There are three game companies that are connected so closely as to be almost indistinguishable: Gamma Two Games, The Game Preserve and Columbia Games. The Game Preserve is probably the least known of the three, and not without good reason. All three companies produced what are known as block games, i.e., games that used square wooden blocks instead of the more common cardboard counters. TGP was established for the sole purpose of producing Rommel in the Desert, which was a block game. In fact, it was the only game produced by TGP, and once CG bought Rommel in the Desert from them, TGP ceased to be.

All three companies were Canadian companies. In fact, all three companies were British Columbian companies. But whereas G2G and CG were based in Vancouver, (and CG eventually moved across the border into Washington), TGP was based in Edgewood, a metropolis which even native British Columbians might have difficulty finding on a map.

Craig Besinque designed Rommel in the Desert and was the prime mover behind TGP: “I have always been interested in wargames. I asked for Tactics II for my birthday after seeing it in the local toy store, and I developed such a scientific first turn that my first game friend, Rob Winslow, didn’t really want to play it any more. I designed my own variant of U-Boat, and invented an abstract island hopping game, among others. I played various Avalon Hill classics with various friends and found them exciting and disappointing at the same time.”

After high school, Craig’s continued fooling with game designs, particularly a tactical football game. It was an area game using wooden pieces, and there was deception involved. In 1969, he was living in Vancouver, and went to G2G (the only game publisher in the yellow pages) where he met Tom Dalgliesh. G2G was doing very well at that time with Slap Shot, Last Spike, Airline, and various other family games besides their three wargames (Quebec 1759, War of 1812 and Napoleon). Craig showed First Down to Tom, but G2G weren’t having much luck with sports games. Tom gave Craig a copy of Napoleon as an example of what G2G did.

First Down was never published. “It was just too tactical and slow for most football fans”, says Craig. In 1970, Craig moved to Edgewood, met Ron Hodwitz who shared his interest in Go, Chess, and wargames, and told him about Napoleon. Soon they were getting together once or twice a week to play, and even after 50 or 100 games, “Napoleon still remained interesting and far more exciting than any other wargames.”

Craig began experimenting with a few North African campaign designs. Bluff, nerve, and deception were so crucial to this campaign that it cried out for a hidden intelligence treatment, and he quickly realized the applicability of the block system. Research and a prototype quickly followed.

At first it was point-to-point like Napoleon, but hexes looked better and worked equally well. A year of playtesting and fine tuning followed. Finally, on a trip to Vancouver, they took theire design to Tom. At that point G2G was no longer interested in doing war games, as the family games were selling much better. So Craig asked Tom for permission to publish it himself. Tom agreed, and graciously provided his sources for blocks and dice, and also provided certain key components (boxes) not available in small quantities. G2G used black wrapped boxes with a little gold printing. Craig bought these and sprayed them plain gloss black for TGP.

Craig had another friend in Edgewood, Doug LeGood, who knew about the game and had been a printer. He was about to return to the printing business in Vancouver and encouraged Craig to go ahead with it, offering to show how to do prepress (to absolutely minimize printing costs) and to get it printed some slow night at rock bottom prices.

With Doug’s help, Craig got together a trial run of 200 copies. He did the prepress at home, cut the blocks himself in his wood shop (Tom’s supplier did the tinting), and edited the rules on his 64K Radio Shack Color Computer (but they had to be retyped on a Selectric to look decent). Craig sent out copies to magazines for review and started placing ads and phoning distributors.

Rommel in the Desert got fairly good reviews (though some reviewers dismissed it as a beer and pretzels game, and others misread the rules) and the first 200 sold fairly quickly and 1000 more were printed. Craig says: “There were no substantive changes in the second run that I can recall, it was completely identical. The orangish paper of the rulebook may have been a slightly different color.”

Tom, by now, had taken over G2G from his 2 original partners and rechristened it as CG. When the second print run of Rommel in the Desert was about half gone and the game was starting to get a reputation, Tom indicated an interest in buying it and producing it in CG style. “I was getting tired of the business end of it and agreed. This was the end of The Game Preserve’s active life.”

Summary

The Game Preserve was a small Canadian board wargame company that flourished from circa 1970 to 1984. It published one title, the block-based game Rommel in the Desert. The initial print run of 200 copies was followed by a second print run of 1,000 copies. There were only minor variations between the two printings, so it may not be possible to differentiate between the two with 100% certainty.

Rommel in the Desert

Simulacrum issue 1contained a detailed comparative article on both TGP and CG editions of Rommel in the Desert. This issue is available on Russ Lockwood’s MagWeb.com.

The major differences in the components of the two editions are summarized in the following table: In addition to the above differences:

The Game Preserve	Columbia Games
68 red wood blocks for 60 Allied units, 4 battle markers and 4 blanks	67 red wood blocks for 60 Allied units, 3 battle markers and 4 blanks.
40 black wood blocks for 34 Axis units, 4 battle markers and 2 blanks.	40 black (later grey) wood blocks for 34 Axis units, 3 battle markers and 3 blanks.
37 yellow wood blocks for 33 supply markers (22 real & 11 dummy).	42 cardstock supply cards (28 real & 14 dummy) and 4 blanks.
12 cardstock square disruption markers	-
1 32-page 8˝"x6 1/2" rules booklet	1 36-page 8 1/2 "x6" rules booklet.
1 d6	4d6.

.TGP map was a utilitarian orange, black and white, whereas the CG map was full-color and arguably suitable for mounting; .the CG stickers for the unit blocks were color-coded; .a new image was created for the CG box and rulebook cover; and, .the strength of the Italian Littorio Armored Division was downgraded from a “4” to a “3”.

A number of changes were made to the rules, and they were rewritten extensively. Errata were available for the CG version and are still on their web site (www.columbiagames.com). Unofficial errata are also available on the internet (website.lineone.net/~rwein/ritd/).

“Rommel in the Desert marked a break through for wooden block game evolution. Tom Dalgleish (with others) was largely responsible for the design of the first three point-to-point wooden block games. Craig Besinque took the basic concepts and merged them with a hexgrid to create this game. Craig added supply cards to give the game the North African feel, and the system works very well. An excellent game of WWII, it has a high replay value.

The only flaw [flaw? -ed] is that you must always be very careful of your supply lines - the game is unforgiving of mistakes. One mistake and the enemy cuts the supply of your entire army, which then starves to death.” Steffan O'Sullivan

Collector’s Value

Boone lists the following prices: These prices were effective to 1999, and probably don’t reflect the fact that CG has allowed the game to go out of print. With total production being 1,200 TGP units and 5,000 CG units, these prices also seem to suggest that TGP version is not well-known (Boone misidentifies the first edition as being from G2G) and may in fact be a Berg’s Paradox, i.e., so rare and unknown that demand is almost non- existent.

Other Games by This Designer

Craig Besinque has designed EastFront, WestFront, VolgaFront, MedFront and EuroFront for CG, and was also heavily involved in Bobby Lee.