Redmond A Simonsen

Early life

Simonsen was born and raised in Inwood, Manhattan, the second son of Astri Nordlie Simonsen and August Emil Simonsen, an immigrant from Norway. His father was a high ironworker who died in a fall from a building; his mother then worked as a domestic and raised her three children August, Lois, and Redmond. Simonsen attended the Stuyvesant High School from 1956-1960. He served two tours in the United States Air Force, and was accepted for enrollment at Cooper Union, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1964. Subsequent work as a graphic artist included designing the book jacket for Is Paris Burning? (1965), album covers for London Records, and KOOL cigarette advertisements. He also worked as a photographer, and sold pictures to TIME, Newsweek and The New York Times.

Strategy & Tactics and SPI

Main articles: Strategy & Tactics and Simulation Publications, Inc.

Redmond Simonsen was the graphic designer on the wargaming hobby fanzine Strategy & Tactics. In 1969, the 'zine was sold by its founder/publisher Chris Wagner to James F. Dunnigan for $1. Although circulation was only around 1,000 copies, Dunnigan planned on using the magazine to promote new games he was designing. Later he wrote in The Complete Wargames Handbook:

The format of Strategy & Tactics (S&T) was ambitiously changed to a bi-monthly magazine with a complete game inside every issue, along with an accompanying historical article. Dunigan created Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) in 1969, with Simonsen as his co-founder. Dunnigan and Simonsen's newly incorporated SPI began publish non-magazine games as well. At that time the main wargame publisher, Avalon Hill, released only one or two new games a year. The response was overwhelming. Simonsen wrote: "Via a program of advertising, S&Ts circulation began to build and sales of SPI games to its readers began to take on serious proportions." Combined with other factors such as a sophisticated computerized customer feedback system the company experienced exponential growth. By the mid-'70s SPI's revenues exceeded $2 million annually, with up to forty employees. Circulation of Strategy and Tactics steadily grew, eventually peaking at over 36,000 by 1980.

Simonsen acted as founding editor for SPI's Ares Magazine, a fantasy/science fiction game magazine following the same approach as Strategy & Tactics, until replaced during the TSR takeover.

Simonsen also wrote fictional backgrounds for various SPI games, notably for StarForce and Battlefleet Mars, often with humorous elements hidden in the text.

Physical systems design

It was at SPI that Simonsen coined the term "physical systems design" to describe the application of graphic design concepts to board games. He defined it as follows:

In 1969 however, Simonsen's ability to implement such graphic engineering was limited by SPI's starting capital, which was only "a hundred dollars" borrowed from writer Al Nofi. Accordingly, production standards for their first series of games were comparatively low. While competitor Avalon Hill was owned by the printers Monarch Press, and thus was able to use professional production equipment, SPI was essentially producing game "kits". Designer Greg Costikyan wrote:

Increased revenue and experience led to progressive improvements in production quality, and Simonsen continuously refined the standards for game components. The playing boards ("maps") went from black-and-white to two-color and then full-color. Playing pieces ("counters") became professionally mounted and die-cut, eventually being printed on both sides in full-color. Simonsen now had the means to implement his physical system design concepts. Game designer John Prados recalled that "Redmond prided himself on making at least one graphical innovation each game."

After SPI

Marketing lapses as well as financial mismanagement led to declining real income for SPI, culminating in Dunnigan's ouster as company manager (replaced by original S&T founder Chris Wagner). However, with the economy in the midst of a recession, SPI was not able to make a recovery. In 1982 the company's assets were sold to TSR, Inc.. Simonsen was fired from TSR on May 3, 1982.

Along with former SPI designer Brad Hessel, he founded Ares Development Corporation to produce computer games. Simonsen had already successfully "ported" the board game Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora to the Apple II, creating one of the first real-time strategy games. A multi-game contract with Texas Instruments fell through when they pulled out of the home computing business in 1984.

Simonsen then moved to Richardson, Texas where, with Jerry Robinson, he co-founded Microbotics, manufacturers of peripherals for the Amiga platform of home computers. Around 1992 Microbotics closed and he retired from active work, becoming a gaming network moderator for BIX and other places. In 1993 Simonsen contributed to Master of Orion: The Official Strategy Guide (Prima Publishing, 1993), devising a naming-convention for ships. By 1998 he had retired completely and spent his time drawing, writing computer programs and science fiction short stories.

Simonsen suffered a heart attack in 2004 and two more in early 2005 which led to his hospitalization and death in Garland, Texas on 9 March 2005 at the age of 62.