giovedì 1 ottobre 2020

Introducing Warzone

Reading time: 1 minute.

It was just few days from the beginning of the lockdown here in Italy, when Paolo Ciarlo called me enthusiastically. When it happens, it's always to talk about new game ideas and Paolo never disappoints me with his streamline, effective and entertaining projects.

The box cover artwork, with the provisional tagline: "To be invented"

He quickly outlined some basic mechanics and my eyes were all sparkles and unicorns.
In less than a couple of days, Paolo had modified some Dark Ages maps and counters and we were testing on Vassal. The game was taking shapes under our eyes so smoothly and easily that in a couple of weeks it was ready. Rules were so lean and intuitive that both of us didn't take note with the exception of very few details (something we later discovered to be a very bad idea). 
Just a last detail: the name.
Somewhere I had casually sketched a WARZONE logo in a big bold font and that sounded cool.

From the left: Riccardo Vadalà, Carlo Amaddeo and Paolo Ciarlo at Play 2017
(Photo courtesy: Gioconomicon) 

Ok, but what the hell is Warzone?

Warzone is a tactical simulation on modern warfare at squad level. It's staged in recent hotspots as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia. 
The base game includes US Army, US Marines, British Army, Italian Army, Russian Army and Insurgents.
Mechanics are based on resource management for tactical actions and the WBS Games' world famous Alea Struggle Combat dice system that allows players to simulate combat without consulting any table.

If you want to learn more about Warzone and its developments, follow the Development Diary soon on this blog.