Surprised Stare Games
About
We design and publish surprisingly good card games, boardgames, and wargames!
We are launching our new Cousins' War Solo Expansion at this year's Expo!
Our Games
We design and publish card games, boardgames, and wargames primarily for the hobby games market. Most of our games are in English, but we usually partner with overseas companies to offer them in other languages too. Designers of our games include: Alan Paull, Tony Boydell, David J Mortimer, Sebastian Bleasdale, David Brain, Matthew Dunstan, Peter Connew and Peer Sylvester.
Pocket Campaigns Series
Pocket Campaigns is a series of small box games with war or conflict themes. All the games in the series have relatively few components, typically cards, wooden pieces, perhaps a board, and a rulebook. The games are designed to take about 30-45 minutes to play. They are within the hobby games market, not family games, and they have significant depth of strategy and/or tactics for such a small package.
Games currently on sale
NEW! Cousins' War Solo Expansion
The first expansion for our popular Cousins' War Pocket Campaigns game is newly launched at the Expo.
Cousins' War
Pocket Campaigns #1. Designer: David J Mortimer. Players: 2. Duration: 30 minutes. Age: 12+
War of the 3 Sanchos
Pocket Campaigns #4. Designer: David J Mortimer. Players: 1-3. Duration: 30-45 minutes. Age: 12+
Ming Voyages
Pocket Campaigns #2. Designer: David J Mortimer & Alan Paull. Players: 1-2. Duration: 30-45 mins. Age: 12+
Kingmaker
Published by Gibsons Games. Designer: Andrew McNeil. Developer: Alan Paull. Players: 1-6. Duration: 2-6 hours. Age: 12+
Last Bug Standing in the Circle of Doom!
Designer: Bez Shahriari. Players: 2. Duration: 15-30 minutes. Age: 12+
Mission Command: Normandy
WW2 Miniatures ruleset. Designer: Alan Paull and Peter Connew. Players: 2-16. Duration: 1-24 hours (depending on scenario). Age: 14+
Games
Cousins' War Solo Expansion
We will be launching our new Solo mode for our most popular Pocket Campaigns game, the Cousins' War at the Expo. This expansion, designed by David J Mortimer, enables you to play the Cousins' War against an automated opponent, BoT. Your opponent is named after John Wenlock, 1st Baron Wenlock, a notorious turncoat, therefore here Baron of Turncoats or BoT. You play normally, but BoT's Actions are determined by a deck of Decision cards, and the strength of his Actions by your choice of difficulty level. Extensively playtested by a range of expert solo game players, the Cousins' War Solo expansion will tax to the full your ability to win the Wars of the Roses.