About the site
I've played board games since I was a young child, graduating from elementary ones like Risk to complex simulations of military conflict across the ages.
I also always have been a voracious reader. I was raised on historical stories of mighty deeds and derring-do, such as the Victorian-era G.A. Henty series - always tales about a young lad having adventures amid warfare in every imaginable corner of the world.
I liked writing from the start, and began my professional career as a journalist, first in newspapers and then television, and then moved into realm of big ideas about solving complex social and economic problems.
As I moved toward retirement, I began combining these interests. In addition to playing games, I started collecting them, initially just oldies and oddities from around the world that caught my eye. I built significant collections on favourite themes, notably journalism and politics. Over time, however, I came to focus on games about contemporary wars, ones that were published and played during or shortly after the wars they illustrated.
As my collection grew, the stories these games told started to knit together. Eventually I had enough that I decided to tell stories of wars through games of their time.
It started as a book manuscript, but by the time I felt it was done, it had reached over 130,000 words and 800 images: far too much for a viable commercial publication.
And so I began this project, taking my manuscript and images and game catalogue and organizing it into a website that could handle the volume of material I wanted to share.
Now here it is, a history of centuries of warfare as seen through games. You can browse the games and stories of periods that interest you, or follow the full arc of wartime games from the 17th Century Franco-Spanish War to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Along with the stories you will find a searchable library of my games, including images, descriptions, rules and publication data.
I have launched the site as a means of sharing my own passion about the history of war and of gaming, but I would love to hear from you: about games that should be included, or about family history that connects to the games and stories here. Please enjoy.
David Stewart-Patterson
Ottawa, Canada