With Purple Haze, Phalanx Games dares to tackle a topic that is underrepresented in the board game sector but is historically enormously relevant: the Vietnam War. The strategic board game with narrative elements is to be crowdfunded: the campaign will start on Gamefound on January 25th.
“The jungle that crushes you from all sides is eerily calm and still. Your men are moving slowly through the bushes, looking around nervously, ready to fire at every whisper in the grass. You know the enemy is there. You can't see him, you can't hear him, but he's there. A deafening gunshot pierces the silence and all hell breaks loose...” Phalanx Games' introduction already hints at what players can expect from Purple Haze: a gaming experience with a dense story.
Purple Haze: Command the Marines
Phalanx Games are experts when it comes to rewriting historical themes for board games. After titles like Hannibal, Germania Magna or U-Boot, this time it's about the Vietnam War, which raged in and around the Southeast Asian region from around 1955 to 1975. For the story of the board game, Phalanx chose 1967, the year in which a series of particularly heavy battles took place with the Battle of Dak To - the US Army's Operation Mac Arthur ultimately ended up being expensive for the Americans and the allied South Vietnamese bought victory. Losses were heavy.
In Purple Haze, players take command of a squad of US Marines to relive the campaign, which is divided into different missions. Decisions made should have consequences, the fight should be tactical. The soldiers are not just extras, but central characters who need to be further developed and specialised.
Phalanx Games describes Purple Haze as a mixture of tactical game and campaign game with decision options. The positive or negative consequences can bring players not only closer to their mission goals, but also further away from them. The US Marines also remain partly influenced: for example by wounds that they have to carry through the campaign. Each soldier will have their own background story and will be able to fill tactically different roles. The basic idea actually points to a hitherto rare war game - in several respects: the theme is rare and so is the concept with its mixture of tactics and story and not a genre standard.
On January 25th the Crowdfunding campaign for Purple Haze, with which Phalanx Games wants to finance the strategic war board game. With the start, you have 21 days to support the project.
The "Pottgamer" has published a video for Purple Haze in which he reveals more about the idea and the gaming experience:
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