my GAME design story
Hello, my name is James and I love playing and designing tabletop games!
I created my first game in 1984 when I was just 12 years old. It was a simple professional wrestling roleplaying game that used a d20 for wrestling moves, a d6 for pin attempts, and graph paper to keep track of time limits. I still have the original pages of rules that I produced on my type writer!
Over the years, I have dabbled quite a bit in game design, mostly focusing my efforts on creating supplemental rules for existing roleplaying games. I did this particularly for The One Ring Roleplaying Game designed by Francesco Nepitello, which led to the great honor of creating an expanded index for the core rules and eventually writing the opening adventure, Nightmares of Angmar, published in a game book called Ruins of the North by Cubicle7 Games.
Sometime around 2015, my wife was at a yard sale and came across an intriguing roleplaying game in a thick red box called DragonRaid. The box said it was an “Adventure Learning System” and its purpose was “Building Warriors for Spiritual Battle.” It looked outdated by modern standards, so I stuck it on my shelf without really taking a look. Years later, when I finally gave it a read, I discovered that it was published in 1984. I had never heard of it before, but I thought it was pretty innovative, not just another version of Dungeons & Dragons, like so many others.
I tracked down the new owner, award winning Christian author, James R. Hannibal, who was given the task of reviving it. To make a long story short, he invited me into the process and we began redesigning DragonRaid into a game called Lightraiders. We did this for several years, and I was grateful for the experience, but eventually the work became too much for me considering all my other duties in life, so I bowed out. However, he pressed on and published the work in 2024. You can find it for sale at lightraiders.com (WARNING: High security settings. You may have to clear caches before the site will let you in). My part of the work was done out of love, so I make no royalties, but if you’re interested in how Christian discipleship and roleplaying games can come together in a cool way, please check it out, along with the novels James R. Hannibal has written to build out the world of the Lightraiders.
In October, 2024, I took a team to Barcelona, Spain to support the International Church of Barcelona and help them with demolition work. In my room one day, I was inspired to revisit a board game idea that had been swimming in my head for a long time. I wanted to create something where players could race around the game board to reach various locations, inspired by the children’s Disney Magic Kingdom Game, but with more complexity. And, I wanted the theme to be sci-fi with a game board that had rotating planets. I began drawing a game board and writing concepts. Everything seemed to flow out of me quickly, and this is what led to the creation of Solar Hunters.
After many playtests, blind playtesting, and developments (involving way too many cards being printed and cut, over-and-over again), I finally decided to prepare all the game files for publishing using The Game Crafter, a Wisconsin-based company that provides an on-demand platform for designing, printing, and selling custom board games and tabletop components in small or single-batch runs.
EXPECTED LAUNCH DATE: At this very moment, I await my first copy. As soon as it arrives, I will make an unboxing video, invite some friends over, and we will make more videos to share of actual play. If everything goes well, I will make it available to the public for purchase on demand at The Game Crafter shop with links from this website. Stay tuned, but expect it by summer 2026.
TOP 3 Future Games
After Solar Hunters, here are my top 3 projects and their stages of development:
Cloak & Dragon. This is a two-player, hidden movement game involving a Hero wearing a cloak of invisibility and a Dragon guarding his stolen treasures. The game was birthed in December of 2020, when I was sick with Covid and re-reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Although originally designed to be a licensed product, it became a non-starter and I was resigned to keep it as my own personal home game, until one day I realized, I love this game too much not to share it!
I went back and came up with an original story and redesigned major elements of the game while keeping the object of the game alive, which makes it so much fun. I feel that the game fits even better in my own story, so I am very happy about that.
Cloak & Dragon uses an action card deck for each player and includes 60 treasure tiles for the Hero to search, in hopes of finding specific requests chosen randomly before the game. If the Hero can find the requests and escape before the Dragon’s fury reaches its full strength or they are destroyed by flame, smoke, claw, or bite, they win!
Victory in Cloak & Dragon requires a combination of wits and luck. Each card includes a piece of the backstory for the game. When put together, all 60 cards tell the complete backstory.
EXPECTED LAUNCH DATE: This is the game that is most complete. I just need to finalize some artwork and get all the files ready for The Game Crafter. Expect to see this game by fall or winter 2026.Dino Extinction. This is also a two-player game, but I am working on solo rules and a way to expand the game for up to 5 players by using additional player decks that come with expanded rules. My inspiration for this game came absolutely from the Span series of games by Stonemaier Games, which my wife and I absolutely love. I seriously dreamt about pitching this game to them. However, after watching videos from the owner, Jamie, I realized they already made a choice between dinosaurs and dragons, and they decided on the dragons. He has also mentioned several times that he thinks the trilogy of Spans is complete.
Considering this, I decided to think about how I could make my ideas even more distinct from a Span game, similar to the way Prospero Hall did for Managerie, a game published by Moose Games, which focuses on collecting insects. So, even though Dino Extinction is about playing dino cards into three habitats (sky, land, and sea), there are some major differences when compared to the Span games.
First, each player has their own deck of dino cards that only they can use, rather than drawing from a common deck.
Second, cards are played onto a central game board and not onto individual player mats. This allows for player interactions that do not exist in a Span game.
Third, cards do not have a cost to play. Every turn you will play one or more cards, but if you do not play them strategically, you could end up losing points. A card that cannot be played onto a regular habitat space, must be played onto the fossil pile and is worth minus 1 point. Also, each mosquito token left on a card is worth minus 1 point.
Fourth, even though there are dinosaur eggs in the game, they are gained and used differently than eggs in a Span game. Eggs aren’t placed on dino cards, but in front of you. They can be spent to draw and play additional cards on your turn (hatching new dinos), or they can be kept for 2 points each at the end of the game.
Fifth, at the end of every round, meteor tiles are revealed to wipe out certain spaces on the game board, making those spaces unplayable, narrowing the choices for future card plays, and increasing strategic thinking.
Sixth, carnivores and herbivores may be able to stack on top of each other by following specific rules for consuming or forming packs and herds.
EXPECTED LAUNCH DATE: Currently, I am working on updating art files for each card and creating all the files for The Game Crafter, including the rulebook (which may take awhile). Expect to see this available winter-spring 2027.Guardian Angel. This is a unique, faith-based, solo game similar to a choose your own adventure book, and even more like a Lone Wolf style gamebook. Before playing, you first create a character named Nasarel, a guardian angel assigned to protect the life of Jamie Black. As the story unfolds, you manage your resources, make choices, and roll dice to determine the outcomes.
I have completed about 40% of the story, but I am currently redesigning some of the rules to make it simpler and easier to play and learn as you read through the chapters.
If you’ve ever wanted to battle and defeat demons, you might want to check this out when it’s complete. Even though the game is faith-based, I am really hoping that anyone can enjoy playing through.
My plan is for the game to come in a box that includes a perfect bound gamebook, some 12-sided dice, and some character sheets. Maybe some cards too that serve as player aids. Not sure yet. We will see!
EXPECTED LAUNCH DATE: Lot’s to do here. So, don’t expect to see this game until late 2027 or early 2028.
