Perhaps you’ve heard that eating turkey can make you sleepy. If that’s true, why was it, the night after Thanksgiving dinner, I found myself tossing and turning in bed and finding sleep to be elusive? But the quiet of the night gave me time to ponder the big (and small) questions. Eventually my thoughts wandered to new product ideas. I wanted to create something, but what? A game maybe? A new strategy card game? Sure, why not? Games are cool!
Card Game, Board Game or Online Game?
I started thinking of games that had a simple mechanic (were easy to learn) but were nonetheless immersive and compelling. I remembered an online game named agar.io which I had latched onto a couple of years back. In the game, you pilot a sphere around a computer screen attempting to devour smaller spheres while avoiding being eaten by larger spheres. Simple enough. My brain flipped from computer game to card game. Could one card “eat” another?
A Strategy Card Game It Is
By morning I had a mental model of the mechanics of the game now called Manitou (initially it was called Islands). I found a deck of cards, cleared off the kitchen table and brewed a pot of coffee. When my wife awoke and joined me in the kitchen, I poured her a cup of coffee and asked her to join me at the table. She obliged and, 30 minutes later, the first game of Manitou was in the history books. Yes, it was rough. Yes, some aspects were unintuitive. Yes, she beat me. Still, there was clearly something there. Something that, with time, could be honed into an easy to learn game that was enjoyable to play, challenging to master, with more layers of strategy than meet the eye.
The day after Thanksgiving, following a sleep deprived night, a new strategy card game, Manitou, was born.
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