War Birds / Unruly Designs
@warbirds.bsky.social
Well behaved games rarely make history.
Need a joyful four hours with friends where the war feels far far away and you can fall in love, and choose a future that you're excited about? Then I have the game for you! Find Lumberjills at IPR's Booth 1203 at Origins Game Fair June 19-22 in Columbus, OH - or at IPR right now!
June 17, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Need a joyful four hours with friends where the war feels far far away and you can fall in love, and choose a future that you're excited about? Then I have the game for you! Find Lumberjills at IPR's Booth 1203 at Origins Game Fair June 19-22 in Columbus, OH - or at IPR right now!
I'm not exaggerating when I say it made my whole day.
April 22, 2025 at 6:30 PM
I'm not exaggerating when I say it made my whole day.
@junobeach.bsky.social This is a *phenomenal* campaign. I was deeply moved by this spontaneous gift & am grateful to know about Frank & how we're connected.
We make historical games about women serving in WW2! If you're ever looking for a connection in immersive experience design, pls ping us!
We make historical games about women serving in WW2! If you're ever looking for a connection in immersive experience design, pls ping us!
April 22, 2025 at 6:23 PM
@junobeach.bsky.social This is a *phenomenal* campaign. I was deeply moved by this spontaneous gift & am grateful to know about Frank & how we're connected.
We make historical games about women serving in WW2! If you're ever looking for a connection in immersive experience design, pls ping us!
We make historical games about women serving in WW2! If you're ever looking for a connection in immersive experience design, pls ping us!
And there is a selection of non-male suitors if the other PCs aren't interesting or interested. The game includes exactly enough possibility so that everybody who wants to could find queer love, AND ALSO find a tangible sense of what queer history was like in the past.
May 7, 2024 at 8:49 PM
And there is a selection of non-male suitors if the other PCs aren't interesting or interested. The game includes exactly enough possibility so that everybody who wants to could find queer love, AND ALSO find a tangible sense of what queer history was like in the past.
And that effort and that success was part of their lived history, not just a part of their struggle, but a testament to determination, resilience and success.
May 7, 2024 at 8:47 PM
And that effort and that success was part of their lived history, not just a part of their struggle, but a testament to determination, resilience and success.
But we also know that while queer pain was aplenty, queer people found each other, made their own joy, and forged lives together. They just had to work around the corners to do it.
May 7, 2024 at 8:46 PM
But we also know that while queer pain was aplenty, queer people found each other, made their own joy, and forged lives together. They just had to work around the corners to do it.
Because of this, Lumberjills takes a unique approach in player-driven storytelling. Fellow players follow your lead: they tempt your character as wooing suitors, they celebrate you as friends, they help you decide what (and who) you want for your future.
May 7, 2024 at 8:45 PM
Because of this, Lumberjills takes a unique approach in player-driven storytelling. Fellow players follow your lead: they tempt your character as wooing suitors, they celebrate you as friends, they help you decide what (and who) you want for your future.
And in those 60 years, girls grew up never knowing of the intrepid, amazing women who went to the woods to serve their county, and learned to fell ten tonne trees as well as any man. History never tells us how capable and resilient women have always been.
May 7, 2024 at 8:44 PM
And in those 60 years, girls grew up never knowing of the intrepid, amazing women who went to the woods to serve their county, and learned to fell ten tonne trees as well as any man. History never tells us how capable and resilient women have always been.
So back to Lumberjills. The majority of the women who served in the WTC died before they were recognized. 15K of them gave years of their lives to war work. It took more than 60 years and a fight from their descendants to even award those still living a service pin.
May 7, 2024 at 8:44 PM
So back to Lumberjills. The majority of the women who served in the WTC died before they were recognized. 15K of them gave years of their lives to war work. It took more than 60 years and a fight from their descendants to even award those still living a service pin.
In Eat the Reich, you play a vampire commando that is "coffin-dropped into occupied Paris and must cut a bloody swathe through nazi forces en-route to your ultimate goal: drinking all of Adolf Hitler's blood."
May 7, 2024 at 8:42 PM
In Eat the Reich, you play a vampire commando that is "coffin-dropped into occupied Paris and must cut a bloody swathe through nazi forces en-route to your ultimate goal: drinking all of Adolf Hitler's blood."
Real people coping with overwhelming adversity and state violence via historical events: when your character stands up to confront the Reich you resonate with the courage of the Rosenstrasse women & are invited to understand that resistance to fascism has always been possible.
May 7, 2024 at 8:42 PM
Real people coping with overwhelming adversity and state violence via historical events: when your character stands up to confront the Reich you resonate with the courage of the Rosenstrasse women & are invited to understand that resistance to fascism has always been possible.
A pair of games from recent years that neatly illustrates the difference is Rosenstrasse/Eat the Reich. Rosenstrasse puts players into carefully constructed characters in real events to deeply contextualize what the erosion of civil liberties looks like under the rise of fascism.
May 7, 2024 at 8:42 PM
A pair of games from recent years that neatly illustrates the difference is Rosenstrasse/Eat the Reich. Rosenstrasse puts players into carefully constructed characters in real events to deeply contextualize what the erosion of civil liberties looks like under the rise of fascism.
The Canadian Forestry Corps was an integrated unit, and there are both Black and Indigenous lumberjack suitors from the CFC in the game. There's also an Anglo-Indian suitor from the ATS, and a suitor from the British Honduran Forestry Unit.
May 6, 2024 at 7:45 PM
The Canadian Forestry Corps was an integrated unit, and there are both Black and Indigenous lumberjack suitors from the CFC in the game. There's also an Anglo-Indian suitor from the ATS, and a suitor from the British Honduran Forestry Unit.
But it is a truth that some historical times and places are just... overwhelmingly white. The Women's Timber Corps was one such place. I looked hard to find evidence of diversity in the Corps itself, but if there was any, I just could not find it.
May 6, 2024 at 7:44 PM
But it is a truth that some historical times and places are just... overwhelmingly white. The Women's Timber Corps was one such place. I looked hard to find evidence of diversity in the Corps itself, but if there was any, I just could not find it.
I take this so seriously that I once threw out an entire Factory Girls game when I learned about the Western Electric hate strike of 1943 where white women discovering economic freedom in factory work went on strike to prevent a Black woman from joining their line.
May 6, 2024 at 7:41 PM
I take this so seriously that I once threw out an entire Factory Girls game when I learned about the Western Electric hate strike of 1943 where white women discovering economic freedom in factory work went on strike to prevent a Black woman from joining their line.
The whole reason that I created War Birds is because I wanted to reveal and spotlight the obscured and buried histories of women - a desire that very much extends to all women intersectionally.
May 6, 2024 at 7:41 PM
The whole reason that I created War Birds is because I wanted to reveal and spotlight the obscured and buried histories of women - a desire that very much extends to all women intersectionally.
Shout out to one of our Lumberjills backers: Annie Norman of Bad Squiddo Games. She hosts the largest collection of minis of the bad ass women of history, fantasy & the future. Check out these Jills and her whole WWII collection - so amazing! badsquiddogames.com/shop
April 29, 2024 at 5:01 PM
Shout out to one of our Lumberjills backers: Annie Norman of Bad Squiddo Games. She hosts the largest collection of minis of the bad ass women of history, fantasy & the future. Check out these Jills and her whole WWII collection - so amazing! badsquiddogames.com/shop
And of course, anywhere there was farmlands, food production and food transportation, the Land Army was out in force.
April 22, 2024 at 8:01 PM
And of course, anywhere there was farmlands, food production and food transportation, the Land Army was out in force.
While on the coastline, "Ack Ack girls" in the ATS served as anti-aircraft spotters.
April 22, 2024 at 8:01 PM
While on the coastline, "Ack Ack girls" in the ATS served as anti-aircraft spotters.
Smart, mathematically-inclined "Kinies" worked kinetheodolites on practice sites to measure the accuracy of gunfire.
April 22, 2024 at 8:01 PM
Smart, mathematically-inclined "Kinies" worked kinetheodolites on practice sites to measure the accuracy of gunfire.
Women served a vital role on the training grounds and coastlines of Scotland working for the Auxiliary Territorial Service.
April 22, 2024 at 8:00 PM
Women served a vital role on the training grounds and coastlines of Scotland working for the Auxiliary Territorial Service.
And of course, this wouldn't be a War Birds game if we didn't point out that in Scotland there was a wide variety of women hard at work doing home front service alongside the Lumberjills.
April 22, 2024 at 8:00 PM
And of course, this wouldn't be a War Birds game if we didn't point out that in Scotland there was a wide variety of women hard at work doing home front service alongside the Lumberjills.
As a civilian unit, NOFU jacks were often criticized for not doing the correct kind of service in the war (soldiering) but in reality the NOFU members often were serving because age, health, education or other requirements barred them from enlisting.
April 21, 2024 at 6:12 PM
As a civilian unit, NOFU jacks were often criticized for not doing the correct kind of service in the war (soldiering) but in reality the NOFU members often were serving because age, health, education or other requirements barred them from enlisting.
As part of their contract, the men were to be provided with $2/day plus board, lodging, bedding, tools and medical services. However at many of the camps, the jacks showed up to find they had to build their cabins themselves, with the wood that they harvested and milled.
April 21, 2024 at 6:11 PM
As part of their contract, the men were to be provided with $2/day plus board, lodging, bedding, tools and medical services. However at many of the camps, the jacks showed up to find they had to build their cabins themselves, with the wood that they harvested and milled.
In WWI The Newfoundland Forestry Battalion numbered 500 jacks, and in WWII the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit surged to about 3600. Unlike the CFC, the NOFU was a civilian lumberjack unit - men who volunteered to go to Scotland for the duration of the war.
April 21, 2024 at 6:11 PM
In WWI The Newfoundland Forestry Battalion numbered 500 jacks, and in WWII the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit surged to about 3600. Unlike the CFC, the NOFU was a civilian lumberjack unit - men who volunteered to go to Scotland for the duration of the war.