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Board games

March 12, 2026

Last night, as I do most Wednesdays, I attended "Board game night" with my friends. It began years ago as a weekly game of Pathfinder. But now it's half (or less) D&D, half board games. Last night was a rare case where it was both, as we had a little time to kill before everyone showed up.

What's a more unusual about it is that the board game we played was one of my own creation: Rogue Station.

It's been a side project of mine for some time. Something to tinker with when I didn't have anything else cooler to devote my creative juices to. Though admittedly, the idea of creating my own board game is a very intriguing concept.

It began as a workshop item on Tabletop Simulator, where it still exists and can be played today for free. But a couple of weeks ago the concept was raised of playing it "in person".

The game has recently gone through a number of balancing passes, and the concept of playing a physical copy really interested me. So my friend and I went about making it happen. I got all of the parts into a printable form. Side note, setting up a page to print exactly where it needs to for a game piece on the front and back of a page is a little more involved than one might think.

The really cool part though, was the player's space station. You see, Rogue Station takes place in space. It's an engine building game that allows the player to win in their choice of 3 different victory paths. The inspiration of this was Killer Queen, a 5v5 arcade game. (Yes you read that right) In my game you mine resources, refine them and use those resources to build out your abilities in order to win the game.

The game itself was a success, but it revealed more work remains. It's not as balanced as I'd like, but the bones are there for a fun experience. The group continued to talk at length about it for some time, tossing out ideas and changes. That told me the game itself was fun, and while more work remains, its primary mission was a success.

So keep an eye out. Maybe someday down the road you'll see a scrappy lil' game in your friendly local game store by yours truly.