The overall feel should be one of managing a region in constant crisis, preventing the pot from bubbling over so to speak. The first 'era' is 1945-60, for example, and there are specific events which will occur during that period, for example the creation of the state of Israel and the nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Egypt. Time is measured by an events deck - there are generic events and also period specific events. I've not decided whether North Africa should be part of the equation. This is not just a game about Israel and the Arabs, however, as Iran, Iraq and possibly even Afghanistan are in scope. On one level it is a coop game, as it is in the interests of all players to keep war from happening, on another level, players also score points for exercising political control. The objective is to stop war from breaking out, and if it does, resolve it as quickly as possible. Britain, France, the US, Russia - or whether to keep this all fairly generic. I'm undecided as to whether they have additional special characteristics - e.g. Middle East PeaceĪ simulation of efforts to broker and maintain peace in the Middle East, from 1945 through to 2005. Below are just a quick summary of the basic game concepts of each. I hope to be able to report on progress with the design of these in future posts. Some are more recent concepts, while some have been percolating for quite a while. Believe it or not I'm actually working on some ideas for games of my own.