by daryl durston

I began designing Aetherium: The Forgotten Duel about a year and a half ago, and it all started with something unexpectedly simple: a photo I saw on social media. It was just stones resting on a cloth, but the moment I saw it, one thought hit me immediately: “This would be such a cool ancient-looking game.”

From there, my imagination took over. I became obsessed with creating something that felt like it could have existed centuries ago—an artifact from a lost civilization. That inspiration shaped my first design rule: no cardboard, no cards, no modern-looking components. I wanted everything to feel timeless, like it was carved from history rather than printed in a factory. Around the same time, I remembered games that used a drawstring mat—where the play surface doubled as storage, with all the pieces kept inside. That concept fit perfectly with the ancient aesthetic I was chasing.

And just like that, the journey began.

In Aetherium, there are two paths to victory. A player can either:
• Connect four matching elemental colors across the tops of the columns, or
• Guide the powerful Aether token to their end of the Aether track.

Building the game around the four classical elements, with Aether representing something beyond the physical world, helped deepen the mythology. It became more than strategy—it felt like a symbolic duel between nature and the unknown.

From the beginning, I knew it needed to be universal: no words, only symbols. I wanted turns to stay simple, but decisions to feel deep. That’s where the power tokens came in, adding replayability and new layers of strategy.

With the concept in place, things moved fast. Within two days, I had a rough but playable prototype. A few days later, I brought it to my first real playtest with my close friend Yvonne. That moment felt huge—Aetherium was leaving my head and becoming real on the table.

The first draft looked like this:

And the most important thing happened: we had fun. But even then, some mechanics felt weak, and certain moments lacked the weight I wanted.
That playtest opened the door to months of cutting, adjusting, and rebuilding. Version after version began to emerge.

Around this time, my good friend Ruel Gaviola introduced me to the indie board game market. He explained how conventions often host indie sections where designers can showcase their games, connect with players, and gather feedback. When I found out Dice Tower West would have an indie market this March, it felt like the perfect opportunity. Aetherium had the atmosphere and uniqueness to stand out.

As the gameplay evolved, the physical design did too. The mat went through countless iterations, and one action space became a recurring problem—it simply wouldn’t work no matter how many times I reworked it. Eventually, I solved it.

And then I made my next big decision: I decided the game should be handcrafted entirely out of clay. Honestly? That was a bad choice.

Clay was messy, inconsistent, and nearly impossible to reproduce at scale. Pieces cracked, warped, and varied too much. What I thought would make the game feel more authentic was actually making it less sustainable.

That’s when my friend Katie helped me see the truth: the goal wasn’t just to make something that looked ancient… It was to make something people could actually play and return to again and again. That realization changed everything. Once I let go of clay, the project opened up. I shifted toward resin, which solved one problem—but introduced new challenges, especially with the mat.

It needed to be affordable, durable, and still match the weathered aesthetic. I tested countless fabrics before finally finding one that worked. At first, I tried stamping the fabric for a rustic look, but it still didn’t feel professional enough. Later, I found heat-press transfer sheets, which sped up the process while keeping the style I wanted. Even then, making everything by hand was no small task.

Then I discovered how time-consuming resin production really was: mixing, pouring, curing, sanding—creating even one full prototype took hours. Producing 30 full sets of resin pieces, preparing the mats, adding the rope—it all took far longer than I expected. It was exhausting at times, but it was also incredibly rewarding. Watching the game slowly transform from a simple idea into a real physical object made every long night worth it. After all the iterations—mechanics, materials, prototypes, playtests—I finally arrived at something complete: Aetherium: The Forgotten Duel.

Now, as Dice Tower West approaches, Aetherium is no longer just an idea sitting on my table. It’s real.

Bringing it to the indie market feels like the next step in its story—not because the game is finished, but because it’s finally ready to be discovered. I’m excited to watch new players sit down, touch the pieces, learn the symbols, and experience the same sense of mystery and strategy that inspired it from the start. Aetherium has already come farther than I ever expected from that first spark of inspiration.

Now hoping it won’t be easily forgotten.

For more information, you can visit begamingames.com