Create Your Own Vietnam War Stories with Purple Haze

In late January 2022, UK-based publisher PHALANX launched a crowdfunding campaign on Gamefound for Bernard Grzybowski's Purple Haze, a unique, cooperative, story-driven campaign game based on the Vietnam War. Thankfully, PHALANX sent me a prototype copy of Purple Haze so I could check out.

In Purple Haze, 1-6 players lead a squad of U.S. Marines through variety of survival missions in Vietnam, 1967. When it comes to the gameplay, Purple Haze is combination of a story-creation game, a tactical combat game, and a campaign game. The choices you make for key plot events determine your squad's story throughout the campaign.

Purple Haze includes eight missions, which can be played as a campaign, or as standalone games. Each mission plays in about 60-90 minutes and features major storylines that branch over the campaign. In addition, your squad of Marines gain experience to develop specializations between missions.

At the beginning of your first mission, or a standalone mission, you select your squad of six Marines. The base game comes with more than twenty unique Marines you get to choose from. In addition to each Marine having their own background story and traits, each Marine also gets a specialization card, weapons, and equipment to start their journey.

Each mission takes place on a specific map, which is indicated in the mission scenario book, along with the primary and secondary objectives you need to complete. Whether you succeed or fail at these objectives will determine your options for future missions. Regardless of your success or failure in individual missions, in the campaign mode, the campaign will progress on to the next mission.

After everything is set up, you read the mission briefing and then jump into the game. Here's a snippet of the briefing for the first mission, "Crash":

Quote:

[September 15, 1967] You look at the wrecked Huey, thankful you survived the crash. It got hit somewhere over the jungle. You lost the pilot. The gunner just fell out. Gone. On your way down you saw a glimpse of the other Huey. You think it got hit too, but you can't be sure. You look around at your squad — wild-eyed Marines fresh out of boot camp — and sigh heavily. You gotta move fast. VC will be coming...

Prototype of map #01

Purple Haze is played over a series of action rounds until the mission ends. Each action round is split into 3 phases – movement, story events/encounters, and combat – which are performed in sequence. However, combat does not occur every action round.

During the movement phase, you move your squad one space on the map, or you camp. Each space on the map has one to three icons representing different types of terrain your Marines may traverse. After you move to an adjacent space, you adjust the time, fatigue level, and threat level based on the way you moved.

If you move to an orthogonally adjacent space, you update the time and fatigue tracks based on the costs corresponding to the leftmost terrain icon of the area you are entering, and increase threat level by one. Conversely, if your squad moves diagonally, you use the rightmost terrain icon and increase the threat level by three. Yikes!

While movement is very straightforward, it offers players tough choices when approaching each mission. You'll question whether it makes sense to move diagonally to get to your destination faster in spite of the increased threat and more difficult terrain, versus moving orthogonally and slower, while facing more encounters, but less threat.

The time and fatigue tracks are a nice touch. They really add to the flavor of the game. Sure, you’re abstractly moving across a grid map from square to square, but when you experience time passing by with each movement, and your squad becoming more and more exhausted, it immerses you into the theme even more.

When it’s nighttime on the time track, the threat level is increased further and you can’t air strike or use aimed shots, which also makes thematic sense. Likewise, when you hit the bottom of the fatigue track, you have to camp so your Marines can rest. Design choices like these really boost the story immersion factor, again while keeping the gameplay mechanisms simple and fairly abstract.

The more you move around, the more your enemies, Viet Cong guerillas (VC) and their supporters, notice you, which eventually leads to combat. When it comes to increasing the threat level, there’s a threat die roll involved. First, you increase the threat level based on how you moved – one space for orthogonal movement, three spaces for diagonal movement. Then if it’s nighttime, you increase the threat level two more spaces. Then you roll the threat die to see if you need to increase it any further.

Threat die (prototype)

The threat die is a custom six-sided die with three green, two yellow, and one red results. Rolling green means no increase to threat, whereas rolling yellow or red increases the threat level by one or two spaces, respectively. In addition to impacting the threat level after movement, the threat die can also impact the number of additional VC soldiers you face on a combat card and modify various tests on encounter cards.

If your squad is unable to move due to a lack of fatigue points or because the fatigue marker is on the last space of the stamina track, then your squad must camp instead of moving. When you camp, you can evacuate Marines back to base, attempt to heal damage points, and recover fatigue points.

Assuming you didn’t camp, after you move into a new space, (hopefully good) stuff happens. If you entered a space with a story event token, you cross reference the number on the token to the relevant entry in the mission booklet, and read the corresponding story event to see what happens next. Often you’ll need to make a decision on how to proceed, and depending on what you decide, it impacts the rest of the mission and campaign.

If you move into a space that doesn’t have a story event token, then you draw an encounter card to see what your squad experiences next. Encounters are various types of random events that take place while your squad is attempting to complete the mission, and they make your story evolve in interesting ways. Considering the encounter deck is random, even if you repeat the same mission in a campaign or standalone game, you get thrown plenty of fresh twists and narrative arcs from the variety of encounters. So even though it's a campaign game, there's a lot of replay value packed in.

Many of the encounters and story events feature tests, which is a core gameplay element in Purple Haze. The tests are driven by dice in a unique way. There are blue ‘trigger’ dice, red ‘success’ dice, and white ‘opposing’ dice. When performing a test, you roll a combination of these dice to determine the outcome of the test.

Each red die that matches the value on any of the blue dice is considered a success. However, each white die that matches the value of one of the blue dice cancels a success from your red dice. Anytime white dice are involved, it is considered an opposed test, but there are also standard tests that only use red and blue dice, as well as basic tests that only use red dice.

As an example, the “Dead Bodies” encounter card test in the red box below indicates a random Marine’s will trait needs to be tested against 3 trigger dice (blue) and 4 opposing dice (white). In this case, first you would roll a die to see which Marine is being tested, then you look at the selected Marine’s will trait value, and that’s the number of red dice you’d roll.

Encounter card example (prototype)

When performing tests in Purple Haze, some of your Marines may have abilities that allow them to re-roll dice, in which case you can re-roll as many red dice as you’d like to in an attempt to gain more successes. There are also often modifiers specified on the encounter card, and after factoring them in, you check the right side of the card to see how the event resolves based on your test result.

After resolving a story event or encounter card, combat may occur as a result of the story event, or if the threat marker is on one of the last three spaces of the threat track. In either case, or sometimes in both cases, when you are required to have a combat, draw the top card from the combat card deck, confirm it is a valid card based on the terrain types on the card, and if so, place white dice, representing VC enemies, on all the applicable spaces matching the values indicated. Otherwise, draw combat cards until one of the terrain types matches a terrain type of the space where your squad is located.

Combat card example (prototype)

Combat is driven by a simple, yet interesting initiative system, some chit-pulling, and a series of combat tests between your Marines and the VC enemies on the combat card. First, the VC get an immediate enemy action based on the combat card. After that, you determine who has the initiative and take turns, per the initiative track, dealing attacks.

When the VC have the initiative, you draw a random VC token from the bag (or a facedown pool) and resolve it immediately. There are basic VC tokens and special, red tactical VC tokens that have a variety of values and effects.

VC tokens (prototype)

The basic VC tokens have a number at the top which indicates how many spaces you'll move the initiative marker towards the green (Marines) side, followed by a number of damage to be dealt to the Marines. After damage is assigned to the Marines, you put the VC token back into the bag. Thus, it might be drawn again in future combat rounds.

To resolve the damage dealt to the Marines, you roll a number of red dice matching the damage value on the VC token. Each die result equals one damage to the Marine whose number matches. Therefore, it’s possible for one Marine to receive multiple hits.

After determining any damage dealt to Marines from VC attacks, each impacted Marine can roll a number of dice, based on their specialization card, to perform a basic test which will determine if they can successfully take cover, and avoid some or all of the damage.

When the Marines have the initiative, first you choose a Marine to activate that has not already been activated this combat. Then you can either take a combat action to attack VC targets, or a support action to use equipment, such as a first aid kit.

When attacking the VC, you select a specific target or targets on the combat card. Then you move the initiative marker toward the VC side and roll a number of red dice based on the weapon you’re using, with a number of blue dice specified on the combat card. In this combat test, there are no opposing white dice, so any red dice that match the values of the blue dice are successful hits. Similar to taking cover, your weapons might allow you to re-roll.

"Cat Tamer" ready to be activated for combat

There are a variety of weapons your Marines may have, some requiring ammunition. Each weapon has a range which is reflected on weapon cards with a number of black and white triangles. Each VC enemy on the combat card uses the same triangle iconography to indicate their distance from the Marines. In order to target them, your Marine’s weapon must be able to fire within range. The effectiveness of each Marine activated in combat is determined by the type of weapon he uses, any serious injury or mental wound cards he has, and his Specialization, which may provide positive modifiers such as extra re-rolls.

As you assign hits to the VC, you tick down the die of the VC enemy that you’re targeting. There are also some spaces that allow you to perform area attacks if your Marine’s weapon has that particular ability. This lets you allocate hits to multiple enemies from a single combat action.

There are a few other twists related to combat, but the gist of it is, whoever has the initiative attacks the other side. Combat continues in this fashion until all six Marines are activated, all the VC are eliminated, or less than three Marines remain in your squad. In the case of the latter, the mission would end.

After combat ends, you resolve the combat consequences per the battle board. The battle board has slots for eliminated VC (dice), which not only impact post-combat consequences, but also modify the initiative track movement in the Marines’ favor during combat. The more VC eliminated, the better.

The status of the battle board dictates how much threat is reduced, the number of experience points your squad gains, and the number of cards you can draw from the search deck after combat. Again, the more VC eliminated, the better.

Unfortunately, taking physical damage is detrimental mentally for the Marines. After combat, each Marine with at least two damage has to perform a basic test, and each resulting “success” generates a mental shock. This applies to all physical damage a Marine has suffered, not just damage from the latest combat.

Battle board (prototype)

I really dig the combat system in Purple Haze. The combat cards with dice representing your enemies of varied strengths, at varied distances away from you is really clever. From the VC chit-pull system and variety of combat cards, each combat has it’s on flair and challenges.

I also think it’s great that players have so much agency when it comes to activating their Marines. Considering different weapons shift the initiative marker a different number of spaces on the initiative track, you can plan around it, and activate your Marines in a particular order to ensure you get back-to-back turns to attack, which can be very effective. Of course, the VC tokens are drawn randomly, so there are opportunities for them to have back-to-back turns attacking as well.

After the effects of the battle board are resolved, you discard the combat card, and then start the next action round. Play continues until the mission ends. The mission ends if the primary objective is completed, you meet an end of mission trigger as specified in the mission rules, you return to base before completing the primary objective, you forfeit the mission, or if three of your Marines in the squad are removed from the game. Regardless of how the mission ends, you would then perform some end-of-mission clean-up steps, and then proceed to the next mission when you're ready to move on.

I’ve only had the opportunity to play Purple Haze solo so far, and I found it to be very engaging, even with my minimal experience. While I’d be completely satisfied if Purple Haze was strictly a solitaire game, I’m already looking forward to playing it with other players cooperatively. It seems like it’ll be fun, challenging, and interesting in a different way when you're collaborating with others to make decisions and drive the story. Six players seems daunting, but the way the action rounds are structured, it seems like everyone will be involved. Plus, it might be nice change of pace focusing on just one Marine versus six when you’re playing solo. Either way, I’m stoked to explore this game with varied player counts and group dynamics.

While Purple Haze isn't overly complex, it has a ton of iconography you'll need to familiarize yourself with. I found it be a bit intimidating when I was initially peeking through the different decks of cards. Once I understood how the tests worked and the overall flow of the game, I realized it's not too crazy at all. Hopefully there will be some player aids included in the finished version too, so you don't have to open the rulebook to look up icons. A player aid would make a world of difference easing new players into the game.

I should note, Purple Haze has a fair amount of adult language in the mission booklet. The game is recommended for ages 16+ for a reason. If you’re planning to play this with younger kids, be sure to keep that in mind when you're reading the story events.

From my small taste of Purple Haze, I feel like it shares some DNA with Arkham Horror: The Card Game, which I recently fell in love with. You get to choose and play as a variety of characters which you can customize, and level up as they gain experience. Plus, you get sucked into a challenging, thematic, narrative-driven gaming experience, playing solo or cooperatively, where the decisions you make each game, impact your future games within the same campaign.

If you enjoy thematic, narrative-driven cooperative games, historical games, wargames, or immersive solo games, be sure to check out Purple Haze. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing what PHALANX and Grzybowski cook up in the finished version.