GAMES & PUZZLES
Rene and I arrived in the UK in 1971 with a small child and virtually no money.
I was virtually unemployable with no specific professional training.
So how could we survive?
With only a lifelong consuming interest in indoor games and absolutely no knowledge of publishing a magazine, I saw what I felt was a gap in the market. A need for the first-ever consumer magazine on indoor games.
“Games & Puzzles” was a most appropriate name.
I funded the magazine by getting 90 days’ credit from the Printers, George Pullman & Sons, Bletchley, on the security of the Advertising revenue, and getting paid monthly by the distributors, Punch Publications, London.
Funds were also generated by selling subscriptions (1-year, 3-year, and 5-year). Extra revenue came from sale of binders. And, of course, revenue from advertising in the magazine. We negotiated a 2 month rent-free period.
We rented an office behind Reed Employment agency for GBP6.25 per week. Visitors might have been impressed by the battery of attractive Reed agents, which they might have mistaken for Games & Puzzles staff. This impression would have been dispelled the instant they entered G&P through Reed’s back door.
The Games & Puzzles “head office” comprised a single sparsely furnished room. A rickety table in the centre was surrounded by stocks of excess magazines. At the table sat an elderly typist with an ancient typewriter and the entire executive staff (me). A very badly fitting maroon carpet was inadequately stretched across the cement floor.
The office looked out onto a vacant WW11 bomb site, which on closer inspection would have revealed 2 colonies of wild cats. The windows had to be kept closed to prevent access and fighting. If the cats did get into the office, they lefy a ghastly smelling spray which persisted for days.
To recruit writers, I canvassed a couple of social clubs and contacted a few people known for their interest and expertise in indoor games.
These included:
Eric Solomon, a computer genius and ex-England croquet player.
Gyles Brandreth, a writer and convivial raconteur. Founder of the National Scrabble Competition.
David Pritchard, a UK chess champion.
Tony Buzan, head of MENSA
Darryl Frances, who assisted Chambers Dictionary in determining which words should be included.
David Wells, puzzles expert. Expert Go and Chess player.
David Parlett, a games inventor and writer.
Richard Sharp, a bridge expert and a Diplomacy enthusiast.
Francis Roads, President of the British Go Association.
John Tunstill author and owner of the first specialist table-top wargame shop.
Leonard Barden, former British Chess Champion.
David Vine, crossword compiler, bibliophile and games organiser at the London University
Don Turnbull. Miniature Wargames expert. Publisher of fanzine, Albion.
Alan Richter. Scrabble Champion.
Nicky Palmer, Wargamer.
Lew Pulsipher. Inventor of Diplomacy.
R C Bell, games histiorian
The Editorial Staff :
Publisher/Founder: Graeme Levin
Editors: Graeme Levin, David Pritchard (for most issues), Albie Fiore, David Parlett.
Art Director: John Ebury, Brian Mountain.
Consulting Editors: Gyles Brandreth, Tony Buzan, David Vine, Leonard Barden, Alex Bell, R C Bell, Don Putnam, Sid Sackson, Richard Sharp, Darryl Francis, Eric Solomon, Roger Myers, Trevor Truran
Puzzles Editors: Darryl Frances, David Wells,
Competitions & Crosswords Editors: Don Putnam, David Wells, Roger Myers,
Chess Editor: W H Cozens
Features Editor: Mary McNeil, Richard Sharp,
Art Department: Linda Bourne, Polly Wilson.
Advertising Manager: George Goody.
With youthful optimism and self-confidence, I threw myself into the project.
I was Editor for the first issue. Thereafter, Gyles Brandreth edited a few issues, and then David Pritchard was editor until the end, broken only by a trial spell by Albe Fiore, a games enthusiast but whose literary skills were lacking. I didn’t buy his protestations that his English “teacher” said that any grammatical construction was in order. Not on my magazine, I told Albie.
There was an incredibly high spirit and great pride in being a team member.
Violet Murphy joined me for a short-term two-week typing assignment. She stayed for nine years until we sold Games & Puzzles. Everyone, including me, was addressed by first name. Except Mrs Murphy. I dictated notes on cassettes for Mrs Murphy to type. If I thought of an idea in the middle of the night I buried myself under the blankets to muffle the sound.
Albie Fiore was enthusiastic about all he did. To inject some youthful thinking, he was tried as the editor, with David Pritchard as the Managing Editor. Albie turned out to be nowhere near as solid and stable as David. His teacher had taught him some modern theory that grammar didn’t matter. I reminded him G&P was an English magazine and David Pritchard was soon returned to the editorial post.
I commissioned David Wells to produce a range of thematic puzzle books. We were both very poor at the time. We agreed with the publisher on a price of GBP10 per puzzle. The publisher agreed to pay me GBP50 per puzzle. I didn’t share this windfall with David. He was very upset. To this day, 50 years later, I still regret my blinkered lack of generosity.
Daryl Frances advised Chambers Dictionary on which words to include in order to qualify as the official Scrabble dictionary.
We ran two Scrabble competitions. One to set up a game with the highest score for a single word, and the other to set up a game with the highest total score. Both produced incredibly high scores, which were published in the Guinness Book of Records for many years.
A number of contributors invented games, most of which I licensed through my Strategy Games Limited agency. I only took on games with original mechanics.
David Parlett invented Hare & Tortoise, which I licensed to Ravensburger in Germany and Itellect Games in the UK.
My best friend, Arnie Witkin and I developed a couple of my ideas. I dabbled on the Stock Market. This led to a fairly realistic stock market game called Speculate, manufactured by Waddingtons. We also developed a card cricket game, which we marketed through G&P. The rules were published in G&P#4. I have 4 copies left. Production costs were high and sales low. But it was great fun.
Eric Solomon was a prolific games inventor. Most notable were Black Box (I licensed to Waddingtons, Parker Games and Alga), Thoughtwave (Intellect and Parker Germany), and Entropy (by Skirrid). He invented the masterful spy game, Sigma File. I licensed that to Tom Kremer of Seven Towns/Condor. He did some rudimentary artwork, nice packaging, and ran some testing sessions. Despite there being no contract, he claimed his work entitled him to 50% ownership and effectively blocked me from licensing the game to Milton Bradley. This was one of the very few nasty incidents in my involvement in the games industry. Eric also invented Balloon Game and Alaska, both of which I licensed to Ravensburger. Another game I licensed for Eric was Spellmaker (Heritage, USA)
David Parlett invented Hare & Tortoise, which I licensed to Ravensburger and Intellect Games (UK).
Dave Dyer invented Sopwith an aerial dogfight game (Licensed to Heritage)
Graeme Levin invented Confrontation a missile based wargame (Philmar). The G&P testing panel helped refine the game.
The first issues sold for 20p. Embarrassingly, this first issue, published in May 1972, had a monochrome flimsy cover and was 28 pages thick, including the cover. Improvements were rapidly adopted, but not before orders from the retailers dropped significantly.
The final issue was in 1980. It had 52 pages and a glossy, firm, full-colour cover. It was priced at 50p.
The content was wide-ranging. The magazine was excellently edited, and the articles were most authoritative. The puzzles and crosswords were of the highest quality.
The games testing panel met every Thursday at 6pm. Over the years, numerous people participated on the panel. John Humphreys was most helpful in organising. One panel member would write the review, and the ratings were published with the review in G&P.
Games & Puzzles was printed by George Pullman and Sons, Bletchley and distributed by Punch Publications, London. This combination remained throughout the magazine’s entire life. Ray Tookey, the Punch circulation manager, was especially helpful.
I hired a small production house, Print & Marketing Services, to handle typesetting and production coordination. In those days, material was set in hot metal. This made amendments challenging. We received only one bromide as a proof. All changes had to be made using that bromide in only one go. Desktop publishing became available only towards the end of Games & Puzzles’ life. Over the years, I worked with numerous production companies.
I creatively financed the project by:
- Getting 90 days credit from the printers on security of the advertising revenue.
- Getting paid monthly by the distributors.
- Selling subscriptions for one year, three years and even 5 years.
- Selling advertising. I decided that all ads should be game-related to maintain the games image.
- Selling binders
- Writers, rent and incidental expenses were paid from advertising revenue and subscriptions.
- Negotiating a low rental with 2 months rent-free.
Our office was furnished with a large rickety table, a few inexpensive chairs and a poorly fitting carpet. We were next to a vacant bomb site, home to warring wild cats who occasionally found their way into our premises and left a terrible stink.
The only staff member was Mrs Murphy. She joined us as a typist for 2 weeks and stayed for 9 years. She was the only staff member we always addressed by her last name. Those were the days we still used typists.
In order to remain in the UK, I had to prove that I was able to make a living. Every 3 months for the first year, and every 6 months thereafter, I would go to the Home Office with the latest version. I would show them subscriptions and revenue were increasing. They never asked about costs. Each time I was granted a further 3 or 6 months permission to remain in the UK. After 3 or 4 years I was given permission to remain indefinitely.
No issue ever made a profit. But I made money from mail order games sales through the magazine. Tim Roberts oversaw this mail-order operation. Our slogan was “Top Names in Games, for Sale by Mail”.
Here is an article written by David Parlett about Games & Puzzles
https://www.parlettgames.uk/gamester/gamespuz.html
Towards the end of the 1970s I had opened a number of games shops and decided it was time to close the magazine. I sold it for a low price to a games enthusiast. After a couple of new owners the publication ceased. It was revived a decade later but lacked the excitement and vibrancy of my original product.