So I'm doing this now...

As of today, I am going to work full-time on developing board games.

Background

This has been cooking for quite a while.

As long as I can remember I've been into board games.  Like to the point of annoying people around me (a babysitter once claimed she could not play another game of Casper the Ghost because she "hit her head on the toilet").  Since high school I've been trying to design board games, but always as a hobby: made a few playable demos here and there but never really put serious time or effort into it.

Generally speaking I've got a strong creative streak: love writing music, writing and performing plays, doing improv, etc.  It's just the best feeling in the world to come up with some cool new "thing" for people to enjoy.

But that energy has kinda taken a back seat: I am also very risk-averse.  Really going after some creative pursuit always felt too scary: 
* Many people try and fail.

* What if I'm not good enough?

* At the end of the day I need to pay bills and take care of myself, and most creative endeavors don't really have guaranteed financial outcomes.

So I've leaned into math/science type pursuits, specially engineering.  I am ... competent in that department, but definitely feel less-than compared to a lot of folks I've met along the way.  I've been lucky enough to make a career of it.  Engineering definitely scratches the creative itch a little bit, particularly in the games/entertainment department.

But I always just felt like I was in the wrong place.  In an engineering role, being creative or empathetic is far less important than being precise, rigorous, detail-oriented, and just passionate about tech for tech's sake (like spending nights and weekends doing engineering work 'for fun').  This is not, and never will be, me, and it always felt like a limiting factor career-wise.

The Trigger

Most recently I was at Roblox, where I applied for and was granted permission to work remotely.  We moved from a tiny condo in Redwood City to a nice "farm" in Coarsegold, near my sister and some good friends, and we are all very, very happy here.

In October 2023 Roblox said I needed to move back or leave the company.

I was, and still am, pretty upset about that: just disrespectful and dishonest.  There's absolutely no way I am moving back to Silicon Valley.

But, ultimately, I am grateful.  It provided a kick in the butt I needed to realize it's time to do something I'm really excited about.

The Plan

I have several ideas for board games, and I've already been working on one, producing game assets and running some playtests.

The inspiration is "Ghost leg", a children's game from Asia used to randomly match two same-size sets of things (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_leg).

Over the next few months I will be: 

• Playtesting and revising the game.
• Producing a digital version on BoardGameArena for further playtesting.
• Researching what it takes to publish a board game.

I will try to keep this Blog updated with the latest.

If you are following and interested in playtesting, please let me know: doug.banks@gmail.com.


Thanks for reading!