Time Warp

Get ready to jump on the Wings of Time

Somewhere over the West Coast

Whew, finally got this site up and running! It’s been a while since I first had the idea of venturing into the world of tabletop game development. Here’s a quick recap of how all of this got started. Hope you enjoy the journey back through time!

For the longest time, some of my friends and I had regular board game nights. We played all shapes and sizes of games, many of which came from supporting Kickstarter campaigns. For one reason or another, we got started up again on the Pokémon Trading Card Game (don’t judge). Building the perfect deck, once again, became a passion–a passion so big that we would often talk ad infinitum about different cards and strategies during these game nights.

One day, while hanging out with these friends, we decided to stop by a comic book store in Fullerton, Comic Book Hideout, to see if they had any cool loose cards. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any interesting cards.

As we left the store and followed behind my friends, I had a really random thought:

“I wanted to make my own board game!”

I told my friends as I sprinted to the car that, before the end of the year (this was early 2013), I wanted to create a game that people could play. I think they looked surprised at my exclamation but half-supported me as only really good friends can.

Life happened and I got busy with app development. Some notes of games were drawn up here and there. Months mostly passed with dozens of board games played in between.

Oh a whim, I told one of my best friends, Patrick, that I wanted to go to PAX Prime and that I would love if he joined me. He said yes and so I checked on badges.

They were all out and, just my luck, badge sales had just passed by like a week. I had to wait for resales to happen.

The morning of resales, I waited anxiously for the time to come. With a few quick clicks, and almost in disbelief, I scored two sets of badges for the weekend.

Reminded by Patrick that this was convention where there would be a lot of gamers and remembering my goal, I set out to develop a couple of prototypes for some of the ideas I had. I settled on three games, made some rudimentary implements, and had dinner with Patrick at Sizzlers (again, don’t judge).

This was August 14th.

Over Malibu Chicken, salad, and cheesy bread; I showed Patrick some of the games I had prototyped. I’m not quite sure what he thought but I do remember some of that experience being really awkward for me–awkward because as I was excitedly explaining things, the game wasn’t playing as I had hoped. We continued the conversation at a nearby cafe.

Still a bit embarrassed, though, our meeting quickly switched over to me helping him with a space-themed game he was working on.

Repurposing Cards for Another Game

With the insight from this night, I went back to the drawing board–my eyes set on having something fun and playable by PAX Prime.

Part 2 – Journey to Seattle: The Board Game Capital

Like This Post? Please Share It:

2 Responses

1. Patrick Tomas says:

   April 11, 2014 at 12:33 am

   The awkward playtesting was THE BEST part about playing!

   Reply
   • Kevin Hamano says:

     April 11, 2014 at 2:39 pm

     There’s more to come I’m sure, hahah.

     Reply