Jason Matthews - Campaign Manager 2008

Campaign Manager 2008 will be the next game from Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard. There isn't much information about this game yet, but we manage to bribe someone who could give us some news about it. We have made some questions to Jason about this new game and his next releases.


SP - On our last talk you told us that Obama Vs McCain 2008 could be real. Do you have any news about it?
JM - Christian and I have finalized our discussions with Zev. Z-MAN Games will publish Campaign Manager 2008. The target date for publication is Essen 2009. So we are very excited.

SP - Campaign Manager 2008 is a political game. How do you compare it with 1960?
JM - It has very little in common with 1960. That game is really contextualized in that particular election. Campaign Manager is not. In fact, we are trying to change the entire perspective of the game. Whereas in 1960 you play Nixon or Kennedy, in Campaign Manager you play the staffer – the guy responsible for the strategy for winning.
Mechanically, Campaign Manager is a much faster game. It plays in 25 – 45 minutes tops. There are also some clever innovations – like a deck building component that I think gamers are really going to like. Also, bowing to contemporary electoral reality, this game concentrates on battleground states. The rest of America is not in play.

SP - Is it an alone development or you worked also with Christian on this one?
JM - Oh no. I need Christian to do all the work.

SP - Being a shorter game. Will it have the same strategic level or it will be lighter/easier?
JM - There is some real depth of strategy. But the neat thing about the game is that mechanically you can play with someone without a lot of gaming experience. However, they will probably not see the same nuances in deck building and card use that an experienced player would. So while both players can play the game together, experience will be highly rewarded.

SP - You said that it will have some deck building mechanic? Is it like Dominion? Can you give us more details?
JM - No, its not like Dominion – though that is an amazingly clever design. Its real deck building, but your choices are tight. You build a deck of 15 cards – you will recycle these same 15 cards several times in the game. So, you really need to get that mix right. You do not have any room for cards that do not mesh with your strategy. You build this deck at the start of the game by drawing 3 cards. You keep 1 and discard the other 2. Repeat this step 15 times and voilà, you have your campaign strategy deck.

SP - Could we expect some expansions of this game? Since we have the 2008 on the title.
JM - If the game works as well as we hope it will, you are certain to see application of it to other elections, perhaps with some new tweaks to reflect the varying nature of democratic politics.

SP - Just to finalize, a small description of the game (something like you could find on the publisher's site):
In Campaign Manager 2008, players take on the roles of the campaign managers guiding Barack Obama and John McCain in their efforts to win the presidency. Both candidates enter the race with certain states already solidly behind them, allowing the players to focus their attentions solely on those states which are still in contention as they strive to gather the remaining electoral votes they need to propel their candidate into the White House. At the start of the campaign, each player will consider a variety of different tactics and strategies available to them, crafting a personal campaign plan by selecting a unique combination of techniques they believe will best serve their purposes. In doing so, however, they can never be quite sure what their opposite number might have up their sleeve…

Now going to other games.


SP - Twilight Struggle - In the new print will we have a mounted board? And can you expect for some new cards? Since you asked for some ideas on BGG.
JM - The Deluxe Edition of Twilight Struggle is also slated for an Essen release. It will have a hard mounted map with new graphics, Euro quality components, and a series of optional cards. We have also incorporated the late war scenario designed by Volko Ruhnke into the rule book as well as the Chinese Civil War variant.

SP - Founding Fathers - Was delayed one year. Do you found any problems with the game?
JM - No, no problems with the design. Jim Dietz, the owner of Jolly Roger games has a very smart philosophy about game publication. He will not undertake publishing a game until he has all of the money in hand to see it through. That way, everyone gets paid, and his company keeps going no matter what happens to an individual game. For a small publisher, this seems like the right approach. So, Jim is holding off until he has all the resources needed to publish. Christian and I have been using the time constructively to continue testing and making little tweaks to the system.

He has put Founding Fathers up for preorder on his website: http://www.jollyrogergames.net/