All About ArmourSoft

What Is ArmourSoft?

In early 1998, we at ArmourSoft decided to synergize and leverage our core competencies, so we re-engineered ourselves from a production and manufacturing corporate entity into a game design house. That move has proven to be wildly successful (using our definition of "game design house" as meaning "we hang around and play lots of games, and when we feel like it we write some game stuff or drag some old project out of the filing cabinet and post it on the web"). This move was so amazingly successful that our stock went way up. (We hung the stock certificate about two feet higher on the wall.)

We can't afford to rest on past successes, however, so this year we're going to re-engineer ArmourSoft again into the leanest, meanest computer-assist wargame designing outfit in all of Morris County. We owe it to the stockholders. Stockholder. Whatever.

Not wanting to let the momentum slip, next year we're planning on re-engineering ourselves yet again into a major automobile manufacturer, and the year after that we're going to reorganize into a corner deli.

Thanks for another great year.

David Ferris
Senior Minion, Third Class
ArmourSoft

What Was ArmourSoft?

ArmourSoft began in 1984, as many small game companies start out: we were a bunch of clowns at a weekly local game club session, thinking about how great it would be to have our own game company. Nothing whatsoever came of that, but from late 1984 through mid 1991 I used the ArmourSoft name as a pseudonym for various game projects, mostly computer-assisted, that I worked on in my spare time. Most of these projects ended up being distributed publicly through our local computer bulletin boards, but there didn't seem to be much interest at the time and I don't think the distribution system was particularly global.

In late 1990 my Army Reserve unit (814th Supply Company, wahoo!) was called up for service in Desert Storm. We spent the entire war stationed near Harrisburg Pennsylvania, so I was able to go home to Bloomsburg every weekend. During this time period, the weekly local game club consisted of a different bunch of clowns, so again we thought about how great it would be to have our own game company. This time we actually did something about it though, incorporating ArmourSoft Inc. in late 1991 as a Pennsylvania S-Corporation.

Over the next few years we managed to produce several games: Chart Wars/Space Waste, which was an instant stunning failure on the marketplace; Shipbase III, a computer-assist naval miniatures game that is still quite popular among naval wargamers but didn't sell enough copies to break even; and Slargeball, a $5 DTP "game kit" that we threw together on a whim.

It was obvious that we were never going to make the big time producing and selling these types of games, so people started wandering off almost immediately. By 1995 it was obvious to even me that I wasn't any good at sales and marketing and we started the "shutting down" process. In 1998 we shut the "business side" of ArmourSoft Inc. down, shut down the S-corporation, and ArmourSoft went back to what it had been in the 1980's: a pseudonym for me, for whatever projects I was interested in at the time. This time, however, I have the World Wide Web to distribute my creations, something I didn't have in 1984.

Who Was ArmourSoft?

Gosh, I had more hair back then.

Like most small game companies probably, ArmourSoft had an interesting cast of characters over the years. When we first pondered the idea of starting a game company in 1984 and I came up with the name ArmourSoft, it was me, Bob Ross, Andy Eisenberg, Andy Morack, and Tom Sparhawk. Last I heard, Andy E was a programmer in Ohio and Andy M was running a video store/game shop in Shamokin PA. I ran into Tom at one of the big wargame conventions a few years ago, he's got his own small game stuff company online and is probably still a sociology prof out there somewhere.

In 1991 when we went at it seriously (using that term loosely), it was me and Bob Ross again, plus John Zeager, Richard Mabie, Patrick Mabie, Raymond Clark, and John Garcia. John Z and the Mabie brothers resigned from ArmourSoft in February 1992; last I heard, John Z was selling cars in Williamsport and Rich M was installing satellite dishes in Maryland, but I don't know what happened to Pat M. Bill Barnes and Bill Fisher were also loosely affiliated with ArmourSoft, working essentially for Pat. The two Bills, the Mabies, and John Z later formed their own game company, I think called Syndicate Games. I don't think they ever produced anything. Bill B is now a computer tech at Bloomsburg University and Bill F is, last I heard, a computer tech in Harrisburg PA.

Our first sales & marketing people only managed to sell a grand total of 3 copies of Chart Wars. Last I heard they had moved to Phoenix AZ, started a new company, and produced a collectible card game. Our next sales & marketing guy, Bill Greenley, was a manager at Radio Shack for several years and is now running his father's chain of laundromats.

Jim O'Neil was also involved quite a lot over the years, although since he lives out in Arizona and the rest of us were in Pennsylvania, his role had been mostly technical support (and a lot of moral support! Thanks, Jim.) and sales.

John Garcia and Raymond Clark bowed out of ArmourSoft in late 1994. John, the guy who programmed the last 25% of Shipbase III, is now the dean of information technology at a major tech education outfit in the Midwest. Raymond, last I heard, was a computer tech at a big bank out in Ohio, but I haven't heard from him in several years. Hey, Raymond! Send me an e-mail, dude!

Bob "Doc" Ross recently retired as an economics prof at Bloomsburg University. Of all the people I've mentioned here, Bob is the only person I've managed to keep in touch with. In fact my wife Hanna and I are having Bob and his wife over to our house for a cook-out as soon as the weather gets warmer.

I'm sure some of the people I've mentioned will have a somewhat different version of ArmourSoft's history than what I've just written. But what the heck, it's my web page.