I’ve Spent Half My Life Trying To Make Board Games — Here’s How That Went

I grew up in Lviv, Ukraine, in the early 2000s. Back then, board games weren’t really a thing here—at least, not beyond a few mass-market titles. But everything changed the day my cousin brought over our first "proper" (please don't throw tomatoes at me, at least it's not Monopoly) board game: Risk.

We played until late into the night, and that became our the backbone of our relationship. Board games became our glue, the thing that brought us together. Later, when I traveled across Europe as a scout, I saw how vibrant board gaming culture was in the West and I really wished that more families in Ukraine embraced board gaming as just one more type of leisure.

As a teenager, I got obsessed with making my own games. I had zero clue how to do it, but I knew I wanted to. I sketched out mechanics in school notebooks, roped my friends into testing half-baked prototypes, I got artists involved, and even planned a Kickstarter launch. But reality hit—creating a quality game took more than enthusiasm. It took money, experience, and the ability to actually bring a product to market. So I pivoted, got into freelancing, and eventually built a translation company that worked with creative industries. That gave me a bit of resources and time to finally go back to game design.

More info: kickstarter.com

Aridnyk Game Trailer

Then 2022 happened. And suddenly, everything changed.

I spent months volunteering, focused not on the next year, but the next two hours. But in the middle of that chaos, I met a comic book publisher, a writer, a game designer, and an artist. One day, that publisher basically gave me a license to one of their projects, no strings attached. And I realized—this was my shot.

So we went all in.

We built a board game studio from scratch and launched Aridnyk, a game based on Hutsul mythology in Ukraine. And something weird happened: people didn’t just buy the game. For a lot of them, it became the only board game they owned. The kind of thing you keep on your shelf like a favorite book.

That’s when I knew we were onto something. But we knew this gamble of a project wouldn’t be sustainable if we were absent in the foreign markets.

We spent tons of time trying sell a license to foreigh publishers, but given how oversaturated the market is right now, it’s really tough to stand out from the crowd. So, back to square one. We had to do Kickstarter launch.

The last few weeks were the most crazy and anxious weeks of my life, trust me.

But we launched.

And I got here to tell a story, so here goes. But you know what’s the crazy part is? This still feels like the beginning. Onwards!

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