One of the things I was most excited about working on was the relaunch of Lost Worlds, by game designer Al Leonardi. Al’s contributions are largely forgotten now, as the world has moved well past what he was able to do on paper. His company, Nova Games, came to prominence with an airplane dogfighting game called Ace of Aces, wherein two World War I biplanes dueled in the skies for supremacy. This was nothing new, except for the fact that the game was played with two picture books, each depicting the enemy airplane from different angles and elevations—first person shooter-style, before that was even a thing. You played the game by choosing a maneuver for yourself, turning to a page, and then telling the page number/maneuver to your opponent, who did the same thing for you, and then you flipped to the corresponding page and you could see what your opponent did. If his plane was pointed right at you, there were bullets flying.
It was novel, bordering on genius. They made a WWII version with warbirds, and a modern age version with jets. By choosing a different character sheet for your plane, you could be more agile or harder to maneuver, depending on your aircraft’s make and model. It was a combat flight simulator, years before you could feasibly do it with a computer.
Al’s follow up to this award-winning game was called Lost Worlds, and featured single man-to-man(ish) combat, which worked much in the same way. Actually, it was a lot easier to do, because your combat maneuvers weren’t as complicated as flying a Fokker DR III tri-plane, Enemy Ace. Each combatant was based on a Ral Partha figure of the same name and came with a coupon for ten cents off the purchase of that figure.
The line was not particularly extensive, but the replayability of the books was incredible. Fights took no more than ten to fifteen minutes and were fun and fast to do. Remember, there was no Fortnite at this time; watching the combat matrix play out in real time was almost like a magic trick. For what you got, a 32-page half-size (A5) booklet, they were a bit on the pricey side, but that’s because there was a full illustration on every single page. Lots of art to produce.
It’s fair to say that the game was a cult classic. Not everyone was into it, but if you were into it, you were evangelical about it. I say this because I was really into it and I was absolutely evangelical with it. Anyone I could show how to play was gonna get dueled by me. Unfortunately it was a little too niche for some people. As a result, despite winning the Origin Award for the game design, it wasn’t a big seller, and the art quality on the later books was very inconsistent and ultimately, the line was discontinued.
Cue Don Reents, the owner of Chessex, and his genetic inability to pass up on a bulk deal for leftover games. He bought the rest of Nova Games’ stock, including the Ace of Aces line and the Lost Worlds remainders. I don’t know if the new Lost Worlds books were part of the overall deal to buy all of the old stock out, or vice versa, but Chessex Manufacturing made hay by putting new sets of books and games together and selling them through Chessex Distribution. It was an easy fix and in the 90s we weren’t so far removed that we all didn’t remember when those games were a big deal.
Get Lost!
When I showed up in Berkeley after mine and Weldon’s harrowing cross-country trip in the 17-foot long U-Haul truck filled to the brim with 21-feet worth of stuff, the Lost Worlds relaunch was in progress: 12 new books with new art, and new game play features, aimed at the casual play crowd (we thought we could sell the books to kids who were waiting their turn in a Magic: the Gathering tournament). The art had been mostly done on the first four books, and they were in their final stages of development. The next four books in the series were in their infancy and the project had kinda stalled out (I later found out why this was so—see part 2). We also had a shitload of the old stuff that we had to do something with.
The easiest thing to do was finish assembling components and sell, sell, sell. If you were one of the folks who bought an Ace of Aces boxed set in the mid-to-late 1990s, then you know that they were labeled as “Deluxe” editions, which included more airplanes to duel with, campaign rules, and a bunch of other stuff they’d come up with in the time since the game first came out. We also gathered the Lost Worlds books up into a stack, shrink-wrapped the lot, and sold them that way. The four Battletech books were the first ones to get this treatment. They sold middling well, but were by no means hot ticket items. After all, it was dead stock and an unsupported game.
Did I mention there was a lot of it? Well, there was. So much so, in fact, that we didn’t quite know what we had. There was a bunch of random stuff in the boxes, like some of the Ninja gimmick cards, but we didn’t know which ones, or how many. Weldon decided to wander back to the warehouse and make a detailed and specific inventory of the stock, which meant dragging boxes out of stacks and off of the pallet, counting books, writing quantities down, and so forth. It was a hot and sweaty one-person job, and was both necessary and time consuming.
A Venomous Attack
This is where Gilbert comes in. It occurs to me that I don’t remember what Gilbert’s job was at Chessex Manufacturing. I honestly have no idea what he was doing there. However, I know what he wanted to be doing there: mine and Weldon’s jobs. You see, Gilbert was a gamer—old school, prototypical, close-your-eyes-and-picture-a-gamer-in-your-head-and-that’s-him Gamer. He was deeply immersed in the subculture. How immersed? Castle Falkenstein Live Action Role-Playing. That’s how immersed. As such, he was kinda hard to deal with sometimes.
Here’s an example: one day, Weldon and Patti were talking idly amongst themselves at their desks, which were perpendicular and situated on either side of a corner in the office. Patti mentioned that she was seriously contemplating a trip to Australia. Weldon mentioned something about 8 of the 10 world’s most poisonous snakes living in Australia, and Patti was all, “Oh, really? Wow, I didn’t know that.” Chit chat.
Gilbert was leaning over in his seat, craning his head to look at both Weldon, on his side of the wall, and Patti, sitting at her desk just around the corner, and he finally spoke up. He had a low, breathy, sibilant voice that would have earned him big money these days as an ASMR source. Back then, it was just wearisome. Plus, he had a way of over-emphasizing the “sh” sound so that it came out as “SSCHH,” hollow and reedy, not quite a whistle. It drove me crazy, every time he said “Sschadowrun.”
Gilbert finally caught Patti’s eye and said, “Uh, you know, Shadowrun has the most realistic treatment of poison rules of any role-playing game.”
They stared at Gilbert for a long second, silent, mouths agape, and then Weldon turned back to Patti and said, “So, when were you thinking about going?”
That was Gilbert, all day, every day.
Where was I? Oh yeah, in the warehouse, counting Lost Worlds books.
I knew where Weldon was. I’d heard of his intentions. He walked away with a clipboard and a pen and I thought nothing of it. I didn’t see Gilbert get up a few minutes later and follow Weldon out to the warehouse, but I did see him come back, stomping into our boss’s office, fuming, at the “venomous attack on my person.”
A few minutes go by and I can hear Gilbert having a meltdown in front of our boss.
Gilbert went back to his desk, and Weldon was summoned. I was starting to get the picture. The whole thing took about a half an hour to sort out, but here’s the bird’s eye overview.
Weldon was in the warehouse, hair tied back, sweating, moving boxes, labeling the ones that were mislabeled, moving stacks of books and games around, etc. In other words, he was working, and it was obvious to anyone who looked at him.
That’s when Gilbert came out and started trying to “help.” He started trying to explain to Weldon what system he’d used when this stuff first came into the warehouse. Since Weldon was re-organizing everything, it didn’t matter what system Gilbert had used—it was being dismantled. But whatever system Gilbert had drummed up, it wasn’t helpful or accurate, because those mislabled boxes were in Gilbert’s handwriting. That’s why Weldon was redoing it.
Weldon never stopped working, trying his best to dismiss Gilbert with guttural “uh huhs” and “yeahs” while he studiously avoided eye contact, but it was not working. Instead of getting the hint, Gilbert leaned in on one of the concrete support columns, fully intending to have a conversation with Weldon, come hell or high water. When Weldon realized that Gilbert wasn’t getting the hint, he looked up from his boxes and said, “Hey, Gilbert? I’m kinda busy here, so why don’t you go peddle your ducks somewhere else?”
The admonishment was calmly and quietly delivered, but it apparently cut deeper than a chainsaw into Gilbert’s psyche. He stormed out of the warehouse and tattled on Weldon, who was asked to provide context on what constituted a “venomous attack.” Weldon had no idea what our boss was talking about and it took a bit of instant replay for him to realize he was being dressed down for telling Gilbert to leave him alone so he could do his job.
After being told he can’t “venomously attack” Gilbert anymore, Weldon resumed his task with a shake of his head. Once he was done, he made a point of heading back into the office, leaning into the doorway of the break room, and saying, “Gilbert? Sorry about earlier.”
Gilbert hopped up and followed Weldon back to the warehouse, all sins apparently forgiven, to re-explain what he was trying to tell Weldon the first time, but it was too late; the job was done…but that was really just the beginning…
MORE LOST WORLDS in PART 2