My interest in 'pop-up' games was stimulated by the fact that in the past several months, I've been forced to play a number of solo games. The solo pop-up game is predicated on a randomly derived chart, which tells the solo player, each turn, who he's up against. In a WW II scenario, enemy squads suddenly appear, enemy HMG nests suddenly materialize, enemy tanks rumble out of the nearby woods, and so on. I've tried the solo aspect many times, and together with Fred Haub, we've explored the multi-player approach to the pop-up game. There are basically three types of these scenarios: a. First, there's the game in which the players are on the same side, with their units trying to make their way upfield. There's no competitive aspect, since both players can join in and assist one another, simply to see if they can 'beat the odds'. By the term 'beating the odds', I'm referring to the pop-up charts and the various types and numbers of enemy troops that appear. The goal is to eventually jointly fight your way through all the randomly selected units that try to bar your way. Note that the key word is jointly. b. The second type of multi-player game is what could be called a 'screw your buddy' (SYB) scenario. Here, the players are still on the same side, but they're competing against each other in terms of victory conditions... i.e., who wins, who can gather the most victory points. To this effect, the players are given a certain number of cards on each of which is annotated something "bad" that will happen to his fellow gamer. A player plays a card on a competitor's unit, and card states something like (a) "Unit finds itself in mine field, 60 percent chance to incur one casualty", or (b) "enemy squad appears behind cover, 70 percent chance it fires first", or (c) "several men panic and fall back 10 inches", and so on. The intent here is hold up the friendly, yet competing force, slowing them down, so that your own boys can make their way across the field. I've seen a couple of these SYB games at conventions and they're quite entertaining. c. A third type of pop-up game is truly competitive, wherein the players are on opposing sides as enemies engaged in a battle. Here, in addition to the forces they already have on the field, which move and fire, etc., the players also have a certain number of cards which they can play on opposing units and which, in essence, denote the presence of reinforcements. For example, if Player #1 plays a card on Player #2's unit, which states: "2 squads appear and fire on your unit", then the 2 squads that materialize join Player #1's force for the remainder of the game. Fred Haub and I tried this third type of some Saturdays ago. We each started out with about 2 squads, and gave ourselves 5 cards each. The objective for each of us was to battle our way through, and take possession of the 6 houses within an enemy village. Fred started from the northern end, and I started from the south. A simple sequence called for (a) the active side to move, then (b) the non-active side to fire, and (c) melee to be resolved. During the non-active side's firing phase, he was permitted to play one card on an enemy unit. We each had only 5 cards for the entire battle... there was no replenishment. Cards had to be used wisely. One of my squads, on my movement phase, entered one of the houses in the village, and Fred on his fire phase, immediately played a card: "3 enemy squads appear, and have 70 percent chance to fire first. This card proved a double whammy for me. First, because my single squad was ambushed and got splatted, but second and more importantly, because Fred now had 3 additional squads in his force. Our five cards were drawn from a deck of some 20 cards. Each card had two distinct entries, one for encountering opponents in the open, and the other for encountering enemies in 'cover' i.e., the village houses. Not all the cards provided for reinforcements. Some said "booby trap, 70 percent chance to incur a casualty", and the like. And others simply said "no units available". The five cards I was dealt were not the greatest in the world. Over 3 turns, I quickly used up three of them, playing them against Fred's squads in the houses. In this manner, I received some reinforcements and was able to ambush one or two of Fred's squads. But my remaining two cards were losers. On both of them, the entry for ambushing enemy units in houses simply stated: "no units available", while the entry concerning enemy units that I found in the open stated: "2 enemy squads appear, etc., etc." This meant that as long as Fred's units stayed within the houses of the town, I had nothing to play on them, and could summon no reinforcements. I could only wait until one or more of his units wandered outside in the open, and at that time I could play my remaining cards. Trying to drive Fred's squads back and into the open, I managed to attack successfully with the forces I already had on the field (without card-drawn reinforcements), but the attack only drove the opposing squads back into the adjoining houses within the village. One more successful attack, and if the enemy squads could be forced to retreat into the open, I could have gone for the gold. Alas! 'Twas not to be. The Haubian units surged forward, and my boys threw in the towel. I had been done in by my cards. Two out of my five cards were ineffective because Fred's troops stayed under cover of the houses, and I fell behind early in the battle. "Hard cheese!", as my British friends would say. I haven't mention the overlay of firing procedures, nor those for melee, nor those for morale tests, etc., that we used in the game. But these procedures were fairly 'standard'... our focus was on the pop-up cards and their impact on the game. The modern era would seem to be the obvious one for these pop-up games, what with small units, i.e., squads, and long range weaponry. But having tried the WW II small unit aspect, I'm now ginning up an ancients pop-up game. Here, I'm using stands, i.e., multi-figure stands, and I have no idea of what a stand or a unit represents. This'll take a wee bit of cogitation. As in the game I just described, the initial forces on both sides will be small. Cards will be played on the enemy to smite him, and the units that appear to do the smiting will join the forces already on the field. More later on this. Back to PW Review July 1998 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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