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Today’s game is Cityfight (1979) from SPI. It’s a rare confluence of my punk and gaming worlds. This is due to the co-designer of Cityfight, Stephen Donaldson, better known in the NYC punk scene as Donny the Punk. I first met Donny in the 80s. #CuratedQuarantine
He was, to say the least, a character. He had been a 60s radical, a founder of Columbia University’s first gay rights organization, a Navy radioman, a Quaker, a sex worker, a bisexual activist, a writer, and a repeat victim of the prison system. #CuratedQuarantine
In 1973, he was arrested outside the White House at a Quaker pray-in. A prison captain set him up and Donny was gang raped for two days. He got the nickname Donny the Punk in prison before getting involved in the subculture. #CuratedQuarantine
He was later the president of an activist group called Stop Prison Rape, as well as a writer and organizer in the punk scene. #CuratedQuarantine
I ran into Donny one day at ABC No Rio, the nonprofit punk club/arts space I was part of in NYC in the early 90s, & he asked me what I was up to. This was in my early days of freelancing and explaining roleplaying games to my punk friends was often a challenge. #CuratedQuarantine
But Donny lit up and said, "Oh, gaming! I used to design wargames for SPI." He then proceeded to tell me how he had done a game in which many of the leaders were named after people from punk bands. No one at SPI, he said, had a clue. #CuratedQuarantine
I wish I had gotten more stories out of him about his time at SPI, but that’s the only time it came up. I left NYC in 1996 and AIDS killed him that same year. #CuratedQuarantine
It was many years later that I figured out what game he was talking about and tracked down a copy. That’s Cityfight and what he said is 100% true. #CuratedQuarantine
All 4 members of The Clash have leaders named after them, as do members of The Stranglers, The Jam, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Sham 69, Dead Boys, and the Sex Pistols. Plus nods to Queen of the LA scene Gerber and Punk Magazine co-founder John Holmstrom. #CuratedQuarantine
To see all this in a serious 70s wargame is hilarious. So what about the game itself? It’s a simulation of urban combat post World War 2 and it does some interesting things. #CuratedQuarantine
For starters, it’s a double-blind game. Each player has an identical map and can only see their own forces. A huge part of the game is searching for and spotting the enemy, but even then you have nothing like the omniscience of your typical wargame. #CuratedQuarantine
Who did you just see? Did you eliminate them when you fired? Are they even suppressed? It’s a lot of uncertainty, and that does make it feel like fighting in a built-up area. The scenarios take place all over: Cyprus, Hungary, Bangladesh, Vietnam, China, etc. #CuratedQuarantine
The more generic scenarios are theoretical encounters between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Germany. There’s also a scenario called London Burning (named after The Clash song) with rioting punks fighting the police! #CuratedQuarantine
Unfortunately, this is all done on the same map, which is based on a German town Donny lived in when he was a boy. The game ends with an article in which Donny provides an academic analysis of the experience and doctrine of city fighting since WW2. #CuratedQuarantine
Not the sort of thing I’d have expected from Donny the Punk at all! If you go to his Wikipedia page—which doesn’t even mention his wargame career—you’ll see he was quite a complex character. #CuratedQuarantine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Donaldson_(activist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Donaldson_(activist)
