Game Designers' Census

Stephen V. Cole

by Bill Stone




Current Employment: Professional Engineer, Pioneer Natural Gas Company; Vice-President and Chief of Design, Task Force Games Corporation; Contributing Editor (Defense), The Review of the News
Previous Gaming Employment: President, J P Publications (JagdPanther)
Words of Wisdom: A designer must play to his market. If you want to sell a thousand copies to experienced wargamers, you can (and have to) include all sorts of new twists (some of which have no basis at all in reality) to entice those who "have seen it all" into buying your game. If you want to sell ten thousand copies to the mass market audience, you have to keep the rules clear and straight forward (not necessarily "simple"). But more importantly you must pick a subject that will sell and do the best game you can. Don't do a really fine game on some unheard of subject and then wonder why no one buys it. The only thing wrong with either of the two philosophies is assuming that that either one is wrong. You just have to make your decision and play to the market.
Favorite Game of Own Design: Warsaw Pact
Favorite Game of Another's Design: Panzergruppe Guderian
Design/Development Credits: Design: MP-44; Crazy Horse; Eban Emael; Cowpens; Zeppelin; Gorlice-Tarnow (with Don Harris); PQ-17; Goetterdaernmerung; Marine; Siege of Leningrad; Warsaw Pact (1976); Warsaw Pact (1980, major revision); Jacksonville: The Beaches of Doom; Poland: 1939; Starfire (1975); Starfire (1979, totally new game); Cerberus; Asteroid Zero-Four; Star Fleet Battles; Prochorovka; Fall of Bataan (with Allen Eldridge); Valkenburg Castle; Reichsfortress; Gar-garouk; Holocaust; Reichskanzerlie; Kriegsmarine (play-by-mail); Challenge; Gestapo Monopoly; Russian Bridge (with Jim Brown); Scrimmage (appeared in print six months before the SPI game of the same name) Development: March on India; Anvil-Dragoon; Rigelian Wars; Intruder; Swordquest; Operation Pegasus; To No End; Battlecruiser; Siege of Barad Dur; Valley of the Lions; Paris Commune; Starfire II; Airborne; RN; War of the Worlds; McPherson's Ridge; Robots!

The Game Designers


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