Purple Haze is a very thematic story-creation tactical level campaign wargame that is set in 1967 Vietnam. The player takes charge of a squad of U.S. Marines and must lead them through the terrain and battlefields of south Vietnam on various missions such as Search and Destroy, Patrol, Rescue and Long Range Recon. The game forces tough choices on the player to determine the outcome of the mission and your squad as you encounter enemy resistance, booby traps, a dangerous physical environment all with a black cloud hanging over the team as they will be forced to make moral decisions in furtherance of their objectives and to preserve their own lives.
The game has a narrative generation focus as your choices will lead to specific outcomes and additional challenges or boons while also incorporating tactical combat on a battle board and building a campaign arc over a series of several missions. The writing builds a vivid story about the situation and includes historically accurate situations as well as cultural and period specific jargon and experiences. The goal is to move from mission to mission, building experience and gaining new abilities to be used to survive the jungles of Vietnam, while following orders to the best of your ability. Nothing is easy with this game and Trait tests will force the players to roll dice to determine the outcome of all types of challenges including physical, perceptive, diplomatic and emotional situations as squad members will track both their health and mental fatigue as it effects them over the course of the mission and the campaign.
I wrote a fairly in-depth full First Impressions post and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2025/01/14/first-impressions-purple-haze-from-phalanx/
-Grant
The Players' Aid 
Definitely not for me. I read, among other things, Thomas Wells’s review of the game at MeepleMountain. I know it’ll make some people scream and bash me , because his analysis is extremely incisive, uncompromising, and, in my opinion, spot-on.
Of course, there’s a short preamble in the game booklet reminding us (extremely succinctly) that the Vietnamese suffered greatly from this war, which was largely deliberately waged as a war of civilian attrition.
Make the effort to read his text; it’s always necessary to have opposing opinions. He worked in Vietnam Veterans care, and I think he knows what he’s talking about.
And finally, this isn’t to dismiss all games about this period, but simply to acknowledge that extremely few truly take into account the reality behind this conflict and the extremely questionable military choices.
And this one seems to have completely missed the point.
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