H.G. Wells, yes, the famous science fiction author, was apparently also a game designer.
Covered on Hide & Seek, one of Wells’ books details how he designed a game called “Little Wars” using toy soldiers.
A quote from Wells himself:
We arranged to move in alternate moves: first one moved all his force and then the other; an infantry-man could move one foot at each move, a cavalry-man two, a gun two, and it might fire six shots; and if a man was moved up to touch another man, then we tossed up and decided which man was dead. So we made a game, which was not a good game, but which was very amusing once or twice.
Occasionally men came into contact, with remarkable results. Rash is the man who trusts his life to the spin of a coin. One impossible paladin slew in succession nine men and turned defeat to victory, to the extreme exasperation of the strategist who had led those victims to their doom. This inordinate factor of chance eliminated play; the individual freedom of guns turned battles into scandals of crouching concealment; there was too much cover afforded by the books and vast intervals of waiting while the players took aim. And yet there was something about it…. It was a game crying aloud for improvement.
Even in the early 1900′s, it was clear that playtesting was the key to great designs!
Read the full article here.
