Mad Max in Your Pocket | Car Wars History
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- Car Wars was released by Steve Jackson Games in 1981 and brought the thrill of movies like Mad Max and Death Race 2000 to the gaming table in the form of a Micro-game - a complete multiplayer game experience sold in a small polythene bag.
This is my micro-history of this legendary game, featuring new interview footage with Steve Jackson and a high speed race through the origins of Micro-games and the origins of Car Wars first edition.
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References, Sources, and Links:
[Car Wars - Classic Rules]
www.sjgames.co...
[SJ Games]
www.sjgames.com/
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If I'd spent the time I used on designing cars during high school classes on the actual class I'd be a doctor now. Teachers would give me detention where I'd go and sit around designing more cars. Such a great game
Not mentioning "Gaslands" here is almost criminal.
Played this back in the late 80s and was blown away at what a huge game existed in such a small easy to carry package. Recently I picked up Car Wars Classic and the years came flooding back. Even brought by brother a set so we could game long distance. Great vid. Great game that holds its own in the modern era.
Any chance of you covering Battletech ?
"Why Johnny Can't Speed" was published in 1971 then republished in "With Friends Like These" in 1977, Mad Max was released in '79, Car Wars a year later. Yes I'm being pedantic but back in the day, we were hungry for this game. :)
Thanks for this. I remember finishing my milk round and popping into Supatoys and buying this. It provided so much entertainment for a small price. I was then introduced to a new friend who had the deluxe boxset, which blew my mind. He then acquired Tank Wars and Air Wars and the Uncle Alberts catalogues (who remembers the existential blue crayon launcher). We built our own 3d polystyrene arenas. We never grew tired of building cars and huge 18 wheelers brimming with guns.
I liked the cars & motorcycles, and even the 18-wheelers.
But once they started adding helicopters, and boats, and airplanes, and tanks...
They kind of jumped the shark. That's when we started calling it Carfleet Battles.
I'd like to see something on Tunnels and Trolls, or Dragon Warriors 😊
I didn't get into this version, but I was lucky enough to pick up the car wars and duel track boxed sets from a good friend when I was kid!
MOAR! I love Car Wars; been playing since the 80s!
The original Car Wars was a great game. We played that and The Fantasy Trip (Melee, Wizard, ITL) Steve Jackson is an awesome designer. By comparison, "that other FRPG" that was quite popular at the time looked like what would happen if a lawyer and a historian got drunk and tried to write a computer manual. The TFT books were cheaper, too, which is why we bought them in the first place. Since at the time my games and SF novels were purchased with an allowance of $1/week. Then I went to college and me and some new friends spent hours and hours playing Illuminati, which is easily the funniest game ever.
Ogre was my gateway. This was the game that got me into the shops. Blood Bowl introduced me to Games Workshop.
Love Car Wars to this day. And Crimson Skies was, and always will be my favorite game of all time!
Oh I played Crimson Skies on Xbox, loved it. Didn't realise it was a board game too!
I bought the original zip-lock bag version for the whopping price of £2.50 in 1981 (a significant increase on previous SJG zip-lock titles if you were gaming on a 13 year old's pocket money). I'd only seen the trailer to Death Race 2000 at the cinema (it was still cert. X at the time) - but that's why I was excitedly waiting for its release and picked it up at the earliest opportunity. It didn't disappoint and we played the hell out of it for the next 8 or 9 years.
Steve Jackson Games has a long and storied history. That's a rather dramatic understatement Jordan, considering they were raided by the US Secret Service (the guys who protect the President) in 1990.
Great Video!
I've still got the commemorative T-shirt they put out back then. It even almost still fits. 😸
Uncountable games of car wars, later truck stop(with its unfathambly stupid sixth wheel, which we ignored) and a town based single person shoot em up, that i owned,, but was far too fiddly.
G.E.V, which was based on the ogre concept, but featured opposing armies(rather than one ogre vs one army) was a masterclass in good game design.
Your video was far to short to do these systems anywhere near the justice they deserve.
One game I was long passionate about is Shadowrun. Watching this video, however, it occurs to me that I know very little about its real-world development beyond a few obvious points of inspiration. It was developed by the same people who did Crimson Skies and would be a great candidate for this kind of attention.
Another great watch 🙂
Cheers Stu!
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Alan Dean Foster not only did the Alien film adaptations, he did the novelizations for probably 90% of the science fiction movies of the 70s, 80s and 90s. 😂
OGRE next please!!
I'm off to see Furiosa tonight and my hype levels are at critical mass. Now you drop this and my heart rate goes higher still. Lovely job!
Your channel is rapidly becoming one of my favorites! This video is excellent and I dearly hope you continue to make videos along this vein.
Thx! Had CW from first ed, Sunday drivers, Deluxe and the racing edition. Also Battle Cars. Great games!!
Please, yes. Do more of these. Love this kind of video.
It often takes me time to get around to the longer form videos you do so some short ones like this are great
I never realized there were two Steve Jacksons!!! Mind blown 😂
Love Crimson Skies, original Fasa game AND the Heroclix version....
And I loved Car Wars. I remember one homebrew scenario where a gang of road warriors hand attacked an old people's retirement village. The village was defended by mobility scooters with dogs mounted on them. Whenever they fired a missile the recoil shot the scooter back a square or more. Fun times
ah good ol' Carwars, best served with Cyberpunk 2020... Homebrew rules of course fit perfectly for car combat! Still got mine too.
Excellent video as usual, Jordan. Thank you. Do you fancy detailing Fantasy Warlord by Ian Bailey & Gary Chalk? I remember picking this up in the early 90s as an alternative to WFB and being stunned at how different it was :-)
I love how intrinsically linked with Games Workshop Steve Jackson is, even now GW stock 40k versions of Munchkins in Warhammer stores. Brilliant game designer
Those Micro Games 1-8? I still have all of those.
I've got a 20-lb box of just Car Wars stuff.
If you want to stay in the Steve Jackson area, maybe you could do a video on Ogre/GEV? Also started as a Micro Game.
I have played the Car Wars RPG, but never the board game.
It sounds like the movement system isn't too disimilar to Gaslands
I'd love to see more of this kind of video! And it was awesome to hear from the Steve Jackson from my side of the Atlantic. Car Wars was a superfun game, and I absolutely loved the pocket box format games from SJG. Necromancer, Ogre, Awful Green Things...so many great titles from when I was finally discovering gaming outside of the TSR sphere.
I played the Swedish translated version of Battle Cars called Combat Cars. I remember bringing it along on family camping holidays down to Italy and making up new rules and maps with my brother. The Swedish version was called Combat Cars and was published by the then swedish RPG and game behemoth Äventyrsspel. I see on boardgame geek there's even some swedish names I recognise being listed as artists on the English version Battlecars. Can't verify if that's correct.
This game, and Battletech, were our high school lunchtime games. Would get in trouble for designing cars, when I should be doing schoolwork... but lunch is next period, gotta finish this design. Loved the little black box it came in too, would easily fit in the backpack with the schoolwork.
Would Like to see you make a video on Magic Realm. It's such an innovative game.
Ah the nostalgia for me is palpable played this but loved battle cars & ogre, GeV, more please
Car Wars is amazing and the newest version is great too
I realise that I am probably in the minority here but I do find the smaller (than GW) games and stories much more interesting. This may simply be because I'm 43 and started playing with GW in the late 80s so I'm already sum what aware of the GW story just minus a few details but the other players were largely hidden from my childhood as my local game shop was a GW store.
I'd be interested in hearing a history of Ogre, that was a fun game
Would love an updated hardback Car Wars Compendium (I have 6th edition rules, companion and vehicle guide) - something similar to the Ogre Minatures 2nd ed HB. I had a first edition version in the that has seen better days.
Has the interview with Steve Jackson been published yet?
Vrrrrrooooom! Beep Beep!
Love this
Loved this game
😎👍
I love Crimson Skies!!!!!