To be very brief, it's a medium-heavy worker placement game with a novel theme: a race to develop WWII-era atomic weapons.

That's a good anecdote Joe, but maybe you have a reference? I don't think there was enough uranium available to achieve critical mass just by stacking it.

I have to say I love the scientists. If this is ever published by a big name publisher I hope they carve up some scientist meeples for it.

My favorite Manhattan Project anecdote was that the Uranium purification was done at a location separate from the the rocket staging. So as the Uranium was purified it was shipped to the other location where there were no atomic scientists. The grunts who received the shipments stacked cubes of uranium in a nice neat square. When one of the scientists (Oppenheimer, perhaps) saw the stack he nearly had a heart attack as the stack was close to critical mass. Oops. Is this in the game?

Are you referring to the Demon Core?

There were no rockets directly involved in 1945 with the Manhattan Project AFAIK.

... Not to say the game shouldn't have potential disasters built in for spice. Remember, even the scientists weren't sure they wouldn’t set the atmosphere on fire with the Trinity test.

I think this would be an interesting theme.

A lot goes into making the first bomb, not just the scientists at Los Alamos,

but the uranium mining and refining,

the research into explosives to compress the uranium,

the precision metal working to actually build it,

even the taking into account the dimensions of the B-29's bomb-bay.

Where you allocate your labor,

and the variety of specialized skills required would be interesting.

Are you going to include espionage?

Have a trade-off between a highly secure, but remote, site like Los Alamos vs. running the project in a major metropolitan area with far more resources, but much less security?

Great choice of theme. I don't think I'd have any problem putting together a group to playtest it over here. Haven't been using Zun Tzu before, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Oh, and I was involved in playtesting Asia Engulfed, if that is of any merit.

Best regards from Sweden,
Kristian G. Madsen

I'd be very interested in this, both as a game and a playtester.

If they were not there the Soviets would have taken several more years to develop their own bomb.

...The point is that the race to make the bomb really wasn't true.

Alright then, you're on "The List."

I see that you are a WWII buff and possibly a wargamer. Which is great... but I just thought I'd clarify that the game is not at all a wargame, and doesn't cover anything in the way of WWII history outside of the very tangential story of The Manhattan Project. Still, I completely expect that if the game ever receives a proper artistic treatment that it would have a WWII-era look and feel. It would only make sense.

......I'm here to solicit questions, comments and criticism in a prototype......
To be very brief, it's a medium-heavy worker placement game with a novel theme: a race to develop WWII-era atomic weapons. I've tied many game mechanics into information I've gleaned from accounts of the actual Manhattan Project.

Great and interesting theme. So the players represent different nations?

... is there any chance of the winning condition just being dropping the bomb (or being able to), surely thats the only real measure, its not how you get there, but the final action of getting there that matters with a theme like this isnt it?

You can tell I'm not a fan of victory point tracks in most games, they seem very arbitrary and clunky way of scoring a game, especially when like in this case there is a clear satisfying victory action you could reach

Great idea, hope it gets made.

I would like to play test this game

I do hope that the game is historically accurate

Good luck and I look forward to seeing it!