As snow and ice and gas rationing close in on the American home, U.S. games manufacturers are looking forward to their biggest season in years. And that means big.* The old games still flourish. But the real news in games is War, for now the U.S. has lost its military inhibitions.
Air Combat. The war games are generally ingenious, attractive, and in some cases have wartime educational value. Spot-a-plane Game, approved by the U.S. Army & Navy Air Forces, and of obvious value to airplane spotters, is of the parchesi-type. Players progress around the board from "TakeOff" point to "Mission Accomplished" by identifying correctly the silhouettes of pages of the belligerent nations. Since there are 48 silhouettes provided (main omission: the Jap Zero), Spot-a-plane will seem to most adults more like hard work than fun, but air-minded boys like it.
A similar difficulty attaches to Air Combat Trainer, which has been approved by the National Aeronautic Association. On a large board, picturing a photographic aerial map, players place planes which maneuver into combat, one player operating a fighter force which tries to prevent the other's bombers from hitting objectives below: power plant, docks, reservoir, bridge, etc. The game's defect is its complexity, which results from impossible situations, e.g., the spinner will often indicate moves to be made which the player cannot sensibly make.
Best new children's game is Ranger Commandos, a parchesi-type in which little barges set out across open water, zigzag to landings, and move little wooden commando pieces inland to destroy such objectives as a tank factory, railroad yards, munitions plant, etc. Players return posthaste, unless captured, whenever any player lands on a spot marked with an enemy sentry. First one back with the most points of destruction wins.
Strategy. Most adult game buffs prefer the games in which they conceive a strategic plan and then execute it tactically. Of U.S. games of this type, Strategy, designed by Nathan Reinherz, the Irving Berlin of American game designers, and made by Corey Game Co. of Boston, is probably the most satisfactory fun. On an extravagantly colored board two players maneuver four "cannon" and 16 "soldiers," each trying to control and cross five bridges into his opponent's territory, and besiege the enemy capital. The particular pleasure of Strategy comes from the execution of feints by task forces, which draw off the opponent's power, leaving openings for thrusts by a suddenly unveiled major attack in another direction. Battle Checkers and Pacific Defense are post-Pearl Harbor games much advertised. The weakness of the first is that it is too simple and too brief; of the second that the rules are enormously complex and frustratingly detailed.
Battle Tactics. The best war games are foreign. In Tri-Tactics (which is available in limited quantities in the U.S.) the British have probably the best commercial war game. It combines naval, air and land forces in checker-like movements over a map, and was invented by a British games manufacturer, Harry A. Gibson, of H. P. Gibson & Sons, Ltd. in 1932.