Over the next few weeks, we'll be looking at the development of RISK II, the development team themselves describing the trials and tribulations they went through. This week, Clive Robert introduces the team and the concept behind revamping the original RISK.

A lot of you, I'm sure, will already know the board game RISK ('The World Conquest Game', as it's modestly described on the box). Most of you who know it will love it like an old friend and will probably have many a memory of long nights spent battling with people who you previously thought you had liked, over obscure territories such as Irkutsk or Kamchatka.

So, if you do think of RISK with the same affection as I do(along with many, many others), you'll not doubt be horrified to hear that Kevin Buckner and I (along with the rest of our company, Deep Red Games) have taken it apart, piece by piece, and given it a makeover for the Millennium.

"Why mess with perfection?" you're probably asking, while hurriedly composing an outraged letter to your MP and Parker Brothers. Or maybe even you're thinking something like, "Who the Hell do you think you are?" Well, over the next six weeks we'll hopefully answer those questions, and possibly even pose and answer a few more. But first, let me explain the credentials that we carry into this project.

First, myself. While still a lowly design manager at Parker Brothers in 1989 I was responsible for relaunching the board game. Those of you with long memories will recall a box with a picture of the board and an antique duelling pistol on it (ask your dads). The new version replaced this with the current 'charging cavalry' artwork (which, trivia fans might be interested to hear, was painted by an artist called Mario Capaldi, who was somewhat intimately involved with the creation of Judge Dredd for 2000AD) and, possibly more importantly, replaced the original geometric counters with the beautiful military miniatures which are used as the game's pieces to this day.