First Island Chain
Beijing has moved in the Western Pacific, and the Joint Chiefs need an order by morning. You are the President.
First Island Chain is a single-player strategy game for iPhone and iPad. You play the US President through a military crisis with China, one day at a time, from the first PLA move to one of nine endings. Some of those endings are signed at a negotiating table. One is a nuclear exchange.
Coming Soon to the App StoreSeven scenarios
- Taiwan Buildup. Taipei has announced a defense cooperation agreement with Japan. Within days the PLA Eastern Theater Command moves amphibious ships, fighter squadrons and missile batteries into Fujian. Beijing says it is a scheduled exercise. It may be pressure meant to kill the agreement, or the first stage of an invasion.
- Taiwan Strait Crisis. The invasion is under way. PLA troops are ashore on Taiwan and missiles are hitting its air bases. Japan's bases on Okinawa are within range of the fighting. American bases are untouched so far. This scenario opens with escalation already high, and the nuclear threshold is close from the start.
- South China Sea Flashpoint. Seventy-two hours after Manila gave the United States expanded basing rights at Subic Bay, China seized Scarborough Shoal. PLA warships enforce an exclusion zone while construction crews fortify it. The Philippines has invoked the Mutual Defense Treaty. Japan and Australia are in the coalition, and each will accept a different amount of risk.
- Northern Escalation. Chinese coast guard cutters and PLA Navy ships have closed off the Senkaku Islands. At the same time North Korea moves artillery up to the DMZ and fires ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan. Tokyo invokes the security treaty and calls it an act of war. Seoul wants no part of a wider fight. You don't have the forces to cover both allies, and the intelligence community can't yet say whether Pyongyang is working with Beijing.
- Blockade. PLA submarines sit on the sea lanes into Taiwan, and surface groups turn back the ships trying to get through. Breaking the blockade means sinking Chinese ships and losing American ones. Each loss is harder to explain to voters who never expected to fight over Taiwan's shipping.
- The Quarantine. Eighty China Coast Guard cutters stop ships bound for Taiwan inside a "maritime safety inspection zone." The cutters are law enforcement vessels, so the first navy to open fire on one becomes the aggressor. The PLA Navy stays out of sight, and nobody has fired a shot.
- First Strike. Ballistic and cruise missiles have already hit Guam, Kadena and Taiwan's air bases. Your first job is to put damaged squadrons back together. Then you decide how hard to hit back.
Your first game uses a set scenario. After that, the game can deal one at random.
How it plays
Each turn is one day of the crisis, and each day is three cards. Read: a map of the theater, what moved overnight, and what the analysts think Beijing will do next, with how sure they are. Then you put one question to the intelligence community. You get one a day. Decide: three courses of action. One is the Joint Chiefs' recommendation, one is a military option with a different level of risk, and one is a diplomatic move such as a back-channel message or a public ultimatum. Each shows what it costs in escalation risk, political cover and munitions. If none of them fits, you can send the staff back for something much more forceful or much more diplomatic. Result: what your order did, in the order it happened. American and allied losses are confirmed. PLA losses are always an estimate. A game takes about 15 to 30 minutes. Difficulty is Easy, Normal or Hard, or the game can pick one at random, and Ironman mode takes away the save slots.
- Seven scenarios, from coast guard cutters off Taiwan to missiles on Guam
- Nine endings. A settlement or a stalemate needs your consent before it happens
- Five NSC advisers, from the Secretary of State to the INDOPACOM commander, who disagree with each other
- Plays offline. No account and no internet connection needed
- $4.99, paid once. No ads and no in-app purchases
- iPhone and iPad, in portrait, with one card on screen at a time
About
The Pentagon and the war colleges run tabletop games about a war with China in the Western Pacific. I wanted to play one from the President's chair. I couldn't find that game, so I built it, with AI tools helping to write the simulation.
First Island Chain is a one-person project. It is in beta on TestFlight now, and what testers report goes into the next build. Early test builds asked for many more decisions a day. Testers said it was too much, so a day is now three cards. If something breaks, or a day doesn't make sense, I want to hear about it.
Camp Clipper was a WWII training camp in the Mojave Desert, part of General Patton's Desert Training Center. The studio is named after it.
To get in touch, write to hello@campclippergames.com.