John Hill (game designer)

John Hill
John Hill with wife, Luella
Born	John Evans Hill February 21, 1945 Illinois, United States
Died	January 12, 2015(2015-01-12) (aged 69) Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States
Occupation	game designer, military analyst
Nationality	United States
Genre	Wargames, table-top gaming
Spouse	Luella

John Evans Hill (February 21, 1945 – January 12, 2015) was an American designer of military wargames, as well as rules for miniature wargaming such as Johnny Reb 3. He was a member of the Wargaming Hall of Fame. Hill is most well known as the designer of the extremely popular Avalon Hill board game Squad Leader in 1977.

John Evans Hill was born on February 21, 1945 in Chicago and grew up in Elmhurst, Illinois. His mother was Marian Jean Whitley. His biological father was John T. Hill, who was killed in action during World War II before John Evans Hill was born. When Hill was three years old, Marian remarried Edward F. Whitley who was the man Hill knew to be his father. Hill grew up Catholic, attending and graduating from Immaculate Conception. After high school, Hill graduated from Purdue University with a four-year degree in Military History.

John Hill founded the Conflict Games Company in the late 1960s and owned a hobby shop, The Scale Model Shop, in Lafayette, Indiana, for several years. It has been reported the Scale Model Shop was lost in a flood. Conflict Games was sold in its entirety to Game Designers' Workshop. He later worked as an advertising executive for Boynton & Associates, which published trade magazines for the hobby industry.

John Hill's first published wargames were released in 1972 and included Kasserine Pass (Conflict Games), Verdun, The Game of Attrition (Conflict Games) and The Brotherhood (Conflict Games). The next year he published Hue (Conflict Games), based upon the fighting near the City of Hue in the Vietnam War and Overlord (Conflict Games) based on the Normandy campaign. In 1974 and 1975 he published two games on the Arab-Israeli conflicts (Bar-Lev & Jerusalem) and in 1977 a game on the fighting in Korea. It was that same year that he sold Squad Leader to Avalon Hill. He also worked on the first module for Squad Leader, Cross of Iron (Avalon Hill, 1979). His standing in the commercial board wargaming industry was sufficiently high that when Simulations Publications Inc. published his Battle for Stalingrad in 1980, his name appeared on the box top copy. Few games at the time were marketed on the strength of name recognition of the designer. Once again, when Eastern Front Tank Leader was published by West End Games in 1986 his name featured prominently on the cover.