I’m keeping this space for periodic updates, lore on the game, and random entries about things that I like, board gaming and otherwise (positive opinions only – being a hater gets boring). This is a little piece of lore. It may not be very interesting, but it’s useful to remind myself where this is all coming from when it feels too daunting.

Sometimes an idea latches onto you and refuses to let go. Depending on who you are and what you’re into you’ve probably gotten a really good idea for a movie, a book, or in some cases, even a game. Have you ever had one of those ideas that’s hung on for years? Because I have, and you’re looking at it. If you include the times when the game was lying ‘dormant’ but still bubbling in my brain, Monster Wasteland has been with me for a large part of my adult life. And I can’t shake it because to me, it’s more than unique. It’s the board game I wanted to play that I thought the world was missing. So I made it.

The origins of Monster Wasteland date back almost a decade at this point, and it’s a simple and sort of goofy story. I was talking to my friend Ben, with whom I played board games and met through a love of Magic: the Gathering. He simply said, “why aren’t there any stealth board games?” Being in my mid 20s and therefore still an expert on everything, I thought for a second, deduced that there indeed were no stealth board games, and said “I don’t know. Maybe we should make one.”

So after a week or so of worldbuilding and sketching out loose mechanics, I’d mocked up a game where you move units across a hex map to build items, hide from Monsters, and… not much else. I tested it with Ben and some friends exactly once. I’d never done anything remotely resembling game design before, and I didn’t know how to test, so it all went poorly and was quickly abandoned. But a question still hung in the back of my mind. It was no longer “why aren’t there any stealth board games?” Rather, it was “what did I actually want that ‘stealth game’ to be?”

The map for the ORIGINAL original Monster Wasteland, in all its indecipherable glory.

Monster Wasteland, of course, is not a stealth game. But in the beginning it was solely about evasion. There were no offensive weapons, there was a linear line of sight system – hell, the game even used a compass rose. It was like a post-apocalyptic Metal Gear Solid combined with a minifig wargame- also, now that I’m writing this I fully believe someone should make whatever the hell a good version of that would look like. Anyway, my first stab at Monster Wasteland was overcomplicated and sloppy, but more importantly, it was aimless. There was no real ‘do’s – I didn’t even put in a “get from Point A to Point B” – only the ‘don’t’ of remaining unseen. But as the years went on, the itch went on itching. I still thought of the Wasteland, the four Factions which had been there from the beginning, and the bizarre and unique Monsters I’d created to rule the post-apocalypse.

And when the next question came – and I can’t give a good citation as to who asked me this one – it was “why are there no good crafting games?” Which is equally, if not more, laughable than the first question, but it still brought me back to the Wasteland in early 2020. Which was possibly the best time in human history to begin making a physical board game.

So, what ideas have been latching onto you lately?