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Stuart Dagger: British and Irish Publishers
When I was a child, Britain had a healthy boardgames industry in the shape of Waddingtons and Spears. Between them they had the UK licenses for leading American games such as Monopoly, Careers and Scrabble, and they also generated some good ones of their own—Cluedo from Waddingtons being the most famous. There was nothing like the flood of new titles that gamers are faced with these days, but there was enough to keep me and my friends happy and for “the latest game from Waddingtons” to be a sensible thing for a bright 11 year-old to put at the top of the list of things he would like for Christmas. However, that was back in the early fifties. In the late fifties two things happened: I discovered chess and bridge, which cost them one customer, and the British public fell in love with television, which must have cost them a lot more.
My rediscovery of commercial boardgames came in the early seventies, when I chanced across the game Diplomacy and the magazine Games & Puzzles. There were now, I discovered, boardgames that were aimed at intelligent adults. Waddingtons and Spears were still in business and still generating new games, but the interesting stuff was coming from newer companies such as Intellect (Hare and Tortoise, Election, Thoughtwave) and Philmar/Ariel (Kingmaker, Confrontation, Seastrike, Epaminondas). The two big names didn’t seem interested in the new market and in an article in G&P the marketing director of Waddingtons explained why: it wasn’t big enough to be commercially viable. Unfortunately, he was right, the newer companies didn’t last and the “bright new day” of British boardgame publishing proved to be all too short.
The position now is that Waddingtons and Spears have long since been gobbled up by the suits who run Hasbro and Mattel, and the only apparent change to their range over the last fifty years is that it seems to have got smaller. Monopoly and Cluedo are still there by the van load, but I find it difficult to see what today’s bright 11 year-old could take for their third pick. Nonetheless, Hasbro’s commercial muscle means that the two old warhorses still dominate the shelf space in mainstream shops, with the only competition coming from franchise stuff such as Harry Potter this that and the other, and from the stream of middlebrow, party-type games, such as Pictionary, that followed in the wake of Trivial Pursuit. For games of interest to anyone reading this column you need to search very hard, and outside the big cities it is by no means certain that you would find. In Britain and Ireland the market for games like ours is small, and because it is small, it stays small, making life very difficult for any would-be retailer or publisher.
Despite gamers here having the same sort of image as Morris Dancers, these islands do produce our share, and in view of our numbers possibly more than our share, of good games, and for this we have to thank a number of talented designer/publishers. The purpose of this article is to give you a guide to those whose games I have played.
Fiendish Games
Cycle Racing has been the theme of a number of games down the years. The most famous is the SdJ winner Demarrage / Um Reifenbreite, but even better in the eyes of many is John Harrington’s game Breaking Away. It began as a pbm game about twenty years ago, when John was part of the British postal gaming set-up, and in response to many requests was finally published in the mid nineties when John and a friend founded Fiendish Games. The company has produced other games, but this remains the best of them and it recently got another turn in the spotlight when it was picked as one of the “Top Hundred” in the poll conducted by Stephen Glenn and Mark Jackson. The website address is www.fbgames.co.uk.
Fragor Games
Gordon and Fraser Lamont are brothers who invented a game called Leapfrog, published it themselves, took it to Essen and found they had a hit on their hands. That was in 2004. In 2005 they repeated the trick with Shear Panic. The Fragor editions of both games are sold out, but Shear Panic has been picked up by bigger companies in both Europe and America, and is to be republished this summer. The hope is that Leapfrog will follow suit. The website address is www.fragorgames.com, and if you want to pronounce the brothers’ surname correctly, you stress the first syllable, not the second. Not many Englishmen know that, and in telling you, I am bragging.
Hanzo Games
This, the creation of Phil Balmforth, is the fledgling of the group. Phil’s first game, which is aimed partly at gamers and partly at people with an interest in Greek art, is a set collecting game based on Greek vases. His second is a dice-based Sudoku game. The website is www.hanzogames.com.
JKLM Games
JKLM games have been around for about five years. They began, like most of the companies on this list, with someone, in this case Markus Welbourne, self-publishing his own game. However, unlike all but one of the others, they then diversified and have shown a welcome flair for unearthing new designers and giving them a chance. And some good games have resulted, notably Andreas Steding’s Kogge and Steve Kingsbury’s City and Guilds. To learn more about these and the others, take a look at their website, www.jklmgames.co.uk.
R&D Games
The first game from Richard Breese and R&D games was a 2-player abstract, which he launched at the London Toy Fair. Unfortunately, that is one of those places that a wise parent will tell you not to visit and so the likes of me didn’t learn of his talent as a game designer until 1995, when Mike Siggins ran a games design competition in Sumo. There was only one entry and so the exercise was not repeated, but that one entry, Keywood, was of a quality that made people sit up and take notice. Encouraged by Mike’s reaction, Richard made up a limited edition of 200, which quickly sold out. Since then we have been treated to three further “Key” games and to Reef Encounter. Richard only produces small print runs, because he is a busy professional man for whom games are just a hobby and because there is a limit to how much of one’s limited spare time one is prepared to devote to counting out sets of wooden blocks. However, both of the two most recent games (Keythedral and Reef Encounter) have been republished by other companies and so are still available.
Ragnar Brothers
The Ragnars are wargamers who diversified. Their first game was about the war in Angola and went unnoticed outside wargaming circles; their second was the classic History of the World. That was in 1991. There have been about half a dozen games since then, with the most recent being Viking Fury in 2004. Their next, which is a business game about the building of the British canal system, is due shortly. For more information go to their website, www.ragnarbrothers.co.uk.
Sophisticated Games
Sophisticated Games was founded in 1998 by Robert Hyde and Ken Howard. They had designed the game Sophie’s World and knew that if you wanted to publish a game in Britain, your best chance was to do it yourself. They then went on to become the UK partner in the international combines that produced The Lord of the Ring, The Hobbit, War of the Ring and, most recently, Beowulf. Their website is www.sophisticated-games.com.
Tailten Games
It is not unusual for a non-gamer to think he can design an interesting game; it is most unusual for one of them to be right. Murray Heasman is one of the exceptions. He is a professional wood carver who became interested in Celtic knotwork. The second part of his inspiration came with a trip to see the iron age forts at the ancient, royal site of Tara in Ireland. Visualising the centres of the knots as forts and the lines as pathways between them gave him the idea for the very clever game that Games magazine recently chose as its “abstract game of the year”. Tailten’s website is a very good one with variants, illustrative games and tutorials. Murray has also started to produce a range of jigsaws using specially commissioned artwork and so if you visit the site, it is worth taking a look at those as well. www.tailtengames.com
Tresham Games
Hartland Trefoil, the company that Francis Tresham formed in the mid seventies in order to publish 1829, the first of the 18xx games, and which a few years later produced the equally ground-breaking Civilization, was sold to the computer games company Microprose in the late nineties, when the latter found itself being sued by Avalon Hill. AH, who seemed to be trying to prove that the words “smart” and “lawyer” don’t necessarily go together, got it into their heads that they owned the rights to Civilization and decided that they were therefore entitled to a cut of the profits for the computer game it had inspired. Had they read the back of their own box, they would have remembered that they were only publishing it under licence. Microprose did read the box, bought HT and counter-sued. As part of the deal, Francis was allowed to keep the rights to what was then his new 18xx game, 1825. Hence Tresham games. The 1825 project is now more or less complete and this year saw the publication of a new game in the series in the form of 1829 Mainline. Francis doesn’t maintain a website, but he has a friend, Keith Thomasson, who does and from whom the company’s products can be obtained. The URL for this is www.fwtwr.com. In the States the games are distributed by Mayfair.
Warfrog
Warfrog is Martin Wallace’s label, the one under which he produces gamers’ games to be launched at Essen. Warfrog began in the mid nineties, but in those days it was a shoe string operation, and it showed. The change came in 2000 when a friend put up the money to get that year’s games produced professionally to “top of the range” German standards. The gamble paid off and the success has continued with a string of first rate games. If your local games shop doesn’t stock Warfrog games, change suppliers.
Posted by Stuart Dagger on Jan 6, 2006 at 02:30 AM in Stuart Dagger - Britain and Ireland / 1280
Comments:
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Stuart, thanks for the great article, one of the best things I’ve read online in some time. Breaking Away is a big favorite with my games group. The bookkeeping takes a bit of getting used to, but once you have it down the game moves quite smoothly. I think that once electronics and boardgames are more seamlessly melded (maybe that new LCD table from Phillips is the answer) this game could really shine. Imaging playing Breaking Away at BSW where much of the counting and scorekeeping would be handled by the system. This game would fly. I was glad to see JKLM get a distribution deal here in the states. I hope they can up their production values a bit, as that’s the only element I find lacking in their otherwise fine games. Posted by Ward Batty on Jan 6, 2006 at 11:47 AM | #
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Stuart - Great article. I’m most interested in the current game companies but found the history interesting as well. We had some of the Waddingtons games in Canada when I was a youngster - I remember many a game of 4000 A.D. and Campaign. Great job! - Rick Posted by Rick Thornquist on Jan 6, 2006 at 02:17 PM | #
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Agreed. Great article. Its nice to hear about things happening across the pond. Posted by Ryan Bretsch on Jan 7, 2006 at 01:53 AM | #
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Well, I’m surprised Stuart hasn’t played anything from Surprised Stare Games...(http://www.surprisedstaregames.co.uk/)
Posted by David Brain on Jan 7, 2006 at 05:50 PM | #
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David, the reason for my putting the words “to those whose games I have played” was so that I could avoid saying anything about Tony Boydell’s two games. My attitude to small, low-profile companies is that if I can say something positive about their games, I’ll do so, but if I can’t, I’ll keep my opinions to myself. It is different with high-profile releases, since with those, Counter’s readers will already have heard about them and will be looking for verdicts. However, to pluck something out of obscurity merely to pillory it seems to me to be both self-indulgent and helpful to nobody. However, now that you have flushed me out, I suppose I’d better break my silence. I bought both Coppertwaddle and Bloody Legacy when they were first published. In both cases I read the rules and decided that these weren’t games I wished to play. Bloody Legacy is a silly knockabout—too silly for my taste. If I want to play this sort of game, I’ll play Family Business. Coppertwaddle is more substantial and, I suspect, a pretty decent game. Not outstanding, but not bad either. However, standing in the way of enjoying it is the cod-medieval language that pervades the rules, and which can’t be escaped, since it also appears on the cards. If you are learning a game, you shouldn’t have to remember that by “midden” they mean “discard pile”, by “proud” they mean “face-up” and lots more pseudery besides. Tony and his friends obviously enjoy this sort of thing: I find it extremely irritating and don’t wish to be responsible for seeing it inflicted it on others. I don’t know where the “Copper” comes from in the game’s title, but “twaddle” refers to the rules. The game they previewed at Essen got good ratings on the Fairplay list, but from too small a sample to be meaningful. Nonetheless, when it comes out, I’ll buy it in the hope of being third time lucky.
That said, I’m happy that you posted your comment with the pointer to the website. This way people can decide for themselves, and if they buy the game, it’s your fault, not mine!
Posted by Stuart Dagger on Jan 8, 2006 at 03:11 PM | #
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Stuart’s range of gaming may have overlooked a few other British companies:
Burley Games
Pacru games
And the largest of games companies in the UK _ Ganes Workshop.
They do not feature games that I would buy, but GW is listed on the London Stock Exchange and its range continues to grow. Sadly, this does not include broadening its primary age range, which excludes Stuart and me. I think the clue on GW is that the front page of their website has a tab on investor relations. Posted by Alan How on Jan 9, 2006 at 07:13 AM | #
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Thanks for the original article and the comments, which I’ve shamelessly plundered for the next version an FAQ list I maintain. (Actually I already had most of them, but not all.) But even so I have a number that haven’t been mentioned. The first I’ve actually never seen a game by, but someone provided the information, FD Games http://www.finnybank.com/FDsite/Gch.html The second is a surprising omission, Gen.Two.Four, the publishers of the outstanding Hive http://www.hivemania.com The third is Gibson Games. Based on what’s on their website http://www.gibsonsgames.co.uk they appear to be are a shadow of their former selves for serious games, but they still have enough to be worth a mention. The fourth I have is Kevingston Games, http://www.kgames.demon.co.uk - another I haven’t played, and don’t know if they are still active. The fifth and last I have on my list that hasn’t been mentioned is another I have no personal knowledge of - but they have a URL to be envied. http://www.boardgame.co.uk Any more? Posted by Christopher Dearlove on Jan 12, 2006 at 03:33 PM | #
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