A Conversation with Game Designer Philippe Thibaut

[Boggit]

Philippe has been a busy lad and is planning to release 3-4 games over the next couple of months, with a further 3 SGS games by the end of the year.

As is usual with Philippe, he has found some varied and interesting themes, which characterise his work.

You can check out the websites for his different projects here (details below):

https://strategygamestudio.com/

https://invasionsgames.com/

https://www.fleetcommander-game.com/

SGS GAMES

Recently released is SGS Heia Safari, which Philippe tells me is fun and challenging. It is set in Africa during the First World War and covers the cat and mouse conflict between the German Empire, with such charismatic leaders as Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his askaris versus the varied forces of the Entente. There is a grand campaign covering the whole war, and shorter campaigns covering different years of the war.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1519050/SGS_Heia_Safari/

He is also working on a game based on the Taiping Rebellion. This was hugely bloody. IIRC, the battle of Nanking in 1863 saw around 250,000 casualties in 3 three days!!! It was fought around the time of Gettysburg, which saw around 53,000 casualties on both sides with for the time modern armies. The Chinese battle on the other hand was fought with largely melee weapons.... :o

Taipings is currently in beta, and some game features are absent so far, but it sounds like it will be worth following developments.

Philippe is very excited about his forthcoming SGS Pacific D-Day. This is 5 battles of the USMC in the Pacific War. It is due out on April 28th

OTHER GAMES

Philippe is also about to release two other games, totally different from SGS games in the coming weeks. They already have their own Steam pages (links below) and websites (see above).

Britannia replicates the famous boardgame, has been made in collaboration with the original author Lewis Pulsipher, and is due for release on April 8th.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268420/Britannia/

-----------

Fleet Commander: Pacific, is Philippe's computer adaptation (with a few changes) of Avalon Hill's classic Victory in the Pacific.

He had a successful (although small) Kickstarter on it last December, and he plans a release around the end of May. The game is now in the late Beta stage and playable.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1066680/Fleet_Commander_Pacific

PUBLISHER WEEKEND

Philippe reminded me that you can get his games at a great discount starting today till Monday, as there is a Publisher Sale weekend on Steam. All his games are there being between -50% and -60% OFF, as he and his team celebrate Avalon's 5 years in operation. That makes for a lot of good deals at less than $10 and he hopes many new players will take this opportunity to try things out. The goal is to attract more players to our titles. Attached an official artwork for it.

Anyway have a look and let Philippe know what you think, as the chances are he'll be looking in on this thread.

I hope you find the news interesting.

[JasonPratt]

Wow! -- progress is progressing!! 

The Heia Safari game especially interests me.

[Gusington]

Great stuff Boggit!

[Sir Slash]

 O0 :clap:

[Toonces]

Fleet Commander has my attention.  I just went to the page and saw there's a demo available.  How did I miss that little piece of info?

Downloading!

[Grim.Reaper]

I am not seeing any sale prices, maybe doesn't start until a certain time today?

[Sigwolf]

I am not seeing any sale prices, maybe doesn't start until a certain time today?

Active now.  Steam sales prices don't usually go into effect until 1PM Eastern/10AM Pacific time.

[Phantom]

This makes me so happy. There are so many excellent board games out there that would be great implemented on the PC.
I think because of the limitations of board games, to get an engaging & challenging game the gameplay has to be very well designed & implemented, making them better games overall.
This is different to the approach we often see in pure PC games of "lets put a great graphic front end on this spreadsheet" allowing the designer to load it with unnecessary & ultimately lazy complexity.

[Sigwolf]

I have no experience with SGS games, but I am considering picking one up this weekend during the sale.  I am thinking about Winter War or one of the Afrika Korps, leaning towards Winter War since it is an area pretty under-represented in wargaming.  Does anyone familiar with SGS have recommendations?

[FarAway Sooner]

This is very cool stuff.  The Fleet Commander: Pacific title looks very intriguing to me.