First Look: Kevin Zucker Releases the Motherload on Napoleonic wargames, game design, and SPI

Aaron Danis, 23 June 2025

Napoleonic wargame designer Kevin Zucker has quietly released in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) and HTML format 38 copies of his Wargame Design Magazine on his Operational Studies Group website! A few months ago he released his newest edition (Vol 5, No 5), which had a great article on his time at Simulation Publications Incorporated (SPI) in it, and it caused a bit of a stir within the SPI fanboy community (of which I am one).

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The other day I dropped in on John Kranz’s Consimworld News Page, and there it was, in a banner announcement, that Kevin had dropped 37 more copies. They are mostly in PDF, but there are also links to other articles, such as his article titled “The Limits of Art” originally published in Fire & Movement Issue 10, Jan–Feb 1978, which describes how graphic design impacts a game (during this time he was of course working with lead SPI graphic designer the late Redmond Simonsen). Kevin clearly has a soft spot for Simonsen, and posts two articles in memory of him, one called “The Simonsen Way” and the other by the late John Prados, who Zucker also memorializes in a 3-part article here. For the true SPI fanboys, another cool thing I read was a short article on former SPI designer Linda Mosca, who Kevin states is the first professional female wargame designer (a contention I cannot dispute). There is much more to find on SPI and a useful search engine to help.

The main course is all the material on Napoleon, Napoleonic games, and game design. His second game for SPI was Napoleon’s Last Battles, which I still own (fun fact: according to his list of game designs, Kevin’s first SPI game, and only non-Napoleonic era game, is Bloody Ridge in the SPI Island War Quad). There is too much to summarize here, but I noted a 94-page PDF booklet The Game of Design: Design Tips and Hints, Explanations, Arguments and Gripes, which features articles by Zucker and a number of other authors culled from the magazine focusing on Napoleonic games.

I contacted Kevin and asked why he is releasing these magazines through his website. He replied “Please read a few of the recent issues. This will help you to understand the purpose of the magazine and why we want to get it into people’s hands at this time. Also please read the Blog item “How I became a Wargame Publisher,” as it explains my fascination and experience with magazine publishing. The magazine is an important line of communication with our audience.”

The website really is a trove of information, to include links to a 2-part YouTube interview with Kevin. Why are you reading this…get over there and see what Kevin is talking about!

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