An infrequent feature in Strategist is the “profile piece.” In it, we try to tell you something about one of the people involved in the hobby who, in doing what they do, set gamers apart as a class from other subgroups of mutant trainspotters. This month we take a look at Augustus Bellona, one of the first amateur designers to make a name for himself in the field of DTP (Desk-Top-Published) games, even before that term was invented.

Hobby historians will recall that local high school students were often hired by Simulations Publications Incorporated (SPI) to assemble and package their products, back in the early 1970s when their business was mostly mail-order.

This was where young Augustus, recruited from the Gugliemo Achille Cavellini Reformatory for Boys in Brooklyn, got his start in the gaming industry.

As he toiled in the SPI warehouse, sorting out bundles of errata and dodging the sharp-cornered counter sheets the other kids were prone to Frisbee at each other’s heads from time to time, he resolved to make a name for himself as a designer of soft-edged, errata-free games, second only to the Great Dunnigan.

Augustus began to subscribe to the numerous “ditto zines” that were then common to the hobby. It seemed as if almost every wargame club in the United States that could hijack the school Gestetner was producing some form of newsletter or other publication, often featuring the designing talents of their members. Augustus dived into this samizdat smorgasbord headfirst, contributing to such amateur publications as Intemperate Phoenix, Xenophagic, and Whap! Quarterly. He was well aware of the trap that so many designers fall into, i.e. that of simply overhauling their last design to make with new and different play mechanics and subjects that had not been covered before.

He also struggled constantly against the graphic limitations imposed by manual typewriters, crumbling stencils, and a chronic lack of shirt cardboard to make counters.

By now out of school, and working as a fingerstall tester to make ends meet, Augustus Bellona died in October, 1978 when his kidneys spontaneously combusted due to long-time exposure to rubber cement fumes. Fame had eluded him, for he had been never been sufficiently self-promoting or prolific, but his games have been judged to be the most perfectly errata-free amateur designs ever to be published. They include:

Battle of Kyzyl, self-published 1971 (on the Soviet annexation of Tuva in 1944)
War for the Fruit, Hexamatic Press 1973 (subtitled “Orchards of Fire”)
Invasion: Kiska, Wampum Games 1973 (first in their "Pointless Games" series)