A Thread Runs Through It

I create stuff. Been doing it for 26 years. Actually, that isn’t right. I wrote my first short story 43 years ago, yet somehow I haven’t aged past 14. Don’t see any point in it. Old folks seem to waste too much time complaining. That, however, is a blog for another time. 

Forty-three years equates to a lot of words written, scenarios penned, variations created, games designed, and stuff published. And I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Well, not every minute. I don’t like proofing counters (Game chits to the non-geek among you.). Anyway, with such a breadth of work, it surprises me that I have so many common threads running through it all.

On the gaming side of my life, I love immersive games. Some folks are competitive gamers. Their thrill of gaming is derived from their skill and ability. That’s cool, but that’s not me. I like winning as much as the next guy, but more than that, I want the game to immerse me, pull me in, and tell me a story.  So for the most part, I design games about small groups of desperate men, women, and heavily-armored vehicles with big guns caught in tense struggles. Tactical games, we call them in the gaming community.

I look stable, right?

And chaos. I believe these games are more fun when chaotic. Of course it needs to be a manageable chaos. The gamer who plays with the most skill should win more times than not, but I want to keep the ride crazy. It’s why I created events in Lock ‘n Load, chit pulling in White Star Rising, card-playing in Night of Man and ’65, and card assist in Platoon Commander. Chaos is one of many things that attracted me to Shayne Logan’s Old School Tactical, which my company, Flying Pig Games, publishes and currently has a Kickstarter campaign running (funded in 30 hours too!). Gratuitous self-promotion aside, Old School Tactical's randomly-determined Impulse Points system keeps the opponents on the edge of their seats. Will the German be able to activate that Tiger? Will I have enough Impulse Points to fire, move, and then assault? That’s immersion and chaos.

And uncertainty. I guess that is chaos’s wife, or maybe respectable first cousin or maybe both, depends on the state you live in. Love uncertainty. Remember smoky bars, 24, and flirting with a beautiful young woman twenty minutes before last call? Half the fun was not knowing. Am I right? That’s uncertainty working, and I want it in my games. For sure we all felt it when pulling formation markers in World at War, and it is the essence of the card-driven combat in Night of Man and ’65.

So that’s the thread I’ve been tugging the last four decades; immersion, chaos, and uncertainty. If a game has them, there’s a good chance I’ll like it, and if a game has my name on it, there’s a good chance it’ll have that trinity inside. 



Mark H. Walker served 23 years in the United States Navy, most of them as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal diver. He is the owner of Flying Pig Games as well as Tiny Battle Publishing the designer of the aliens-invade-Earth game Night of Man, the Communists invade South Vietnam game, '65, publisher of Old School Tactical, and the author of Desert Moon, an exciting mecha, military science fiction novel with a twist, with plenty of damn science fiction in it despite what any reviewer says, as well as World at War-Dark War: Revelation, a creepy, military action, with a love story, alternate history, World War Three novel thing, Everyone Dies in the End, and numerous short stories. All the books and stories are available from Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing right here. Give them a try. I mean, what the hell? Dark War: Retribution will release as soon as Mark figures out how/when to run a Kickstarter for it.