by Jason Katzwinkel

I realize that it’s twee and condescending to repeat popular cliches like “Fortune favors the bold” or “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” but it’s important to internalize the metaphors. This is a story about designing a board game.

In 2022, as an exercise, I banged out a quick one-sheet game. It was a roll-and-write game with two six-sided dice called “Mirror Match[“. The idea was that somebody at the table would roll 2D6, and everybody would write one of the die numbers on one side of their sheet, with the other number in the mirrored space on the opposite side. The goal was to make sets of contiguous numbers. Sets of exactly two 2’s, sets of exactly three 3’s, etc. A few folks played it a couple of times, and it was cute, but not especially compelling.

Over the next couple of months, I further refined the game and added a touch of polish. I themed it as a magical gardening game and named it “Potion Patch” as a nod to its origins as “Mirror Match”. I wanted it to be a mint tin game because… that’s what I decided I wanted. I changed the die pips to plant icons. I upgraded the six-sided dice to eight-sided dice and added two more. On a turn, a player would roll all four, then assign two to themselves and two to everybody else, an effort to add a little more decision space.

I playtested this new version a couple of times, and I was pleased with it, but I didn’t feel that it was ready to pitch to publishers. I was nervous that it wasn’t… enough. I put it up on the shelf for future fiddling.

Fast forward a couple of years. Now it’s late 2024, and I’m preparing for my first-ever board game convention, PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia. At that point, I had a couple of new prototypes and meetings lined up to pitch them. S’Morse Code and Match Hatchery. I put the homespun boxes of chipboard and packing tape into my backpack. And then… right at the last moment… I impulsively threw that two-year-old mint tin into the bag. I had no compelling reason to bring Potion Patch along, but I thought that maybe I could cajole some poor sap into playtesting it with me to help find whatever magic it needed to make it pitch-ready.

In Philadelphia, I had three pitch meetings lined up. One for S’Morse Code, two for Match Hatchery. One of the scheduled meetings was with The Op, but about two hours before the meeting, I received an email. They had reviewed Match Hatchery and found it wanting. Shucks. “Oh, well…” I sighed, “I guess that frees up some time for me. I’ll walk the exhibition floor and figure out ways to get rid of my money.”

At just about the time of the canceled meeting, I made it to the exhibition floor of PAX Unplugged, and I walked around at random to experience the wonders on offer. Two minutes into my wandering, I spied Pat Marino, the Director of Hobby Games for The Op. I only knew what Pat Marino looked like because I had happened to watch a video presentation of his for the Tabletop Game Design Association a couple of weeks earlier. That was the guy I was supposed to meet with for Match Hatchery. I figured that I ought to at least shake his hand and make a quick introduction.

When I did, it turned out that he was sitting there waiting for me. Due to a communication mix-up, he didn’t know that the meeting had been canceled. I explained that, yeah, the meeting was canceled because Match Hatchery had already been thanks-but-no-thanksed. To that, Pat said, “Well, have a seat anyway. Let’s chat.”

Pat went over the finer details as to why Match Hatchery was not a match for The Op, and I really appreciated the insight. Pat was extremely generous with his time, his knowledge, and his candor. I learned a lot about board game design, product development, and pitching in about fifteen minutes. It was a great chat, after which he asked me, “What else ya got?”

“Well, I have S’Morse Code here, but the Op has already reviewed and passed on that option,” I said. What else? I thought. What else can I pitch now that I’m here at a canceled meeting with every opportunity in the world?

Potion Patch. I had Potion Patch in my bag, the wee mint tin game that wasn’t good enough yet. A game for which I had no sell sheet, no pitch patter, no preparation, nothing. Just an unlabeled off-brand Altoids tin. Well… what the heck, why not? The worst that could happen is for Pat to throw the game across the convention hall in disgust, punch me in the face, and stomp off to make sure nobody ever works with me again. I hadn’t touched the tin in over two years. I didn’t even have a solid recollection of the rules.

With trembling fingers, I pulled Potion Patch out of the bottom of my bag and said unsteadily, “I have this.” I cracked the tin. For about five minutes, I stuttered and stammered my way through the core loop and scoring of Potion Patch.

When I finished, Pat stared at the splay of the game for a beat, then pointed at it and said, “There’s no way I could ever sell that. But I see what you’re doing here, and it’s interesting. Take what you have here, get rid of the roll-and-write element, put it in a $40 retail box, and then bring it back to me.”

“Okay, Pat. No problem!”

I took the tin back home and got to work on the mathematical acrobatics it would take to convert the nigh-infinite combinations of four eight-sided dice into a reasonable stack of cards and tiles. I worked on the game on and off for about five months, changing, adding and subtracting mechanisms until I felt it was the game Pat had asked for.

I had playtested the game online a few times, but the real work was to be done at The Unpub Festival in Baltimore. I had lots of Potion Patch playtests scheduled to sand off some rough edges and shake out any anomalies. Then I could finally present the repackaged game to Pat. But—wouldn’t you know it—there he was, right there at Unpub.

On the first evening of Unpub, I sat at a table with my buddy Mike and a prototype copy of Potion Patch when Pat Marino walked past. I whispered, “Mike! That’s Pat Marino! That’s who this game is for.”

Pat walked on by, and Mike barely glanced in his direction. Mike was staring at me. Hard. Finally, in a concerned voice, he asked, “What’re you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

With a touch of exasperation, he said, “Go show it to him.”

“No, I don’t want to bother him. I’ll pitch it to him afterward, once it’s been playtested more.”

Astonished, Mike huffed, “What the hell are you talking about? This is Unpub. He asked you to make this. He’s right there. What are you doing? Go show it to him.”

“Fine. Fine.” I trundled off and chased Pat down. “Hey, Pat. About five months ago, you asked me to take a mint tin roll-and-write and turn it into a $40 retail box. This is that box,” I said, slapping my hand on top of Potion Patch. We chatted briefly; he congratulated me on my efforts and told me to contact him after Unpub. Great.

Later that evening, I found a free playtesting table and set up Potion Patch to rustle up some playtesters and find any cracks in the game. The table filled quickly, and play began. Who should happen by? Pat Marino. He stood at the end of the table and watched a few rounds of gameplay, then asked me a couple of questions about the rules and components.

“Pat,” I said, “I have a playtesting slot tomorrow at 10:00 a.m., if you’re interested.”

The next day, we had a great game of Potion Patch. Afterward, Pat had some additional advice on how to zhuzh up the game just a little more.

“Okay, Pat. No problem!”

I went home and got ready to tuck in for another four months of game development, but Pat contacted me very shortly after The Unpub Festival to ask me for a print-and-play version of the game. “I’ve been talking to people in the office about Potion Patch, and they want to see it.”

“But I haven’t implemented any of the design changes.”

“That’s fine, just send it over. People are very excited to try it.”

I sent over the files, and within a few weeks, I had a contract. Potion Patch would be released as Evenglow.

There was a staggering array of near misses that could have prevented Evenglow from ever being made. I could have opted not to put the tin in my bag. I could never have scored a meeting with The Op to begin with. The meeting could have not been canceled. I could not have watched a Pat Marino video to later recognize him. I could have walked in a different direction on the exhibition floor at a different time, or not gone at all. I could have chickened out of introducing myself. Pat could not have been as generous with his time. I could have been too scared to present Potion Patch. I could not have “bothered” Pat at Unpub. Any single one of these choices or happenstances working out differently would have put the kibosh on the game.

A fragile, accidental weave of timing—along with a few fleeting moments of uncharacteristic moxie—turned my scratched-up mint tin into Evenglow. I could chalk it up to fate, but that would cheapen my contribution: months of small, boring work and grind without ever being sure if it would amount to anything. When an unexpected opportunity presented itself, I had a little extra blood, sweat, and tears to fish out of my backpack.

This is not a humblebrag about how great it is to be lucky or how lucky it is to be great. This whole story is a lesson for you and me both. Have a little faith in yourself. Don’t self-reject. When the ball bounces into your hands, don’t focus on the miss; shoot your shot.