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Welcome! The following game topics are all contemporary design submissions that Accurate Simulations is considering for possible publication in 2024/25. Some of the following game topics are completed (or nearly completed) designs that are ready for development or playtesting, while some of the following game topics are drafts or simply proposals. Feedback for these submissions is intended to gauge interest in the topics themselves regardless of which designs are completed, drafts, or proposals, and regardless of intended components yet. We appreciate your feedback and welcome you to rate as few or as many of the following submissions as you prefer:

BASIC TACTICAL COMBAT SYSTEM

This innovative idea is meant to be an all-new and comprehensive tactical combat game system at the squad and the individual vehicle scale, but it will emphasize simple and intuitive mechanisms, but will be historically realistic renderings of actual units and weaponry to provide players an authentic tactical combat system without the complexity of other tactical systems. Essentially, this game concept is meant to be something similar to a simple Squad Leader, but more refined than what Squad Leader originally was. Indeed, the system would be initially published with a series of introductory scenarios and will be expanded to encompass numerous fronts and eventually eras...introducing additional nationalities, new vehicles, new forces, and even hypothetical engagments. The focus of the game's scale will be infantry, squad weapons, and vehicles to be played on geomorphic and scenario-specific maps.

DEFCON_1

DefCon_1 is a global aerial warfare game during the late 1950's that simulates a nuclear war before the advent of the ICBM. The design is World War Three during the atomic era that is based on a U.S. Department of Defense analysis that was recently declassified in 2014. Accordingly, this game is exceptionally accurate and features the entirety of common bomber and interceptor aircraft that were in service during the later 1950's. The map features a polar projection of the Earth from the perspective of NORAD; both players must manage their air defense network, their strategic strike capability, and even fleet assets to prevail during an all-out atomic exchange. However, players can never know exactly when World War III will begin, and so there is an "arms race" period that precedes the war. Players will build up, gain new technological advances, and prepare to survive a strategic bombing campaign and endeavor to win an unwinnable war. While historically accurate, this design is not complex, and playable in a day. Better yet, the game is exceptionally replayable because no two games will necessarily begin the same.

DIRECTIVE 21

The long-awaited update to the classic Avalon Hill game "Stalingrad" (misnamed insofar as the game is actually the entire Eastern Front at the army level) with all new rules (including air rules) and updated graphics based upon John Cooper's updated map and unit art (with many thanks to John for his kind permission to use his beautiful artwork). But more than simply an update of "Stalingrad", this design is an entirely new system plus a completely overhauled order of battle for both sides. This game will begin with Operation Barbarossa and encompasses the entire Eastern Front (from E. Poland and Romania to the Caucasus). Moreover, the cartography has been meticulously researched such that every strategic location within the USSR (cities, forests, mountains, marshes, and even rail lines) has been verified according to historic map sources. The presentation of the game is a realistic simulation of the East Front during World War II, and yet remains simple and playable.

WORLD WAR AT SEA

A global and mega version of the popular Avalon Hill game War at Sea and Victory in the Pacific that is more than simply two theaters during World War II, but is the entire globe throughout all of the Second World War. Additionally, this design is a comprehensive game that includes every major capital ship in all theaters from 1939 to 1945, and also includes the capital ships that were never historically constructed (for example, the Montana class battleship, German Z-plan battleships, the Japanese Shinano if it had not been completed as a fleet carrier, etc). What is more, this game design also features a simple land combat system that operates as a rudimentary sub-system throughout the game that gives ships a specific purpose pursuant to the larger war (in other words, naval engagements are not only for their own sake; rather, players will have specific purposes for their ships in the game to support the land war across the map). Beyond the scope of the overall game, the design itself is simple and easy to play, and yet every single ship has been researched and attributed with historically correct ratings to give players a naval wargame like no other.

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

This is a fun, light, and yet thoughtfully-crafted design that gives players the experiences of playing various animal species in Africa that are competing for survival and eventually dominance throughout the continent. Each animal species is presented with realistic zoological attributes such as size, speed, strength, and the habitats that players must use to increase the population and migration across the map. But every species has different abilities and so players must play effectively to gain sources of food, sources of water, and environments to thrive. However, other animal species are also competing for the same resources, and so players will enjoy the challenge of becoming the predominant species of the animal kingdom. This design is a family game for two to six players, but is also an authentic presentation of survival among the numerous species that inhabit the African mainland.

1968: CRUCIAL EVENTS / PIVOTAL ELECTIONS

This is a two-player card game that is a return to the events of 1968 and the Presidential Election of that year. The setting is the height of the Vietnam War and social upheaval of the 1960's, and the possibilities if President Johnson had run for re-election against Richard Nixon. Each side is played as a political party that uses cards and actions to facilitate the candidacy of his party's nominee during the pivotal electoral year of 1968. However, this hypothetical run for the White House may differ from the historical script inasmuch as there are specific cards available to both sides that can be played or not played as the important events of that year. Even the candidates for President may be different depending on various player decisions and choices. Should LBJ be the Democratic candidate? What if Robert Kennedy had not been assassinated? What if Rockefeller, Romney, or even Reagan was the GOP nominee? This quick and gorgeously rendered card game features mechanisms such as Endorsement Cards, Campaigning Cards, Wild Cards (such as the George Wallace card, for example) and numerous other types of action cards (such as playing as a challenger to the leadership of the opposing party). Players will either change the course of history or repeat history...for better or worse!

THE INEVITABLE END

The Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815 portrayed at the strategic scale and yearly game turns for two to six players, playable in a long day or two. This design is an area-movement map of Europe (and North Africa) that features simple rules and generic armies which are comprised of infantry, cavalry, cannon, elite formations (such as, for example, Napoleon's "Old Guard"), and even generals. The design also includes navies and admirals, as well as the entire array of Coalition nationalities, major and minor. This design is primarily a game of Napoleonic-era warfare at the grand army level, but also features a war and peace phase after each war so that players can build up armies and navies, form alliances, and forge new empires from the disarray of French imperial expansion. Can Napoleon conquer all of Europe, or is the end of his reign inevitable?

THE LAST WAR

The Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany during the late 1980's, this fast-paced design utilizes the same simple combat system as Desert Storm: The Hundred Hour War. This hypothetical game simulates a Soviet invasion of Central Europe just before the end of the Cold War. The game map is the ideal scale of ten miles per hex that encompasses all of Denmark, Germany, Poland, and Austria. Like Desert Storm: The Hundred Hour War, the rules are easy and intuitive, yet the orders-of-battle have been thoroughly researched from archival sources that were declassified after the fall of the Soviet Union. The game presumes a conventional Soviet invasion of Western Europe, but the design also give players the option to consider using tactical nuclear weapons (with all of the potential consequences). Likewise, the Soviet player may employ chemical weapons that may be effective on the battlefield while also potentially escalatory. For both sides, battlefield successes will have specific benefits as strategic objectives (such as roads and bridges, cities and airbases, ports and Reforger sites, etc.) will affect the course of the war. The rules themselves are simple and straightforward such that the game can be played to completion in a matter of hours while presenting an equally realistic simulation of how a Warsaw Pact invasion would have been if it had actually occurred.

THE SEVEN YEARS WAR: FREDERICK'S GAMBLE

This is an innovative and still popular card driven game (CDG) system that can be played with 2, 3, or 4 players. The map area covers the main theater of war, Central Europe, North America, and two areas in India where French and British forces clashed. This game is a point-to-point movement system with Leaders/Formations moving strength points to capture “Keys” strategic points to assist in their war effort. The more “Keys” a nation controls the more cards that nation will have (and the less their rivals will have) to conduct their war aims. The British and French can ship Professional Units overseas to assist in the conquest of North America and India, but the game provides local (North American Colonist, and Sepoy for India) recruitment.

This game also provides for Diplomacy to influence neutral nations to join your side. Neutral nations can range from Unaligned to Friendly, to Aide, to Partner, and finally a fully committed ally. Each of these levels of commitment will bring about more and more assistance to their allied nation.

The naval struggle between England and France is handled abstractly with the ability of other nations to assist in this contest. Britain will try to strengthen its control over the seas and thus reducing France’s ability to conduct military actions overseas.

The combat system reflects the period and captures that the "winner may or may not take more losses than the loser" dynamic. The game includes “Kleiner Krieg (to Frederick’s dismay), and there are Fortresses that players will have to siege to capture. Sieges can vary in length and can be bloody. The game system includes a limit on National Manpower for each nation (and there is a bottom), but each year of campaigning will see losses return to play in a “honors of war” game mechanism (Prisoner exchanges, Wounded returned to service, etc), and much, much more.

STALINGRAD SOLITAIRE

This solitaire design is a city-fight across an area-movement map of Stalingrad that challenges the player to assault and then invest the eponymous city. The game system generates random Soviet units from among the Soviet forces that were historically present during the Battle of Stalingrad, and the German player must configure his assaults and maneuver his units into a labyrinth of streets and buildings against tenacious Soviet resistance. The map itself is a detailed rendition of Stalingrad with all of the famous landmarks that typified the fighting such as Pavlov's House, Mamayev Hill, the Barrikady Works, and more. Moreover, the terrain will become "rubbled" as German units assault each block, thereby causing the urban warfare to become exponentially more difficult as the fighting continues. This is an easy and a quick-playing game that is meant to be played and completed in a few hours. In addition, the design can be played as a two-player game insofar as each player may take command of a separate contingent of the assaulting force (playing either cooperatively or competitively to capture most of the city). In either case, this game was designed to be generally unwinnable, and thus the chances of success depend upon tenacity, cleverness, and luck!

WHEN PARIS WENT DARK

A new kind of game, up to six players assume the role of individual French civilians during the German occupation of Paris from 1940 until 1944. This design is a personal-adventure game that puts players in the role of a common Parisian citizen after the German army occupies the city. Each player must cope with the challenges of survival in occupied Paris (rendered as an urban map of the city). The decks regulate the occurrences of Random Events for each year of the game, and therefore players must react shrewdly to countless incidents that evoke the conditions within Paris under German control. Most of the first events are merely difficulties such as curfews, rationings, interrogations, etc., but some events are opportunities to join the Parisian "underground" or assist the French "resistance". But, the Random Events of the next game year become ever more difficult, and thus players must figure out how to manage their own character's activities on the map to survive and avoid being arrested (or worse). These challenges compound each year, and therefore players will discover that each year's new deck is more perilous and less opportunistic. But, players will usually have opportunities to interact with others to survive by trading resources, sharing info, working together, and helping each other avoid becoming discovered. However...players must always be wary because they never know if someone in their midst is a collaborator!

PEARL HARBOR SOLITAIRE

This simple design simulates variations of the Pearl Harbor attack whereby the player commands Japanese aircraft assigned to attack Oahu. The game is at the operational level, but the Japanese player will not know which ships will be present at Pearl Harbor when his bombers arrive, or where each of the ships will be berthed. The alert status of Pearl Harbor could also be different if, for example, the Opana Radar Site does not mistake the inbound strike to be B-17s as occurred historically, and other such variations. Similarly, there is a possibility that one or more U.S. aircraft carriers are in port when the attack commences, and even a possibility that some of the U.S. ships may already be underway when the Japanese naval-air arrive. This design also permits the possibility of the fabled "Third Strike" against Pearl Harbor, and a possibility that Japanese bombers may be able to attack the oil tanks facility on the island (that historically was untouched by the attack). All of these diverse outcomes affect a 'Pacific War Outcome' matrix at the game's end to determine if the player's attack on Pearl Harbor substantially alters the course of the war in the Pacific Theater.