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Cole Wehrle

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Cole Wehrle
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Texas
OccupationBoard game designer
Years active2015–present
EmployerLeder Games
Notable work
Websitewehrlegig.com

Cole Wehrle is an American board game designer and academic. He has designed the board games Root, Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile, and the upcoming Arcs at Leder Games, and he co-owns Wehrlegig Games with his brother, designing the historical games Pax Pamir, John Company and co-designing Molly House.

Education

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Wehrle gained a degree in Journalism and English at Indiana University before going to graduate school at the University of Texas, gaining a PhD there in 2017, for which his dissertation was titled "The Narrative Dimensions of Empire: Time and Space in the British Imperial Imaginary, 1819–1855".[1] Wehrle earned a doctorate in the literature of British colonialism.[2]

Career

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While studying at the University of Texas, Wehrle began developing his first game, Pax Pamir, about Afghanistan during the fall of the Durrani Empire, inspired by Pax Porfiriana, a game designed by Phil Eklund et al., and set during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). Pax Pamir was published in 2015 under Sierra Madre Games, with Wehrle working with Phil Eklund to do so, as he did for the first edition of John Company in 2017.[1] He subsequently designed the 2016 game An Infamous Traffic about the opium wars of China, in which he "believes he achieves the payoff by juxtaposing sobriety with absurdity."[2]

A game of Root

Root, Wehrle's first game with Leder Games, was crowdfunded in 2017 and published the following year.[1] He designed Root as a "simulation of political and economic warfare of a struggle for the hearts and minds of the people" which is "radically asymmetric" in which "Each side plays by different rules and aims at different goals; they virtually play different games. Root is based on the COIN series of war games-a series of extremely complex simulations of counterinsurgency warfare."[3] A reviewer for the New York Times said that "I'm going to make this sound really weirdly intellectual, but let me just say that Cole Wehrle has a designer diary where he explains how the idea of this game came from his graduate studies into Foucauldian biopower."[4]

A new version of Pax Pamir: Second Edition was released in 2019 as the first release from Wehrlegig Games.[5][6] Wehrlegig then published a second edition of John Company,[5] having obtained $787,000 in funding for the game; Slate called it Wehrle's "magnum opus".[1] Following the release, Wehrlegig Games announced that the company would expand to publish other designers' works in the historical board game subgenre,[7] and Wehrle cofounded the Zenobia Award in 2020, intended to highlight and support underrepresented designers in the industry.[8][9]

Wehrle designed the 2021 game Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile[10] after first pitching the game in 2018, inspired in part by Reiner Knizia's game Medici.[6] Matt Jarvis in a review of Oath on Dicebreaker said that "unlike designer Cole Wehrle’s breakout hit Root, all of the players have the same set of options and actions - for the most part - at their disposal. [...] Cole Wehrle has added another masterpiece to his already gleaming collection of games that are as interesting around the table as they are on it."[11] Dan Jolin in a review of Oath said that "Those drawn in by Kyle Ferrin's awesomely evocative and characterful artwork – think The Dark Crystal by way of Richard Scarry – might be put off by designer Cole Wehrle's almost highbrow yet generic terminology (that wordy subtitle is a big tip-off)."[12]

Leder Games launched a Kickstarter in 2022 to fund Wehrle's space opera strategy board game Arcs.[13][14][15] In 2024, he intends to release Zenobia Award runner-up Molly House under Wehlegig Games, about molly houses and queer culture in Georgian England, for which he aided Jo Kelly in design.[16]

Design philosophy

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Wehrle takes an academic and directly political approach to board game design, and has stated that he is "not interested in whether or not a game is fun", instead electing to focus upon his games being "compelling" in an emotional sense. He has considered some of his games, notably John Company, as satire.[16] He has also stated that board game aesthetics, "like the rules that structure their play, are essentially political in that they organize the relationship between the players. [...] For, if games structure play, so too do they structure feeling."[17]

Ludography

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Winkie, Luke (2024-01-28). "Board but Not Boring. Cole Wehrle's board games don't just teach you history—they make you live it". Slate. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  2. ^ a b Draper, Kevin (2019-08-01). "Should Board Gamers Play the Roles of Racists, Slavers and Nazis?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  3. ^ Nguyen, C. Thi (2020). Games: Agency As Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-19-005209-6. Retrieved 2024-05-24 – via Google Books.
  4. ^ Klein, Ezra; Nguyen, C. Thi (2022-02-25). "Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews C. Thi Nguyen". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  5. ^ a b Jarvis, Matt (2019-12-27). "Game of the Year 2019: Matt Jarvis' Top 5". Dicebreaker. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  6. ^ a b Jarvis, Matt (2020-07-22). ""We're not trying to make fun games. We're trying to make good games": Root, Pax Pamir and Oath designer Cole Wehrle argues on (and off) the tabletop". Dicebreaker. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  7. ^ Carter, Chase (2023-02-02). "John Company, Pax Pamir maker to produce art installation 1819 Singapore as an actual board game". Dicebreaker. Retrieved 2024-02-15.
  8. ^ Carter, Chase (2020-11-23). "A new historical tabletop award wants to spotlight and mentor underrepresented voices". Dicebreaker. Retrieved 2024-02-15.
  9. ^ Carter, Chase (2023-10-02). "Zenobia Award returns to highlight more underrepresented creators in historical tabletop design". Dicebreaker. Retrieved 2024-02-15.
  10. ^ Meehan, Alex (2024-05-08). "Root designer's Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile is getting its first board game expansion". Dicebreaker. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  11. ^ Jarvis, Matt (2021-06-02). "Oath board game review - Root creator's ambitious 'game with a memory' is unforgettable". Dicebreaker. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  12. ^ Jolin, Dan (2021-06-22). "Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile Review". Tabletop Gaming Magazine. No. 56. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  13. ^ Eggett, Christopher John (2022-03-04). "From Woodlands, to history, and on to Sci-Fi, Oath Designer Cole Wehrle talks his Cinematic Follow Up ARCs". Tabletop Gaming Magazine. No. 62. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  14. ^ Percovich, Gianluca (2022-05-24). "Arcs is a 4X board game from the team behind critically acclaimed Root and Oath. An interview with designer Cole Wehrle ahead of Leder Games' next Kickstarter launch". Polygon. Archived from the original on 2023-09-29. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  15. ^ Meehan, Alex; Carter, Chase; Jarvis, Matt (2022-06-28). "Could Arcs be the first misfire from Cole Wehrle? Our impressions of Root creators' latest board game". Dicebreaker. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  16. ^ a b Winkie, Luke (2024-01-28). "Board but Not Boring". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2024-02-15.
  17. ^ Murray, Jack (2023-03-26). "Groping in the Dark: Intimacy in Nyctophobia". Analog Game Studies. Archived from the original on 2024-05-24. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  18. ^ "Pax Pamir". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
  19. ^ "An Infamous Traffic". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
  20. ^ "John Company". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
  21. ^ "Root". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
  22. ^ "Pax Pamir: Second Edition". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
  23. ^ "Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
  24. ^ "John Company: Second Edition". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
  25. ^ "Arcs". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
  26. ^ "Molly House". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
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