Octopus's Garden

Issue Eighty-Two

25th August 2013

Current Issue

Back Issues

TAP

Other stuff

Last issue

Next issue

Search site

Sub-editorial

HELLO, good evening and welcome to Octopus's Garden, the subzeen with its very own farewell issue. It's a subzeen to Jim Burgess' The Abyssinian Prince, which is now a subzeen to Douglas Kent's Eternal Sunshine. Produced by Peter Sullivan peter@burdonvale.co.uk. It's also available on the web at http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/octopus/.

EIGHTY-TWO ISSUES? THAT"S NOT TOO MANY

In the summer of 1994, I folded my postal games zine, C'est Magnifique, after 142 issues. The games were re-housed (mainly to Will It Lead to Trouble?). However, I kept hold of the three international games to finish myself, and agreed with Jim Burgess that I would run these as a sub-zine to The Abbysinnian Prince. (I was clear that I wanted to run them in a sub-zine rather than by flyer, as it gave the games a visibility - and, if the worst came to the worst, re-housability - that running the games by player-only flyer wouldn't have.)

After the initial set of CMag games had finished, I decided that I was still keen to keep a foot, however, tentative, in the postal games hobby, and started a fresh Railway Rivals game. When that finished, I started two more. By the end of 2000, these were also finished, and I took a break for five years.

Octopus's Garden returned in 2005, as a series of occasional editorials in TAP about a number of subjects. After a few false starts, I started another game of Railway Rivals, albeit to a significantly slower pace than before.

For the moment, I'm going to take another short break from running games, whilst I think about what I want to do in the games hobby going forward, and the best ways of acheiving this. However, I'll still be active in Eternal Sunshine and elsewhere in the meantime. I might even, you know, I mean it's a possibility, wouldn't want to rule anything in or out here, actually kind of play in a game myself. Stranger things have happened.

A total of three re-housed games and four original ones have been run in the sub-zine during its eighty-odd issues:

THE GAMES

"Zapple" (RR Map London & South East):
Ran from CMag 126 (Apr 1993) to OG 4 (Mar 1995)
Won by David Hood, from Steve Thomas, W. Andrew York, Martyn Hathaway, Tom Smith.

"Elbridge Gerry" (RR Map India):
Ran from CMag 130 (July 1993) to OG 6 (July 1995)
Won by Conrad von Metzke, from Dave Erridge, Martyn Hathaway, Michael Quist, Eric Brosius.

"Richard M. Johnson" (Downfall XIII - Diplomacy Variant):
Ran from CMag 136 (Jan 1994) to OG 14 (Dec 1996)
Drawn Including All Survivors: Mike Gonslaves (Dwarves), Iain Bowen (Gandalf), Chris Q. Hardy (Gondor), Pete Gaughan (Rohan).
Drop-outs: Donald Scarr (Elves), Michael Quist (Mordor), Lance Anderson (Saruman), Keir Hodgson (Umbar).

"Millard Filmore" (RR Map France):
Ran from OG 19 (Nov 1997) to OG 32 (Dec 1998)
Won by Berry Renken, from John Colledge, W. Andrew York, Neil Hopkins, Conrad von Metzke.

"William Rufus de Vane King" (RR Map Tyne Tees):
Ran from OG 39 (July 1999) to OG 51 (Oct 2000)
Won by Conrad von Metzke, from Rip Gooch, Berry Renken, Richard Weiss.

"John C. Breckinridge" (RR Map Tennessee & Kentucky):
Ran from OG 40 (Aug 1999) to OG 52 (Nov 2000)
Won by Andrew Glynn, from Eric Brosius, Richard Weiss, Neil Hopkins, Mike Barno.

"Hannibal Hamlin" (RR Map France):
Ran from OG 68 (Nov 2010) to OG 80 (May 2013)
Won by Robin ap Cynan, from Brendan Whyte, William Whyte, W. Andrew York, Geoff Challinger.

That was Octopus's Garden #82, Startling Press production number 369.