It's done! It's done!! It's really done!!!

Last August, Guderian's Blitzkrieg finally cleared its last hurdles and went out the door here at The Gamers. This may not seem like such a big deal to most people. but I spent much of last summer as midwife for the birth of this baby. It was not an easy labor. I learned more about game production than I really wanted to know.

Game Production = Ulcers

In an earlier article, Dean described some of the neardisasters that have occurred during the production of other games, but left GB for me. The story begins several years after Dean initially conceived the idea for the OCS, and after completion of the design and playtesting of GB. In early June, I went fishing for two weeks to regain my sanity at the end of school. During this time, Dean used most of the memory then available in his Macintosh computer to create the artwork for the two maps. In fact, the forest symbols on Map A are less dense than on Map B because he ran out of memory and had to thin them down. Dean then sent the computer disks to California for conversion into film usable by the printer.

I was in Homer when the map negatives and proofs arrived, along with an unbelievable invoice. This was my first experience with the up-front expenses involved in game production, and it was definitely a shock. The proof maps were absolutely beautiful and almost perfect. There were, however, two noticeable glitches. Along the south edge of Map A, four patches of woods overlay were missing. Fortunately, Dean knows a good stripper at the print shop who fixed three of the four. However, Map B must now overlap Map A. For you dirty minds out there, a stripper is the person who sets up the artwork for the press. In addition, the background color on the two maps was slightly different. Our man at the print shop was again able to solve the problem. During the printing process, tiny dots of yellow, red, blue and black placed next to each other in varying densities make different colors. This requires four negatives, one for each color. The film company had put the yellow and black dots for one map on top of each other instead of next to each other. The film company needed an extra week to re-do those films before the printer could get started.

In mid-June, I spent two long days next to the computer helping Dean design the counter sheets. The biggest lesson I learned from this experience is that what you see on the computer screen is not what the printed product will look like. When the first set of counter films and proofs returned from California, Dean was so upset with the results that he redid all but one of the counter sheets. Even though the counter films were done and paid for twice, we both feel that there are units that could have looked better. In fact, the Christmas errata counter sheet included the third, and hopefully final, version of the forty-one Russian Armored Brigades and Tank Divisions.

Even though two of us were watching and double checking every counter, I must sadly report that the values on the back of one stupid German motorcycle battalion are wrong. Of course it was a German unit, because Uncle Joe does not tolerate behavior like that in the Red Army. We made and double-checked an inventory sheet of every unit in the game. Then we checked each unit as it we made it. We also triple-checked the new counters using the playtest counters. I remember the day well because playtest counters occasionally flew around the roomduring this long process. Both of us were getting tired and froggy, so when Dean made some smart comment, I popped him with a recon battalion or tank brigade. Regardless of how or why this error occurred, the correct replacement counter is on the errata counter sheet.

Next, Dean did the final layout of the rules and play aids, and I spent another long day proofreading them. Then we spent more hours designing the examples of play. Finally, everything went to the printer where, except for a minor misunderstanding about deadlines, everything went smoothly.

After picking up several pallets of printed material from the print shop, it was time for the next steps in the process. Dean drove from Champaign to St. Louis, about four hours away from Homer, to deliver the box art to the box maker, and the counter art to the graphic finisher (AKA die-cutter). Three weeks later, we intended to rent a big truck on a Wednesday to pick up the finished boxes and counters. The collating party had to start on Thursday in order to ship the game before Origins. The good news was that the box maker completed his job on schedule. I heard the bad news the Friday before our intended journey. Foaming at the mouth, Dean called me. The graphics finisher had just told Dean that the die cutting machine had broken down. Luckily, they repaired the machine and completed the job, approximately, on time. We did have to wait for four more hours in the loading dock while the counters were flat-cut and boxed. Does anyone know of a reliable graphic finishing company somewhere in the Midwest?

After driving back to Homer, Dean and I unloaded the entire twenty-four foot Ryder truck by hand, in the heat and humidity of an August evening. We then returned the truck, but not until after spending several late hours looking for diesel fuel in ChampaignUrbana. We discovered that, even though three Interstate highways intersect near here, there is not one single truck stop, and apparently only one service station in the entire town that sells diesel fuel.

That night the collating party began, something every gamer should experience. First, some lucky soul carefully checks components for damage and production flaws. Next, we stack all the components in a line on a long table. Then, volunteers go down the line putting the components into the boxes, repeating the process over and over. Filled games get shrink-wrapped, stacked in storage boxes and put into the warehouse. Three or four people can do about 400 games like GB a day. By the end of a long, tiring weekend, the game was ready for shipping by Sara Essig and her faithful and reliable crew of one, on time and way over budget.

There is one serious side effect to the collating process. After one has collated several hundred copies of a game, one gets rather sick of it. Some even report seeing games being collated in their dreams, a phenomenon that I am sure would interest Freud. It was several weeks before I could again look at a copy of GB without physical discomfort.

There is a moral to this story. Next time you want to bitch about minor imperfections in a game from any company, remember that someone else is already nursing an ulcer over those flaws. I know, because I see the pain in Dean's face when I mention the postproduction glitches that I find. As a wise old man once told me, do not judge another until you have walked a mile in his shoes.

In January, Dean informed me that the supply of unsold GBs in the warehouse was essentially gone, with only a few copies remaining. I hope you are enjoying the game as much as I do. Your support has encouraged Dean to continue the OCS series, with a second game due in 1994. In the mean time, I would like to hear from you, especially the Russian players. I know that there are better players out there than me who could contribute some great ideas. Send comments and play hints to Owen Fidler, in care of The Gamers, or to my home address at Box 709, Metamora IL 61548. If there is enough interest, Dean says we may be able to start our own column. Hey Dean, how does "Letters from the Glorious Red Army to STAVKA" grab you? [Ed. Note: Up yours, Owen.]