Slitherine Strikes Stratego License Deal

[Philkian]

Since 1961 Stratego® has attracted millions of players across the globe and has introduced strategy gaming to generations of future, occasional and avid boardgamers. Many variations of Stratego’s classic gameplay have been brought to the market over the years, all of which retain the iconic elements that made Stratego so popular; including, deployment phase, capture the flag and hidden rankings.
Now Slitherine and Royal Jumbo have joined forces to develop and publish a brand new series of Stratego video games, with a modern and compelling design twist which will launch on all major platforms. The goal is to bring Stratego’s heritage to a brand new generation of gamers.

"This is a very important new collaboration for Slitherine", said JD McNeil, Chairman of the Slitherine Group. "We continually strive to reach new players with fresh and innovative titles, both old and new, to introduce them to this great hobby of strategy and wargames. Our genre is growing exponentially and as market leaders of this sector, we feel it is vitally important that we continue to improve and further expand our reach. The Stratego brand is a wonderful opportunity to do this and many players will welcome such a recognizable brand name, to persuade them to have a go".

The new series of Stratego games is already in development with The Lordz Games Studio (http://www.thelordzgamesstudio.com) and will release in 2015 on all major platforms, but no further detail regarding the scope, design and game features have as yet been announced.

"Generations grew up with Stratego as the classic game of battlefield strategy", said Arend Smit, CEO of Royal Jumbo. “We are excited to be working with the Slitherine Group which is clearly established and successful in its field of strategic war games. We believe that together we can create a totally new and unique digital game experience and bring Stratego to the next level.”

[stockwellpete]

This is fabulous news! I played an earlier version of Stratego called "L'Attaque" as a young lad in the 1960s and I also had another game called "Jungle King", which has an almost identical playing map to "L'Attaque". There was also some other titles in the "L'Attaque" series including "Dover Patrol".

Anyone else remember playing these earlier versions?

[stockwellpete]

I found this site today that is dedicated to Stratego. It has a section about the history of the game . . .

"Chinese predecessors
The origins of Stratego can be traced back to traditional Chinese board game Jungle also known as "Game of the Fighting Animals" (Dou Shou Qi) or "Animal Chess". The game Jungle also has pieces (but of animals rather than soldiers) with different ranks and pieces with higher rank capture the pieces with lower rank. The board, with two lakes in the middle, is also remarkably similar to that in Stratego. The major differences between the two games is that in Jungle, the pieces are not hidden from the opponent, and the initial setup is fixed."

http://www.ultrastratego.com/history.php

This is the Chinese map . . .



This is the "Jungle King" game I mentioned earlier and you can see the map and the animals are exactly the same as the Chinese version and bears some similarities to the "L'Attaque" version below too . . .



A couple of pictures of the 1957 version of "L'Attaque" that preceded "Stratego". This was the version I played with as a boy . . .





And finally, this is "Dover Patrol" . . .

[Brigz]

I still have my Stratego game with wood pieces and gold and silver images. I believe I got it for Christmas around 1961. I also got Milton Bradleys American Heritage Civil War game the same Christmas. Played the hell out of both of them. Those two games led directly to the Avalon Hill games and started me on a lifelong wargame hobby.

[hidde]

This is the "Jungle King" game I mentioned earlier and you can see the map and the animals are exactly the same as the Chinese version and bears some similarities to the "L'Attaque" version below too . . .

Holy crap, I've played that game! Would never have remembered it, hadn't you showed the pic
As a kid I wished for half a dozen games or so every Christmas and usually got two, maybe three. So I had heaps of them. Not that many left but I remember...Jungle King I had totally forgotten though!
Probably because I didn't own it. I think I must have come across it visiting relatives...
Anyhow, it was exactly like in the pic. Same board, same lion illustration and same pieces.

[IainMcNeil]

Cool - I want to play Jungle King!

Seriously thought this is an exciting project. We are not making Stratego, we are making a series of games that borrows strongly from their design ideas so we hope you'll like what we come up with! It is a lot of pressure & responsibility when working with a brand as established as this so we'll be doing our best to make everyone happy.

[stockwellpete]

Cool - I want to play Jungle King!

Any chance of a Jungle King expansion at some point then, Iain?

[stockwellpete]

Holy crap, I've played that game! Would never have remembered it, hadn't you showed the pic
As a kid I wished for half a dozen games or so every Christmas and usually got two, maybe three. So I had heaps of them. Not that many left but I remember...Jungle King I had totally forgotten though!
Probably because I didn't own it. I think I must have come across it visiting relatives...
Anyhow, it was exactly like in the pic. Same board, same lion illustration and same pieces.

I am getting all nostalgic now after this Stratego news. A couple more games from my childhood that helped turn me into a wargamer. Did you play these?

Battle of the Little Big Horn . . .



. . . and Combat. I played these two games to death when I got them!

[hidde]

No Pete, no wargames for me when I grew up
In Sweden at the time there were basically one company making all games, ALGA. Wargames wasn't heard of, except this one:


Typical games I had(and still have stored away somewhere):



The last one, "The Farming Game", is about manage a farm and have it prosper

[HackleStacker]

Loved Stratego growing up as a kid. I played it back in the 80's. Risk, Axis & Allies and, Shogun were my other favorites. My problem was always trying to find someone else who wanted to play lol.

[Old_Warrior]

Stratego - hours and hours of play all through the year. The Spy, the Miners, Marshall, it was a blast.

Wonder how much different the layout will look and what the topic will be. Maybe MPs taking potshots at each other in between sessions of Parliament?

[StrategoStrats]

Sorry to bump this post guys but I think it's awesome how Stratego is coming back. I remember back in the 90s when us "old guys" use to play Stratego instead of board games and we played on some of the boards in the pictures above. It's cool now that you can play online and play it in a video game like format. Just gotta get better with computers.

Did any of you guys ever play on the Gravon servers that they have up? There are some guys on there who are godly at Stratego.

[stockwellpete]

Just checking this old thread again. I now have "Jungle King" in my possession (in very good condition really) and I have tracked down a copy of "Combat" that is now on its way to me as well. Happy days!