1950 is the very first original game I’ve designed that takes place after WW1. I specifically wanted to design a Korea game that did not feel like it was scripted to recreate the campaign, but rather one that encouraged those tactics and maneuvers. Additionally, I didn’t want a game that accountants could abuse or break with strength factor counting, this felt totally antithetical to the nature of the Korean war in which everything seems confused and unknown.

After originally considering a more traditional approach to the war with attack and defense factors, exploitation phases and an IGOUGO sequencing, I then decided on trashing all of those ideas and starting fresh. I had recently played Starkweather’s OSS KOREA game and felt inspired enough by it to try to come up with similar ideas and approaches. I finally felt satisfied settling on the random combat chit resolution to stop players from what I saw as the wrong kind of gamey planning (not that I have anything against games that promote that type of thinking, like The Russian Campaign , Africa Korps etc, but they have already been done and done well.)

The combat chits create a more accurate experience by removing some of the domain battlespace knowledge inherent in most games, you only know the type, quality of a unit, and how far it can move. The exception to this is airpower as in order to accurately represent the strategic situation, players must be able to figure out how best to use air assets to support their units through the various options. Anyway, I ended up really liking this game of mine in terms of how I think it plays, no other korea game plays like it and it can get very interesting solo. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed designing it :)