you can satisfy your masochistic streak by reading the complete transcript of the Small Fish interview.

People are keeping track of the various discussions and reviews springing up everywhere at the Evil Balaclava forum. It's probably the best place to keep up to date with everything.

- posted by TerrorBull Games on 3 October 2006 - 0 comments

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Friday 29th September 2006

Arabic edition?

Another TerrorBull Games jolly in London and we had the delight of being interviewed by MBC for the Al Arabiya news channel. We've not seen the tape yet, but no one could keep a straight face and we got the thumbs up.

They had yet more suggestions for follow up games, with the Iranian market in mind this time. When asked what they'd think their potential audience of '130 million Arabs' would think of the game... "They wouldn't be shocked. In some of these places, they deal with bombs going off every day".

There were concerns that the Middle East is a little too hot for playing boardgames that involve wearing a balaclava for any length of time, so alternative 'evil' clothing may be on the cards.

We also splashed out some cash on the cheapest video camera we could find, so the blog could get weirder. You Tube beware. And we think we've found the perfect spot for the launch party, but it's all a bit hush hush at the moment.

Why? Because companies that we've been working with for the last six months have suddenly decided that we're too 'sick' to work with. No major headaches so far and we'll have a full update soon. We're just happy that the dudes who own the cafe round the corner are still serving us.

Order update: 578 games.

A big thumbs up to the Cambridge Evening News for giving us 600 words to respond to last week's "Terror board game branded 'sick'" headline news.

Loads of great contact emails rolling in and some interview requests for 'culture' magazines. Board games are the new rock 'n' roll...

- posted by TerrorBull Games on 29 September 2006 - 0 comments

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Monday 25th September 2006

Colombia, lost phone & a request

After a weekend that started with standing in a field on the mobile having "It's two fingers up at governments, terrorists, the whole lot" translated into Spanish for live Colombian radio, well, we thought it couldn't get much weirder.

A heavy hangover on Sunday wasn't helped by the fact the TerrorBull phone was lost in the White Swan the night before, along with one of the inventor's BLACK RUCKSACK and frisbee. The phone has been cancelled, maybe that's why we're not getting back to you. Hopefully it was just stolen and not destroyed by the police, either way, it's our most subtle marketing prank yet.

"I thought this was some neocons idea of fun indoctrination for children"We also hit the 500 mark, so the certificate pile isn't getting any bigger. We've got an interview with Stars & Stripes lined up. The one and only board game geek is a hotbed of discussion. This review made us happy, another from the same paper was quite different... the Australian press seem to have a lot to say about the game.

We've noticed many journalists use the same recipe for the story and find people whose lives have been shattered by a 'terror event' to comment on the game. We - and many people writing to us - would also be interested to hear views on the game from the following...

• World leaders
• 'Big Oil' people
• Political prisoners
• People fighting in Iraq / Afghanistan (both sides)
• In fact, anyone

Why not even ask the people who own your newspaper? And yes, ask people who've just lost a loved one to a bomb as well - we expect it to be balanced after all.

Anyone speak polish? It may come in handy.

Best contact of the day:

18:15 Miriam
I will be boycotting this disgusting game and will be sure to boycott any other product associated with its makers, whoever they are and however slight their involvement.

18:25 Miriam
Ignore earlier message - I misunderstood - thought this was some neocons idea of fun indoctrination for children for christmas.

- posted by TerrorBull Games on 25 September 2006 - 0 comments

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