About Us

Ab Initio Games and Software Simulations are UK based companies dedicated to the worldwide development and running of play-by-mail (PBM) and play-by-email games.

We’ve been in the business for almost 40 years, in that time we have run well over 250,000 player game turns. The names behind the companies are Danny McConnell (Ab Initio Games) and Peter Calcraft (Software Simulations).

Play-By-Mail games are a very different way of playing games. They are normally much more detailed than computer or board games and offer a much greater challenge. The advantages are numerous: availability of opponents (you are usually competing against a dozen or more opponents throughout the world or the country), impartial umpiring and the complexity of the games you can play.

For sports fans American Football is covered by two different games: Gameplan and Gridiron Stats, which also now has a retro format (Gridstats Retro). Gameplan Baseball and Slapshot cater for Baseball and Ice Hockey fans, Basketball fans can consider Hoopplan. For Aussie Rules fans we can offer Play On. For Formula One Motor Racing fans we run the game RaceplanRun Chase for Cricket fans, whilst for football (soccer) fans we run Soccer Stats

Fans of strategic player-interaction games (“diplomacy type games”) can play the game Dark Age.

All games have online as standard, though postal options are available.

All of the games run electronically, so it doesn’t matter where in the world you are, you’re welcome to join us and start playing.

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